“How to choose your first book to read in Japanese?” and “can you recommend books in Japanese for beginners?” are by far the two questions I get asked the most!
In fact, not only me but all the other language learners/content creators I know who speak about reading in Japanese 🤣
So without further ado let’s get started and let me give you my top tips on this first topic, and I will make sure to post about the second one very soon as well!
First things to consider
In my opinion there are two things you should consider first: accessibility and level.
What I mean by accessibility is what books written in Japanese you have access to because this will determine everything else I will tell you in this post. If you currently live anywhere else than Asia chances are your access to books written in Japanese is very limited. So first things first, 1) you must find a way to get access to reading materials in Japanese and 2) browse their catalog, whether it be a physical or digital library. This catalog will basically be the pool from which you choose your reading resources, so you better know it from top to bottom.
Now when it comes to level what I mean by that is your own reading comprehension level: where is it? Have you ever tried reading anything in Japanese other than example sentences in textbooks? If yes, what difficulties did you face? Gather all of this information about yourself first before you get started on finding your first book.
Do some research on the first book that might suit you
Once you have established the first two things above, it will be time for you to do some research.
The research I’m talking about is two-fold:
What kind of topics are you interested in
and can you find books about that or these topics?
For example, if you have a dying interest about plants, look up how to say plant in Japanese (植物 - しょくぶつ) if you don’t know yet, then open Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp) and look for a reading resource about this topic using your personalised keyword in this case “植物“ next to the word book in Japanese “本” (ほん).
Another thing you might want to do, depending on your taste and your level, would be to another keyword after that:
either the keyword 子供向け (こどもむけ), to find reading materials made for children
or the keyword to say "entry-level" in Japanese “入門” (にゅうもん): this might be particularly useful for non-fiction topics such as scientific topics
Doing this research will allow you to basically see what’s out there before you get down to making your choice on the book you will start with.
Another thing this will help you with is familiarising yourself with book titles in japanese, so that for instance, if your next step is to go to a bookstore physically, you will be able to spot the vocab words related to your topic of interest much more easily.
Understand the learning curve and staying chill
When you first start reading in your target language especially when talking about a book there is a pattern called the learning curve. This learning curve is specifically related to vocabulary words but at first it can also be linked to grammar patterns.
Basically, when you first start reading in your target language, you will struggle a lot at first and then pick up pace until you feel more and more comfortable, as the number of new vocabulary words and grammar patterns decreases.
So the point here is that YES you should be aware of what your level is and choose your first book roughly based on that, but this shouldn’t be TOO much of a concern for you.
Because even if you choose something that is right at your level (which we could debate for hours), it doesn’t mean much because you will IN ANY CASE have a learning curve when you start reading. So you will still struggle at first.
I guess it is only a good balance to be found, between knowing what your level is, and at the same time not caring too much about it. I never said choosing your first book was easy guys!
A quick note about furigana
If your Japanese level is roughly below level N3, chances are you still struggle reading anything written in japanese without furigana readings on top of or next to the kanji characters.
With that in mind, if you are at this level, for a first book I would advise you to choose something that contains at least 75% of furigana on the kanji, if not 100%.
My own first book was 君の名は。 (きみのなは) as many of you may know, and it was a children’s version of the “Your Name” anime novelisation which contained 100% of furigana.
If you guys are interested I will make a post about the different children’s book collections out there for Japanese natives: that might be a good thing for you to check out to understand which book collection you can choose from if you need the furigana.
About children’s books
A common advice in the language learning community is to start your reading journey by children’s books. And then you can also find the COMPLETE OPPOSITE advice.
And the more I listen to what everybody has to say on the topic, the more I realise that everyone has a different opinion. So that's not very helpful.
I think there are 3 types of people:
People who love children’s books in the first place even in their native language, and who naturally start gravitating towards them in their target language and love it
People who hate children’s books in the first place and who won't ever start reading using children's books
And then people who, like me, are a bit neutral on the subject and have tried starting with children’s books and then realised that this was not the best place to start with unless you had a special interest, because children’s books are not necessarily “easier” — they do contain a lot of idiomatic expressions, and even the fact that they contain less kanji (since Japanese native children also struggle with kanji) makes reading even more more confusing
So then what’s my advice on this? Should you or should you not start with children’s books in japanese?
My take on this is that: you should read what you really want to read, and not follow anyone else’s advice.
It is hard enough to start reading in japanese.
So make life easier for yourself, not harder, and if you really want to read children’s books because you like children’s stories then by all means start with that, and because you have a special interest you will surmount all the obstacles I mentioned above.
If you don't want to start this way, then don't and look somewhere else.
The same exact thing goes for graded readers, since the language learning world is divided in two, between the people who love them because they are easy to approach and the people who hate them because they are boring! (I won't tell you which one I am, because I have mixed feelings haha)
So, how do you choose your first book?
To recap all of this, How about following the steps below:
Understanding what’s available to you
Knowing what your level is
At the same time, not caring too much about your level
Knowing about the learning curve
Doing your research first
Going for the thing that interests you the most
And that’s pretty much it!
And I will even add one more thing which is that even if you choose one first book, start reading it, and then realise that it was not like you thought it would be, to end up looking for another book and then starting this one, and then even repeating the same process again and then (you got the point)--
Let me tell you it is perfectly fine! In fact, I would even encourage it, because it would mean you are in full control of what you actually want to do with your reading practice.
Staying engaged and proactive is how you will achieve your ultimate goal:
Reading your first book in Japanese.
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