I really noticed the fact that novels, or books in general, are more difficult than other media when i was learning english a few years ago, and understood pretty much everything that was said in videos and movies. Than i switched to novels, and i found myself looking up things every 5 minutes lol

I know this is old now but I'm watching a bit of your stuff at the moment... I am sure you do this and perhaps just forgot to mention it but I read the novel and listen to the audiobook at the same time. I pretty much won't read a book unless I can find at least the audio, but preferably both and I read along with it. I actually think it engages your mind on an even deeper level, plus there's the pronunciation thing you mentioned; you get the best of both worlds.

This is so true. I learn most of my English and Japanese by watching KZfaq and anime, and describing physical movements is my biggest weak spot.

the facial hair really suits you

Give us a list of your favorite novels

summary: guys there's more words in books

“truly breaking out of the gaijin ghetto” 😂

I think you are right. Native speakers normally learn their mother tongue to an intermediate level without reading novels, but they reach an advanced level reading novels as they are compelled to do so in school.

Agree, but this only works for me when I have reached an appropriate level or else it becomes a giant pain.

great video, I recommend difficulty tiers though with japanese. start at manga with furigana then ---> manga without furigana ---> light novels/visual novels ---> regular novels

僕だけがいない街 has that extra voice feature for blind people. Also a good show!

All I can say is that aside from this being a genius video it also contains an important truth. I learned English mainly from texts and as you say my (German) accent is very pronounced even a decade later and I constantly have to make a conscious effort to hide it. There are certain key words which I clearly remember learning from certain books (I still associate "above" with Harry Potter for some reason) and I often end up accidentally slipping back into the wrong pronunciation I came up with on my own when I first encountered the word. Mind you back then when I googled and translated vocabulary functions like on google where it would read the word for you in the correct pronunciation didn't really exist like that yet. Luckily I'm not too far into my Japanese learning journey so this advice really helps!

Great and informative content as always! Thank you.

Thanks for the video! Looks like a great resource :)

Thank you. Also quite refreshing to see a chaotic bed in the background. Every youtuber ever nowadays is all about aesthetic.

Dies ist eines deiner besten Videos.

Good video! Neat to see the narration audio track for Devil Crybaby, it's a great concept and an illustration for how accessibility for one can end up being accessibility for others too.

If you don't know what to read, I'll just remind you that No Game No Life has no season 2, but it has light novels.

I've gladly learned enough Japanese to be able to read the thumbnail "難しい本" or "difficult book"

Yeah I’m currently reading The Fantom of the Opera in French and I also play dating sim or “otome” games in French. Great way to pick up new vocab, see grammar stuctures, etc. Lucky for me, French uses the same alphabet so learning to read it isn’t hard ! 😄

難しい本😂😂😂

Novels are also really good at expanding your vocabulary too! I still search up different words while reading English books. I liked reading when I was younger so I was very good at spelling tests and English language arts so it’s very useful

Japanese badass quotes - 大は小を兼ねる. You can’t just poop. It always comes along with pee.

I totally agree with you’re saying. I’m a Taiwanese who is learning English and Japanese at the same time. Reading is fundamental when it comes to learning a foreign language.

Thank you your videos are always really helpful

I'd say visual novels with voice acting is an accessible way for weebs such as myself to get into reading as it gives you both the listening and the kanji aspects but of course there is the 'anime vocabulary' problem I like how so many Japanese videos here on youtube have kanji on top of videos with speech, I don't fully understand why it's done but I find it really helpful to read along as the words are being pronounced and if there was one kanji I could remember the meaning of but not the pronunciation then now I can hopefully remember it

Where can we get Japanese audio books?

Have you found any other shows with the extra audio description yet? And a list of your favorite Japanese novels would also be helpful. :)

30 seconds of the normal Audio track. Nothing at all happens.

Are light novels good?

Gonna drop a comment here to ask people (specifically for Japanese): 1) When you should start / are able to read a book without too much hassle (like having to look up more than 10 words per page)? 2) Which books to start with? (Kid's/Teenager books are okay, have to start somewhere right?)

