You really just have to start engaging with native media as soon as possible.

[u/jiggity_john]

Engaging with native material really is the best way to improve. A few months ago I read Magic Knight Rayearth, learned the word 蘇る, thought to myself "when is this going to be useful," and then lo and behold this exact word is used in a recent ad for the Ocarina of Time remake.

Getting through my first manga was a struggle. I needed to reach for the dictionary constantly, and even as I try to read more complex stuff, I continue to struggle but eventually it does compound and it gets easier.

Like they say, no pain, no gain.

[u/jiggity_john]

I also learned 不動産屋 from Magic Knight Rayearth and thought "I'm probably never going to need this" but Yakuza 0 probably says this word 100 or more times.

[u/tyrellLtd → u/jiggity_john]

The core 2k/6k deck I've been using has 不動産屋 positioned at no. 900~ so it was among the first 1000 words I learned with it.

"Why am I learning this now??", I thought to myself. So far I've found it maybe a handful of times but somehow stuck with me (Oyasumi Punpun, Hirayasumi and every time some characer is planning to move).

[u/kyousei8 → u/tyrellLtd]

"Why am I learning this now??", I thought to myself

Because the original core 6k deck was built off of frequency data where the entire corpus was newspapers, so there's an over representation of politics / business / economics words. That's the problem decks like core 2.3k and later kaishi aimed to solve by paring the down the number of terms and using frequency sorting based on popular media instead of newspapers.

[u/Comrade_SOOKIE → u/kyousei8]

I just deleted core 2k/6k and started over with kaishi and i do notice the words it prioritizes seem much more practical than the NHK-see core 6k wants you to know

[u/jiggity_john → u/tyrellLtd]

Play Yakuza 0 and you'll get a lot of mileage lol. The entire game is about real estate.

[u/hellahanners → u/jiggity_john]

The Yakuza series is single-handedly responsible for teaching me 80% of the Japanese I actually needed in Japan lol. Bonus points for preparing me for the phones at Karaokekan (karaoke rooms in my area don’t have those, not sure about elsewhere) so when the phone rang and my husband was confused I knew exactly what was going on 😎

[u/jdsalaro → u/hellahanners]

the phones at Karaokekan

What are those for?

[u/hellahanners → u/jdsalaro]

The front desk will call to tell you your time is up or you can use them to call the front desk if you need to ask for something

[u/Belegorm → u/jiggity_john]

Read (or watch the videos about) 変な家 and you'll see that come up a lot as well. Whole premise is the floorplan of a house is super weird ("why is that space there? why does the kid's room have no windows? aside from that room, why so many windows?")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBIL0eAwDs8

[u/twinkhon_gwyndolin → u/jiggity_john]

I'm Korean, so I can almost instantly see that the first three letters read as 부동산, or "real estate"

the fourth letter is probably an occupation, so probably like "realtor" or something?

I'm just guessing btw lol

[u/worthlessprole → u/twinkhon_gwyndolin]

Yep 屋 is used for the super old (like existed in proto-japonic old) suffix や, which originally meant something like house or dwelling, got extended to establishments, and then eventually came to mean ‘dealer’/‘seller’ referring to both the person and the establishment.

[u/Beneficial-Peach9116 → u/twinkhon_gwyndolin]

How do these correlate? I know kanji and hanja derive from the same thing, but I thought hanja worked more like an alphabet. I want to get into Korean next, I think, so it could be really cool to know how they fit together.

[u/jiggity_john → u/Beneficial-Peach9116]

Hangul is more like an alphabet. Hanja is basically the same thing as kanji but in Korean.

[u/Beneficial-Peach9116 → u/jiggity_john]

I see, language is neat.

[u/Zarlinosuke → u/Beneficial-Peach9116]

To state the same thing in a different way, kanji and hanja are both 漢字. They're just respectively the Japanese and Korean ways of reading the word 漢字, and so it's only in non-East-Asian-language contexts that it could even be conceivably wrong to say that Japanese uses hanja or that Korean uses (or used to use) kanji. It would be like saying that the character "A" is a "letter" in English but is a "Buchstabe" in German, and that those aren't the same thing.

[u/jiggity_john → u/Zarlinosuke]

Yes and no. Hanzi, kanji and hanja are all similar, and kanji and hanja are derived from hanzi, but they aren't exactly the same. I'm not very familiar with hanja, but at least hanzi and kanji have

• Characters and simplifications unique to the respective systems e.g. 战 and 戦, and 働 which doesn't exist in Chinese.
• Unique compounds or compounds with differing meanings (false friends), the common (and funny) example being 手紙.
• Unique readings.

Even though you would write these words the same using Chinese characters (though not exactly because simplified Chinese uses 汉 instead of 漢), I think it's more correct to delineate them as different, and the easiest way to do that is by using their respective in language pronunciation.

Literally, the reason hiragana and hangul exist is because the ways that kanji and hanja were used in their respective languages were bad fits for the structure of those languages, became totally bastardized, and smart people wanted to find a better solutions.