Thanks Matt i have just started listening to the Harry Potter audio books and am finding just what you describe in this video i am picking up a lot of new vocabulary.

When did you start reading novels?

I just started my journey with Japanese! Your videos have been my go to for guidance:) I would love to know some of your favorite novels to read! Are there ones better for beginners?

I am doing this, bought the book for Your Name and it is far more descriptive than the movie, for obvious reasons of course. I've picked up some great vocabulary simply from the first few pages and I've already seen a slight improvement in my comprehension

Thank you bro

Imagínate yo que hablo español, un poco de Inglés y trato de aprender japonés con tus vídeos

favorite audiobook/written novels?

Anyone know if Konosuba LN is worth it for reading practice? (in term of vocab is it too fantasy-ish) i'm planning to buy it after finishing RRTK and Tanggo N5

There’s these two books called Read Real Japanese that have been super helpful for me! They’re a collection of Japanese essays/short stories with line by line phrase translation on the opposite page, a glossary, a section explaining certain grammar points, and a CD with audio forms of the essays! Oh, and of course furigana. It’s been so helpful for me!

Very interesting! It seems this is most helpful for advanced learners, but it's so true. It's the same reason novels are great for making you better in your own native language.

I have no interest in reading Japanese, I like anime and I want to talk to people. Is it worth the effort to learn Kanji? I’m not a big fan of the effort it takes. I don’t care about the work I’m putting into listening because it’s fun for me. Kanji is less so, but I’ll do it if I have to in order to learn (and maybe if it triples my learning rate. I wouldn’t if it only increases it by 30 percent).

Do you have recommendations?

Lol auto-generated english captions at 8:06

Thank you I will try

I need to know how you liked devil man

How am I supposed to read my book when there is kanji every three characters? I ended up g-translating(not dictionary but I should’ve) every word because they change sound depending on what come after. Very tiring and I learned nothing.

A very interesting clip. I have never been into audiobooks, I must admit. Not in my L1, and as a result, it did not become a thing in my L2s. But what you said about the description facility for the visually impaired on Netflix etc is extremely interesting. It interests me because I am a high school teacher if Japanese. It is something I can throw out to my senior students. Thank you. I read for pleasure when I am not working, and I particularly love doing so in my L2s as well. I am of a generation that never really got hooked into manga, but my love of reading literature in my L1 made for an easy transfer into reading for pleasure in my L2s. There was something on Tofugu, I think, about ploughing ahead and reading literature, regardless of language level ability. That is something I subscribe to - reading without running to a dictionary. When you have a decent slab of L2 under your belt, it perhaps works best. I know you promote audiobooks, and your points are very cogent, especially the input that leads to a better accent. But for me at least, part of the appeal in reading Japanese is the script and kanji choice the author makes. Wayback when, I was studying Japanese at University in my final year, and the textbook passage we were reading made reference to a comparison of English and Japanese. English was likened to a Radio Language, as you can turn a radio on and simply hear the sounds of the words and expressions in the language, and not much else is needed for comprehension. Japanese is more like a TV language, where you have both sound and image being used to convey a story, report etc. Sure, this is a very simple comparison, but I feel the analogy fits. I look forward to checking in on your posts! Happy reading!

Matt VS Japan what about audio dramas? they seem to be pretty descriptive and theres loads of them on podcast apps etc. dyou think theyd work well?

I will copy and paste this because I really need an answer. What is a RTK equivalent to Chinese? Or if there is a better method, what?

Hi Matt, could you kindly share the top 10 Japanese novels that you like? Thank you!