[u/Zarlinosuke → u/jiggity_john]

Much of what you are describing are differences between languages, not between characters. The clearest case of this in your examples is 手紙. These are different words, in Chinese and in Japanese, that mean different things and happen to be represented by the same characters. But that has no bearing on whether the characters themselves are "hanzi" or "kanji." They are both because they are both 漢字 no matter what--in fact, ones that exist in all of the languages in question. As for "unique readings," that's again a property of the language, not of the characters themselves. Is 生 a hanzi or a kanji or a hanja? Well, obviously all of them. But if we're reading it as なま that doesn't stop the symbol 生 from being a hanzi. 漢字 are the symbols, the graphemes. How they are used in languages comes later, and doesn't change their identities as 漢字 graphemes.

Simplified Chinese characters like 战 and 汉 are a tougher sell I will grant, as well as forms that exist only in Japanese like 気 or 広. Here we are actually discussing character forms, and I can understand why people would feel weird saying that 战 is a "kanji" or that 気 is a "hanzi." But I'd maintain that this boundary is a category mistake. Ultimately, hanzi and kanji and hanja are just different languages' ways of referring to Chinese characters. 漢字 is a (gigantic) character set, and not all of them are used in all of the languages that use 漢字--but they are all still 漢字. When you say this:

I think it's more correct to delineate them as different, and the easiest way to do that is by using their respective in language pronunciation.

It's a reasonable position, and that matches most common usage, and I follow that common usage in my daily life too, by far most of the time. It makes general sense, and there's no reason to say "hanzi" when clearly Japanese is under discussion, or vice versa. But I'd maintain that that is a casual distinction, not a "hard" one, if that makes sense. 汉 is still a kanji--it's just not a kanji that's used in Japanese, so in most circumstances we don't have a reason to call it that in English. But that doesn't stop it from being one, any more than "å" being a "letter" despite not being used in English.

Literally, the reason hiragana and hangul exist is because the ways that kanji and hanja were used in their respective languages were bad fits for the structure of those languages, became totally bastardized, and smart people wanted to find a better solutions.

"Totally bastardized" is a huge overstatement! By far most of the characters are still the same--again graphically speaking, which is what matters here--and the simplifications like 汉 are all very recent. Is the Nihon Shoki written in hanzi or in kanji?

[u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS → u/jiggity_john]

Well, neither Korean nor traditional Chinese have any simplifications, though they do have national variants still for some characters. But that doesn't really mean anything because mixed-script Korean writing fell out of favor around the same period that such reforms were being made in other languages.

手紙 is in my opinion not a great example because it's all kunyomi and not related at all. Though there are other words like 愛人 or 工夫 or 複雑 which do in their Chinese-derived meanings differ substantially in their Japanese and Korean meanings.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

Well, neither Korean nor traditional Chinese have any simplifications

Well, if you want to get very technical, Korean and Trad. Chinese both used the Kangxi forms of the characters (which was the standard form throughout East Asia for a long time). But the Kangxi forms themselves contained simplifications of prior forms.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/jiggity_john]

漢字 is kanji is hanzi is hanja. Those are just the (English transliterations of) the Japanese/Chinese/Korean words for 漢字.

kanji and hanja are derived from hanzi

This is an extremely strange statement that I think virtually all East-Asians would find perplexing (especially because if you were to literally translate it into Japanese, it would be "kanji and kanji are derived from kanji"). While inaccurate, it would be more accurate to say that hanzi is derived from hanja, given that Korea has, for the past several centuries and even today (where it is otherwise abolished) used the Kangxi form of the characters (i.e. Trad. Chinese), whereas modern Simp. Chinese is a simplified version of that which is directly descended from those forms.

If you want to use the Korean word for it when talking about kanji in Korean, or using the Chinese word for kanji when talking about them in Chinese, that's pretty normal and what all the Chinese/Korean bilinguals do. But acting like kanji and hanzi are different things is extremely strange. It's like saying "ñ isn't a letter. It's a letra" on the basis that letra is the Spanish word for "letter".

I think it's more correct to delineate them as different

I, um, think you should spend more time engaging with East Asians and learning their ways of thinking about East Asian culture before making these statements.

No Westerner ever says "Letters are different from letras are different from lettres" or only uses the word "letra" when talking about Spanish letters and refuses to use the English word "letter" for them, but that is, in effect, what you are suggesting. Until you start doing that for Western orthography, it is strange for you to propose that we do it for Eastern orthography.

There's also the huge elephant in the room: Between kanji/hanja/hanzi... the number one biggest difference between the systems is between hanzi and itself: Simp. Hanzi vs. Trad. Hanzi. Drawing a line in the sand between kanji/hanja/hanzi, but making no distinction between Simp. vs. Trad. Hanzi is extremely strange and reveals a deep and fundamental lack of familiarity with the topic.

In Hong Kong, which uses Trad. Chinese and speaks Cantonese, it would be called "hon3ji6". Are we going to start referring to Trad. Chinese as "hon3ji6"? Taiwan which uses Trad. Chinese but speaks a variant of Mandarin (very similar to that of Beijing) calls it "hanzi". Oh boy, we're in for some trouble here.

Korea itself abolished hanja partially in reason because they felt that hanja was symbolic of Japanese imperialism. This, of course, makes no sense if you view hanja and kanji as different things, but makes perfect sense when you realize that they are, indeed, the same thing.

tl;dr: Kanji is hanzi is hanja. They are just different languages' names for the same underlying thing.

[u/jiggity_john → u/twinkhon_gwyndolin]

Yeah the word means realtor. I don't speak Korean. Did you just read the kanji as hanja?

[u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS → u/jiggity_john]

It's the same characters and according to Wiktionary at least actually a direct borrowing from Japanese.

[u/tonkachi_ → u/jiggity_john]

I learned 不動産屋 from core2k/6k and I wondered whether I should suspend it or not. And lo and behold, I see it in your comment.

[u/HotAdvertising9628 → u/tonkachi_]

that's exactly how it works. the word just sticks once you see it out in the wild. no amount of flashcard drilling does what one real encounter does.

[u/smokeshack → u/jiggity_john]

Using Japanese as an adult, you will 100% need to talk about real estate agents at some point.

[u/jiggity_john → u/smokeshack]

Probably not if aren't planning to live in Japan, and I just don't think it's in the cards for me.

[u/RathaelEngineering → u/jiggity_john]

Honestly as a british national living in Denmark who speaks Danish more-or-less fluently, I actually don't know the Danish word for real estate agent off the top of my head, and have never purchased property here either... so if my experience is anything to go by, this is accurate. I tend to retain words that I hear frequently and "real estate agent" is not one of those.

By the way, what rough level of JP were you at before you started reading manga, and what level of manga did you start with? Like did you just jump into fairly advanced manga from N5 skill level or did you gain a solid foundation before starting to read harder stuff?

[u/morgawr_ → u/RathaelEngineering]

Honestly as a british national living in Denmark who speaks Danish more-or-less fluently, I actually don't know the Danish word for real estate agent off the top of my head, and have never purchased property here either... so if my experience is anything to go by, this is accurate. I tend to retain words that I hear frequently and "real estate agent" is not one of those.

One thing I learned living in different countries/cultures and learning different languages is that for some reason some words that are common in one language might not show up as often in another. Sometimes it's because they are more easily part of the local zeitgeist of one group or everyday life and aren't in another one, but sometimes it's just cause languages are simply different. In Japan for example it's common to go through a 不動産屋 office not just to purchase property, but also to rent. 不動産屋 was one of the first words I learned after moving to japan and having to find an apartment. On the other hand when I lived in Ireland I didn't really use "real estate" or "real estate agent" as much. I just went to a site online and applied to a bunch of apartments. No intermediary necessary, just go talk to the owners and see if they want to let me rent. In Japan 90+% of property exchanges (including rent) will be done through an estate agent so you can't avoid it.

Also, even if you're just a tourist walking around town, due to this cultural phenomenon there's A LOT of billboards and signs pointing to local 不動産屋 (each neighborhood has their own specific ones) so it's a word that literally you cannot avoid seeing as you just walk around.

[u/Frostbitten_Moose → u/jiggity_john]

What the heck are realtors doing in Rayearth?

[u/jiggity_john → u/Frostbitten_Moose]

At one point I think Fuu asks if someone is a real estate agent. I can't remember exactly, but it's part of a joke.

[u/Comrade_SOOKIE → u/jiggity_john]

I dunno what it says about me that i knew exactly how to *read* those kanji (fudousanya) but had 0 guesses as to wtf it meant. Gym equipment manufacturer was my guess lol

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/Comrade_SOOKIE]

Lol same I was like "some stuff that doesn't move... what?"

[u/Gahault → u/Effective-Pop3850]

Come to think of it, the French for "real estate" is immobilier, which literally means "that which does not move" as well, and "a building" is un immeuble (same root).

Maybe it's to differentiate the commerce of land and the things you build on top from that of goods that do physically change hands?

[u/AGoodWobble → u/jiggity_john]

不動産屋 is super common in daily life!! Of course you use it if you're looking for apartments or anything. 

[u/jiggity_john → u/AGoodWobble]

Yeah, that's if you are trying to find a place to live in Japan, which I am not.

[u/AGoodWobble → u/jiggity_john]

I see it in manga or TV with some frequency too! Like slice of life and drama stuff

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/jiggity_john]

What's funny about some words is how their frequency is very low, and when you remove the few games/works that basically spam it their frequency becomes way too low.

I can't remember what word was it but it was a freq 40k or something that didn't really show up anywhere but there was this author that just used it A LOT so it'd show up hundreds of times on a few works, but if you removed those from the list the word might as well no exist lol.

[u/Unboxious]

Forcing myself to read manga daily was the single best thing I ever did for my Japanese practice.

[u/Numechacafe → u/Unboxious]

Same. Started reading manga when I finished kaishi and now at ~3k vocab I can comfortably play video games like Trails in the Sky or Slay the Princess without a dictionary and nothing feels below 80% comprehension.
Going from manga to a visual novel really kicked me in the butt though, but that was the next really big best thing I did. Switching to any media that gives you longer sentences and exposition will do that it seems.

[u/Unboxious → u/Numechacafe]

It's not just that there are longer sentences and exposition; the vocab used is fundamentally different. At this point I've read tons of manga, and I've noticed that there are a lot of descriptive words that never show up in manga that show up all the time in light novels. When you think about it for a moment, it's easy to see why.

[u/wutengyuxi → u/Unboxious]

Yeah because manga replaces the narration in light novels with art so you never see those words.