"since language is originally a spoken thing" great point Matt. When you read there is an added layer between meaning and sound, so that when you read a word and you understand it, it's not granted that you'll understand the same word when you hear it. This effect is obviously more evident in languages where the written form is not purely phonetical. For example when I was learning english as an italian person, I tended to read words with an italian phonetic (for example the pronoun "I", which is read "ai"... I read it "i", like the italian "i" or the japanese "い"). When I moved to spoken material I understood next to nothing. On the other hand, with Japanese, if you read the word あい with an italian pronunciation, which is "ai", when you listen to it it's more probable that you'll recognize it because it's written form is a (almost) pure rapresentation of the pronunciation itself. This would be true if words were written in kana, but we know that most of them are written in kanji. On one side kanji helps you to infer meaning of words, but on the other side this "crutch" is like an added layer when you learn a word in its written form. Because you'll attach it's meaning to the visual rapresentation of the word. The meaning of 反射 is so obvious from the kanji, it's almost like having a definition of the word right here every time you encounter the word in written form, so that when you see it you'll recall it's meaning easily. But then if I watch the news and they say はんしゃ I may or may not recall it's meaning. This won't happen when I learn the word "アルバイト" in it's written form, because I will attach the meaning to "ARUBAITO" which is a direct phonetical rapresentation of the word. There aren't kanji to help you with the meaning, exactly like in the spoken form. Even Katsumoto talked about this in his "Chinese Project Notes 8" blog post: "Another motivation was that I found my Chinese LISTENING RELATIVELY WEAK. But literacy is crucial and I love text. So, what this does is both use and build strength in both writing and listening at the same time. Given a phonetic representation of Chinese, you have to produce the text (and of course in order to produce the text correctly, you have to have understood the phonetic representation). In that sense it’s like taking a dictation. Could you do this for Japanese sentences/phrases, too? My first answer was actually, “no”. But Momoko said “yes”. And after trying it, I would say, “yes”, too. So, yes. You definitely can, and in fact I would heartily recommend you try, because I think it would DO WONDERS for your kanji production skills and your LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS (remember, there are NO SUBTITLES IN REAL LIFE)."

What's the poster on the right next to K-On?

can you list some audiobooks or books we should try? I have been trying to find audiobooks and audible does not provide them in Japanese.

I am learning Japanese precisely because I wanted to read Japanese literature. How much Japanese do you need before you can start?

"Show, don't tell" is actually a saying for pretty much all storytelling mediums, and is pretty common advice when writing novels, but yeah I get where you're coming from

I would LOVE to listen to audiobooks in Portuguese.. however I wouldn't understand them. So is there s point? 😅

I agree that novels are better for learning. That’s why I’ve been reading « Le Petit Prince » in my spare time, since I get to practice vocabulary and pronunciation

This is true! I did the same with English. Hahahhah In the beginning I started with English Graded Books.

Hmm I think I'll have to change my entire backlog of light novel epubs that are english translated to their native japanese counterpart... Time to read spice and wolf in japanese I guess.

What's the best way to get access to japanese novels living in the US?

finally someone recognized my favourite Japanese author, Hon Muzukashii

If anyone out there is at JLPT ~N2 level and is looking for a novel that is more difficult than picture books but easily understood by a Japanese junior high school student kind of level, I suggest looking for novels that have an English translation, and perhaps reading the English version first before challenging yourself to the original Japanese version. For example, "The devotion of suspect X" by Keigo Higashino has an amazingly captivating storyline (genre: mystery, crime) which I first read in English and then because I knew the imagery and story already, I wasn't put off by the difficulty of some kanji/phrases in the original novel and I learnt a lot about how scenes were described in Japanese. I found this way was very helpful for me in improving my receptive understanding/written Japanese so just wanted to share my 2 cents for anyone who is looking to challenge themselves with a regular fiction novel!!

would this still work if my mental imagery is very weak?

Hello Matt I've been using AJJAT for a month and a half, but right now I'm in the stage 1, part 4 of your studying path. (I studied Japanese before, for a year and a half, I completed RTK 1 and some chapters of some texbooks) With this background, do you think is it good if I start immersing in Light Novels? I know it is early but I really want to improve my Japanese I will start using the Light Novel of Your Name, because I know the context of the movie and I love the story. Thank you Matt. 1-. This video was amazing, I will follow your advice with audiobooks and novels 2-. I feel I have made more progress in this month and a half using AJJAT than using the "Conventinal" method for a year and a half

Hey Matt, how long have you been studying for? I am at 8 months and know around 2.2k words. I have terrible grammar and I keep studying lessons for it but nothing seems to stick. Anyways, great videos, keep it up.