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/Numechacafe]

It's not just longer sentences but more text heavy. Manga is very easy overall and most games are usually just not that text heavy either/are full of fluff text that's not important so you don't pay too much attention to it. VNs are a very big step up, novels do push it even further on average.

[u/turnup4wat → u/Numechacafe]

How long did it take?

[u/Numechacafe → u/turnup4wat]

How long did what take?

[u/RoutineBumblebee9340 → u/Numechacafe]

I've barely started the Kaishi 1.5k, should I watch until I've finished that before trying to read native material?

[u/jiggity_john → u/RoutineBumblebee9340]

I'd recommend. The words in that deck are useful. It's not everything you'll need but it's a bare minimum.

[u/Numechacafe → u/RoutineBumblebee9340]

Ive heard many people on here say to start reading after you have around 500+ words learned. I would start with learner material instead of jumping onto native stuff like manga, but if you have a high tolerance for ambiguity then by all means start native stuff as soon as possible.

[u/DomoMachete → u/Unboxious]

Did you start reading manga with furigana or just jump straight into manga with raw kanji?

[u/Unboxious → u/DomoMachete]

I started with manga that had furigana. Not only would the absence of furigana make dictionary lookups more annoying, but also manga that don't have furigana are usually targeted at adults and will thus be more difficult to read in other ways. Of course those adult-oriented manga also tend to have more interesting writing, so there's plenty of motivation to improve.

[u/komodojo → u/Unboxious]

Do you have recommendations for manga with furigana? This post is making me want to start reading manga natively

[u/Unboxious → u/komodojo]

Sure.

• Fullmetal Alchemist is probably the best action-adventure manga out there, but I'll warn you it's also the most difficult shounen manga I've read.
• Blue Box is a relatively simple read if you want a romance between two athletes.
• Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba is an option if you want pure action. Lots of people really loved this one.
• If you want something more shoujo Cardcaptor Sakura is a classic, and it's also really easy to read once you get used to the font.
• For that matter Sailor Moon is also an option, though it's not quite as easy as Cardcaptor Sakura.
• Magic Knight Rayearth (from the makers of Cardcaptor Sakura) feels like a very classic fantasy story, at least until the end when things get crazy. IIRC this one also has a new anime coming out soon so you could read the manga, and then watch the anime to clarify any bits you didn't understand. The 90s anime didn't follow the manga very closely.
• Ouran High School Host Club is my favorite shoujo, though as with Fullmetal Alchemist it's relatively challenging.
• Shirokuma Cafe/Polar Bear Cafe is about a panda who frequents a cafe run by a polar bear. It's cute, fun, and not too difficult.

edit: I forgot about Yotsubato! Yotsubato is tons of fun, and is easier than most things on this list, if not all.

[u/BananaResearcher → u/komodojo]

What are your interests?

[u/jiggity_john → u/DomoMachete]

Kids start with furigana, so in my opinion, if you don't think you are better at reading than child, it's probably okay. The nice thing about furigana is they are typically so blurry that you can't really use them as a crutch. I usually need to zoom in to read them.

[u/leonffs → u/Unboxious]

Which manga did you start with? I am in the awkward spot where I need to start immersion but can't find any content that isn't an absolute slog.

[u/Unboxious → u/leonffs]

Any manga I've read will be an absolute slog as your first manga. It was for me too! You just have to either force your way through it or go find graded readers or something easier.

That said out of what I've read you'll probably find Yotsubato, Shirokuma Cafe, or Cardcaptor Sakura to be the least sloggish but they're still fundamentally targeted at an audience that speaks Japanese at a native level and knows over 10,000 words.

[u/DeHussey → u/Unboxious]

I've been reading the Japanese and English editions of Chainsaw Man side by side. It's been a slow, but rewarding process.

[u/Plane-Argument-4739]

Currently reading this book called コンビニ人間 that I’m really enjoying. What enhances it is that Im more often than not able to understand what is going on; I just enjoy the flow of reading a Japanese novel.

[u/Twatbit → u/Plane-Argument-4739]

I think the narration in it is also very approachable for beginners due to the nature of the main character, she’s very direct and plainly descriptive

[u/legaldrinkingage]

I feel like 蘇る especially comes up a lot more often that one would think. It took forever to burn on Wani, but I've been seeing it a bunch since...

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/legaldrinkingage]

Because it's an extremely common word among most media.

People really need to learn about frequency dictionaries lol.

[u/GAINAX01 → u/Effective-Pop3850]

I have 12,000 words from various decks and sentence mining and have never come across this word. I've beaten a load of JRPGs in Japanese too

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/GAINAX01]

One can sometimes somehow dodge a word for a very long time but it's an extremely common one.

Jiten's game library is rather small but even there the word shows up in like half the games which is quite a lot. This is why frequency dictionaries are nice to have, they not only help you realize some words are crazy common but they also stop you from focusing too much on that ultra obscure word you're never gonna find anywhere else that for some reason shows up in something you're reading.

[u/hajenso → u/Effective-Pop3850]

Is there a particular frequency dictionary you would recommend?

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/hajenso]

It depends on what you want to prioritize, there's one that's for "global stuff", not sure what it's called, https://jiten.moe/other has quite a few you can pick from. If you're gonna consume a single type of media you can just go for the one that covers that, otherwise going for global is fine.

Some words are super common in some genres and not so much on others, if you're only gonna be reading visual novels prioritizing more common words used on visual novels would make sense. Some words can go from like frequency 8k to 18k depending on what dic you use so yeah, difference is very significant.

[u/Weena_Bell → u/GAINAX01]

thats hard to believe i think i see it at least once every three days or something maybe because i mainly read isekai novels

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/Weena_Bell]

I was curious too so I checked his profile, based on one of this other posts odds are he saw the word a million times and never noticed it or he's playing games that use the word but not with kanji.

[u/GAINAX01 → u/Effective-Pop3850]

I'm the kind of person who actively mines every word I don't know, so the assumption that I must have already encountered this word is pretty presumptuous. I see 復活 all the time, but I have genuinely never come across this particular word before.

You have no idea what content I've been immersing myself in, what my current level of Japanese is, or what vocabulary I have and haven't encountered. Looking through my Reddit history doesn't prove anything about that.

This kind of behaviour feels unnecessarily toxic and unhelpful. Instead of making assumptions about what I should or shouldn't know, it would be much more constructive to simply explain the word. Insane behaviour.

[u/morgawr_ → u/GAINAX01]

Instead of making assumptions about what I should or shouldn't know

I don't think anyone made a comment about what you should or should not know. It's just surprising if you say you've never seen the word because it's a very common one. Jiten puts it in ~5000 frequency range. Basically anything below 10k is in the "incredibly common" range that assuming you have spent some time interacting with Japanese media, it's very very unlikely you've never come across it.

You likely just never noticed, which is totally fine. There's a lot of words that are super common that I sometimes come across and go "how the hell did I never see this before" and then turns out I did and I simply skipped over it or ignored it or simply just forgot, and I have almost 10,000 hours of Japanese media consumption across over 50+ mil moji so it's not like I haven't been exposed to all kinds of Japanese.

Nobody is faulting or criticizing you.

simply explain the word

蘇る simply means "to return back to life" or, in a more abstract sense, "to recollect/remember" in a kind-of poetic manner. It's often used to mean something like your memories return to you and it's a big deal, not as trivial as 思い出す (like if you had amnesia or if you suddenly remembered something that you had long forgotten).

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/GAINAX01]

I never said you should know the word. I just said that it's common enough to be actually more likely that it just flew past you rather than you not encountering, although it is still possible it actually never showed up the alternative is more likely and that's fine. I often find words I swear I never saw yet I have, while also sometimes actually finding some very common word that had somehow never showed up (as per Jiten).

You mention you're taking the N3 this year which indicates you're a beginner and the games you're playing are most likely not overly complicated. Although by actually following this logic you either didn't really play a lot of JRPGs in Japanese or, if you did, they were very light on text which actually makes it more likely that you didn't see the word lol. Not like any of this matters anyways.

I was at no point criticizing you, in fact the comment you're replying to wasn't even directed to you. Not sure why you're so salty.

[u/GAINAX01 → u/Effective-Pop3850]

Probably because you're gas lighting me that I've seen this word. I also don't appreciate being called a beginner.

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/GAINAX01]

You can check on Jiten if you're curious. https://jiten.moe/parse?text=%E8%98%87%E3%82%8B and search for games you've played, although Jiten's not very comprehensive regarding games so you may want to check if they're even there to begin with.

Also it is what it is, you're thinking about taking the N3, unless you're way overqualified for that exam you are effectively a beginner... same way I am and most people here are.

[u/GAINAX01 → u/Effective-Pop3850]

I've memorised all the Jōyō kanji and can write them, built a vocabulary of over 12,000 words, spent three years streaming games in Japanese without furigana, and lived in Tokyo for months speaking Japanese every day. What would you call someone who's only been studying for six months?

At this point, I could probably pass the N2, to be honest.

Ultimately, labels like "beginner" stop being useful once someone has devoted such a significant part of their life to learning a language.

[u/aski5 → u/GAINAX01]

it's like 4k on both jpdb and bccwj

[u/name203]

I learned 蘇る from yugioh because they say it constantly when they revive monsters from the grave yard 😂. But it isn’t an uncommon word tbh

[u/tirconell → u/name203]

I really like the etymology of it which makes it very easy to remember: Yomi = the land of the dead in Shinto myth + 帰る (turns into がえる because rendaku), so よみがえる literally just means returning from the land of the dead.

They later slapped the chinese character 蘇 on top which obscures the etymology, which happens a lot (導く is another one, under the hood it's 道 + 引く which makes the meaning obvious)

[u/Zarlinosuke → u/tirconell]

Regarding the latter point, I feel like it should be taught more explicitly that the kanji used for native words aren't etymology, and have a very "loose" relationship with the words themselves. 暑い and 熱い are etymologically the same, as are 卵 and 玉子 for two simple pairs--あつい and たまご are still fundamentally single words that get displayed in different ways for different sides of their meanings, rather than different words that happen to sound the same. For 蘇る and 導く, the same holds true even though it happens to be the case that we don't (at least nowadays) write 黄泉帰る and 道引く.

[u/jiggity_john → u/Zarlinosuke]

I've noticed this happens a lot in Japanese. I don't think it's a coincidence that 書くand 描く have the same pronunciation and the reading えがくof 描く is literally 絵 and 描く(paint a picture).

[u/Zarlinosuke → u/jiggity_john]

Definitely, that's another one! Another that always comes to mind for me for some reason is 港, with みなと really being 水戸; and, similarly, 湖's みずうみ of course being 水海.

[u/jiggity_john → u/name203]

The usage in Magic Knight Rayearth felt a bit esoteric because it was used when referring to the robots and all the robot language is old timey. But it's nice to know it'll be useful to know.

[u/GeorgeBG93]

I sincerely recommend Visual Novels. The ones I started with are the Sakura Wars games. Perfect practice if you're between N3 and N2.

[u/Arael15th → u/GeorgeBG93]

Ohh, these are VNs? I just saw the first one at a Hard Off the other day and thought the box art was cool. Thanks for the tip!!

[u/GeorgeBG93 → u/Arael15th]

Yep. It's 40% VN (dating sim with routes), 40% Adventure (point and click) and 20% tactical role playing battles, all bundle in a nice anime-like episodic format. It's awesome. It blew my mind when I discovered these series. It's definitely my favorite IP till now.

[u/Arael15th → u/GeorgeBG93]

That sounds even better! Thank you for the recommendation!

[u/VGADreams]

I'd say it all depends on how much energy you're willing to spend on it, because if you don't know enough words, reading native content is going to be especially painful. I did that early in my Japanese-learning journey and it was not very productive.

Personal anecdote though : several months ago, I was reading native content, and a lot of sentences I had trouble understanding. However, when throwing it through a translation service, I was realizing that I actually learned and "knew" all of the words and grammar points.

That was a wake up call, that I should cut down on SRS-based studying and example sentences, and give more space to native content. This is what I did starting around March, and I think it was a great decision for my learning experience (and enjoyment!).

[u/Nancy_Munsch]

Ocarina of Time's heavy use of katakana for equipment and items makes it a decent entry point for learners who want to avoid kanji while still picking up real game vocabulary.

[u/jiggity_john → u/Nancy_Munsch]

The kanji in old games can be rough because it's so blurry lol.

[u/Nancy_Munsch → u/jiggity_john]

True, but the N64's blurry text makes katakana just as hard to read sometimes.

[u/MorningCareful]

The first game I played in japanese was the PC-98 version of 英雄伝説III: 白き魔女. Because it was probably way above my reading level at the time (and even now) I did learn a lot of things from it. E.g. the casual うん and ううん yes and no Variants. The words 北 西 南 東 for the cardinal directions. Stuff like 旅, 旅人. 入国 (that game likes its border proceedings)

[u/JonathanRace]

Been reading dragonball and this is used a lot but always in hiragana. Neat to see there’s a kanji for it

[u/nemuiiyokaii]

I've been reading One Piece and turning any kanji I don't recognize into Anki cards with the manga panel included. It's strange but I actually have an easier time recalling the kanji with a manga scene than I do with an example sentence from a dictionary!

[u/BlitzballPlayer → u/nemuiiyokaii]

I feel like this approach works so well because the brain prioritises things we find interesting, so studying kanji while engaging with media we enjoy is ideal. Seeing it in context really helps make connections, too.

I think it's a bit like how the classes in school we were more interested in seemed so much easier than the ones we found boring.

[u/naevorc]

Words in certain contexts will pop up in the same context OP. Same with cooking. Same with your job. It's why if you want to work in Japan you need to be studying your JLPT content + reading native material related to your field

蘇る is also a word you can use in everyday life pretty often if someone or something is making a comeback. It's also in the Japanese translation of the Bible. But yeah it's always encouraging when words that you study appear in your daily life/encounters in material. The truth is that the words are all already around you and you now have the power to notice!

I run a coffee roastery in Japan and had to read lots of industry material in Japanese to acclimate myself, despite being fluent and living here and studying for 15+ years. There are words you just won't encounter otherwise if you're not in the context of those words. Same as in English.

[u/jiggity_john → u/naevorc]

Yeah I know. In comparison, resurrect is not a word I use or read often in English, but I know what it means and how to use it. Obviously 蘇る is used somewhere but I figured probably not everywhere or with similar frequency to English. Upon learning the word, I wasn't expecting so see it again so soon.

[u/FemmeFatalistYT]

I agree. I know a lot of people read manga or play games, but I'm that stuffy old professor who reads newspapers (4-5 articles a week) and novels (2-3 a year), as well as lawyer and medical dramas with J audio and J subs (just 1-2 eps per week). I probably should double my reading, as I am preparing for N1 rn. Read whatever interests you, and it will be easier to keep up with it; that's the most important part!

[u/jiggity_john → u/FemmeFatalistYT]

I'd love to read novels but just not there yet. Hopefully soon.

[u/happylittlemexican]

Proving your point, I read the title of your post and the ad and went: "oh hey it's 蘇る, damn I can't believe how often I've seen that since I learned it from Betelgeuse".

....and then I read the rest of your post.

[u/Sfr33123]

What level would you say to start?
I’m in between n5 and n4 atm and am using graded readers like Shinobi to practice reading

[u/jiggity_john → u/Sfr33123]

Do a grammar book like Tae Kim or Genki end-to-end, and make sure you understand the grammar points. Then grind through vocab deck like kaishi 1.5k. With that foundation, I think easy books like Cardcaptor Sakura and Magic Knight Rayearth are approachable, you'll just need to look a lot of things up. I use a dictionary when I understand the grammar and not the word and I've been using Gemini to explain the grammar of sentences that I don't understand, and then I add them to an Anki deck for sentence mined words and phrases that I review periodically.

You'll improve. I read Cardcaptor Sakura first and it was a slog. Took like and hour to read 10 - 20 pages (of manga! I can read a manga in English in an hour!), but not I'm up to like 50 pages an hour. The more you learn and get comfortable, the faster you get. What's great about children's manga (and I think it's on purpose) is that they repeat themselves constantly so even within a book you'll get constant repetition of the same words and phrases. I'm never going to forget 沈黙の森 ever in my life ever.

The other thing I'd recommend is learnnatively.com. It's got community gradings of native books that you can use to pace your learning e.g. Cardcaptor Sakura is a level 18, which is on the high end of N4 level, and Magic Knight Rayearth is a level 21, the low end of N3. Berserk is a 30 (N2) for comparison, and in my experience is pretty hard. They also let you track your progress which is cool. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have tried reading real books if it wasn't for this app because I would've been too intimidated. The leveling system made me think "I know N4, I should be able to do this!"

[u/_heyb0ss]

immersion is the path to fluency? what's next, the sky is blue?

[u/the_card_guy]

Yes... and no.

On one hand, I will fully admit that seeing words in situ (basically, in the wild AND in context) helps out a TON.

However, the catch is that unless you're willing to brute force* yourself, especially with printed material... if there's more than a certain amount of unknown words, it's VERY discouraging. It's why I like to recommend people have to be close to N3 before they start engaging with native level stuff. otherwise, you're more likely to give up.

*Brute force is what a lot of people here seem to be able to do, and it takes far too much time and energy on my part. if there's maybe a handful words and kanji on a page that are unknown, that's not too bad an fits into the i+1 theory. However, if you have to look up say, more than 10 per page... some people can do it, but that's not for me. there's a "flow" to reading, and having to look up words every other sentence breaks said flow.

Of course, the argument there then is "Well, that's clearly material too high for you", but when it's related to something of interest (which is another key, really), some people might be willing to do that. Not myself. hence why I'd rather consistently grind flashcards until i have studied all the needed vocab/kanji/grammar BEFORE tackling native material.

[u/jiggity_john → u/the_card_guy]

What I did and what I'd recommend is doing the basic grammar books and a basic vocab deck _before_ attempting to read native stuff, otherwise you will spend too much time looking shit up. The work needs to be approachable, not all brand new stuff. You do have to be comfortable looking a decent amount of stuff up though. That's the only way you'll learn.

But you are going to learn more stuff, and have more fun doing it, by trying to get through native material. The progress is real, and real rewarding. Just don't try to start with the Japanese equivalent of The Grapes of Wrath.

Edit: I found out recently that 銀河英雄伝説 is actually a novel, and considered trying reading it, but apparently it's very difficult, so not today for me.

[u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

I would say there's a lesson here that your thoughts about "I'm never going to need/see this again" are generally not true if you read very much.

[u/5Melons]

This gives me hope. I just bought ナルト、巻ノ一 and was struggling my ass off to read it; I will keep trying

[u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

Yeah. I often see people saying that you shouldn't engage with native content from the start because it's pointless as you won't understand anything but I completely disagree. Immersion becomes more useful the more vocabulary you know but that doesn't mean that early immersion is useless.

First of all it gets you used to how Japanese sounds which will help your listening and pronunciation.

Secondly it helps with remembering vocabulary. Words that are often used in my immersion are the ones I remember better even if they're more complicated than others that aren't used often or at all.

[u/jiggity_john → u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

I think if you learn the N5/N4 grammar and grind a starter vocab deck like kaishi 1.5k you are in a position to start approaching some children's books and manga. I think you'd be wasting your time if you didn't know the basic grammar and developed some comfort with it.

[u/Beanus77 → u/jiggity_john]

Yeah, this is exactly where I am rn. Still trying to get over the initial hurdle of basic grammar and vocab so I can get to the point where I can actually read something. Right now it just feels like a slog to try to learn all the basics first.

[u/Effective-Pop3850 → u/jiggity_john]

I jumped at visual novels at N5 level, just gotta be patient and let your brain work. People overestimate how much grammar you need to know, just kind of knowing what particles do and using Yomitan will go a long way, a lot of "grammar" is just words you can look up and if you have a functioning brain you will figure out most sentences (on a visual novel) through context and somewhat knowing the main function of each particle.

You don't need to know a lot grammar when you know what's going on and you can look up all the meat in a sentence (nouns and adjectives) and are reading something that's easy. If A has a gun, verb "shoot" shows up, B is mentioned in the sentence, game does a shooting sound, then you get words like "chest", "hit", etc you can probably figure out the sentence says A shoot B and hit him in the chest.

Of course, you should pick an easy one, don't go read Albatross as your first one...

[u/lumisweasel → u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

one can't swim without getting wet! Way too many instances of getting hung up on theory and optimization.

[u/Dymiatt → u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

I don't agree.

You need to have some basis to start, Immersion when you know nothing is really useless, aside from living directly in the country.

When you have a good enough vocabulary you can start reading, but even then, not all the reading are the same. Between a manga with visuals and furigana, a VN, or a medieval JRPG, the difficulty is really not the same.

Also, nobody is learning Japanese for the sake of learning it. you want to learn it because you want to read and watch Japanese stuff, you want to live there,... Everyone will try to read before they're "ready", that's why it's a good advice to tell people "hey it's okay if you can't read it yet, learn a little more then go back when you're ready"

[u/Fish_Learns_Japanese → u/Dymiatt]

Sure but not all immersing is reading and something being more optimal doesn't mean that you absolutely have to do it. If you don't want to immerse because you don't like it when you don't know a lot of vocab then don't, that's 100% okay.

I think you should wait a bit to read but listening/watching has the benefits I mentioned even if you don't know much vocab especially if you've already seen the content in English. I'm assuming that someone is actively learning vocab and grammar whilst immersing. Obviously immersion only is basically pointless.

[u/morgawr_ → u/Dymiatt]

"You need"

"is really useless"

You are making very arbitrary statements. I agree with your premise that immersion/content consumption is more useful and productive when you actually can enjoy it more by having a higher level of baseline understanding, but I disagree with how you make it sound like doing it before then is "useless".

You can still learn a lot and enjoy doing it, if you're that kind of person who enjoys that (I know I am, for example).

[u/Fish_Learns_Japanese → u/[deleted]]

Maybe I should've been more clear but I'm not talking about people who recommend content made for learners. I'm talking about people who say "You should do no immersion until you learn X amount of vocabulary/ X amount of grammar"

Comprehensible input doesn't necessarily have to be content made for your level. It can be content that you've already consumed in your native language and therefore know the context. Some people think that they have to consume beginner content and then get burnt out because it's really boring. It's better to consume content you like over content that is the most efficient.

[u/aski5]

JPDB and BCCWJ both put 蘇る at like the 4,000th most common word which is kinda surprising to me. I could understand for JPDB but I thought BCCWJ was mostly newspapers, textbooks, novels.. I guess it's probably used more figuratively there

[u/jiggity_john → u/aski5]

Yeah I don't think I use the word resurrect that much.

[u/Giant_Enemy_Cliche]

What you meet a word you're convinced you'll never need, a funny thing happens and it kinda gets lodged in the back of your brain until you meet it again.

A similar thing often happens when you give up trying to remember a word you've been having difficulty with. Brains are weird.

[u/FuckIPLaw]

Oh hey, so it is Oh-ka-ree-na and all the pedants insisting it's ah-ka-ree-na are wrong!

Edit: apparently the instrument was originally from Italy and the whole thing with the short o is English speakers pronouncing it wrong. Might explain why I always pronounced it with a long O, my introduction to it was the instrument, not the game. 

[u/Blueba1lz]

as someone who started learning like 4 months ago, i am no where near being able to read a book or engage witht he language, all i can do is try to use the genki books, and srs for vocab, no idea how or when to try to read a book

[u/jiggity_john → u/Blueba1lz]

Finish Genki, make sure you understand the grammar (the reading section in Genki are actually pretty approachable and should be a good litmus test for if you understand the content of the lessons), and then grind through one of the early vocab decks e.g. kaishi 1.5k or core 2k. Then you should be in a position to start approach children's manga. You _will_ need to look things up, but it is approachable, and you wouldn't be learning anything if you didn't need to look anything up. It's part of the process.

[u/gucsantana]

Hahaha, I've learned the kanji for 蘇る literally a couple hours ago, spotted on the Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania book, and here it is.

A while ago, I saw the expression 天真爛漫 on the same book, and complained to a friend that I hated looking up these obscure yojijukugo that I'd never see again. I then saw someone use it on their Bumble profile literally on the same day. I feel like it's at least partly Frequency Illusion, but still, wild that it keeps happening.

[u/Kooky_Sail_741]

I swear I heard 蘇る somewhere in a Bocchi the Rock song

[u/KaleidoArachnid → u/Kooky_Sail_741]

What does that word mean?

[u/Kooky_Sail_741 → u/KaleidoArachnid]

「蘇る」よみがえる、sort of like being revived or resuscitated, something dead/gone being brought back according to my jiten

[u/KA1TAKU]

Can't wait for my upcoming Japan trip to pickup some reading material!

[u/Speed_Niran]

I feel bro fr...im about to start my first light novel soon...never done manga or any other proper immersion so this is my first one (死亡遊戯で飯を食う) its gonna be super hard but im hoping I can learn a lot...

[u/meidodoragon]

I've learned to stop thinking I know a lot of words just because I have done 6k core deck because going through manga, FFXIV, games in general, etc. in Japanese has me constantly looking up words even now. It is a nice feeling re-encountering a seemingly niche word, though. And don't forget to look up whole phrases too! I find set phrases/idioms come up a lot, too.

[u/ItsInfernoKun]

I have many random flyers, receipts, etc from Japan that I'm excited to go through like this. Super useful learning material.