I think for beginners when your vocabulary/grammar isn’t that great manga/anime can be really helpful because you can use visual clues to try and piece together in your head a better understanding of what what they’re saying means. Because obviously if you come across a sentence in a novel you don’t understand you can’t really use google translate, you’d have to ask a native (which not everyone has access to). So having visual and context clues can be really helpful

Found Harry Potter with complete furigana. Just reading it is helping me with onyomi and kunyomi but I'm even picking up on new grammar and speaking styles.

Great video Matt! But how do you study on audiobooks? Do you first listen some times and try to understand or do you watch the text first?

could you give me a site or a pdf file that contains japanese novel would really help me out here

where can I find download or buy japanese novels?

Visual novels are a good alternative imo if you’re like me and cant stand pages of words.

where can I find japanese audiobooks? I went on audible a while back to see if I could use my credits for jp audiobooks, but all I found was scientology and self help books rather than fiction. where can I find japanese audiobooks?

unfortunately, novels dont interest me much but ive been thinking about how much more useful novels are.I just read articles although its good I cant escape the feeling that novels would help me more, i like watching the news n alk shows but Maybe i need to force myself into novels

Do any AJATTers speed read? I've been reading some novels in Japanese lately, and wondering if I could speed up the process by learning how to speed read. Not sure how fruitful it would be, though, if speed reading involves a lot of skimming over words and dropping sub-vocalization, which I could see reducing the effectiveness of reading as a language aquisition method.

I have to agree, when I was still a kid a large piece of fanfiction was in English, not in my original language (which is Spanish). Wanting to read more content I tried to read and grasp whatever I was reading, even if my level was still too low. I learned by grasping the context of the sentences and the place where each word was used. Granted, I ended up learning some weird expressions and grammatically incorrect forms here and there because some works were made by amateurs. Reading in Japanese is still a daunting task according to my knowledge, but maybe I will try to start by reading light novels, not published works yet. I would die if I started by trying to read classic literary works.

the background music is nice

I was never a reader as you can see not a writer either. However I made a bucket list to learn a new language and I was wondering if anyone could suggest me a simpler novel to get started. Much appreciated.

I think it's just reeeally tiring cause I have to look up soo many new words in a novel..^^' I can't really get a flow.. (As for my level, I'm taking N2 coming December)

Think about smart and well-spoken people you know from your native language. How did they become so adept in their own language? The answer will tell you many of the things one must do in learning a second language. Massive amounts of input, higher level content, reading copious amounts of literature.

My only issue is trying to figure out the reading level of the thousands of books I just downloaded. Oh and the other thousands of Aozora books… I have so many friggen books that are in Japanese…

Where can I find them?

5:05 A lot of things have their own set of vocabulary. Yea! Everybody has his own vocabulary. After watching Matt's several videos, I've got familiar with his set of vocabulary.

I just finished my first novel a week ago, 世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド！I think it being quite bizarre fit it nicely with tolerating ambiguity haha. That book and playing through ペルソナ5・ザ・ロイヤル really brought my Japanese from somewhat poor to almost functional. Also my reading speed increased eight fold between the 上巻 and 下巻.

this is a whole fresh idea to me

Just came here to comment that the thick book in the thumbnail that said "Muzukashii Hon" on the cover was quite funny.

If anybody is learning Chinese, please share with me some of your favorites :)

Great but the biggest problem is : *what should I read ?* Gotta find something fun/interesting to read otherwise you just won't do it. Well, that's already why most people don't read novels in their target language (and main language). People also recommand going increasingly in difficulty (manga->light/visual novels->novels), but what could be *some fun/interesting novels to read ?*

anyone recommend any good japanese novels for late intermediate - very early advanced level?

There are many benefits for reading a novel: 1) like Matt said, there is a much richer vocabulary. Reading a novel makes one realize how poor and basic one's existing vocabulary knowledge actually is. The authors use different words and expressions for basic actions such as speaking, sitting, running, etc, in a way that makes the scenes in the novel feel more vivid. 2) as a direct consequence of 1, one will find several words and expressions that they might not have found elsewhere through visual medium. 3) because one needs to understand the sentence using the Japanese knowledge they already have, it helps them move away from mentally translating the sentence in their head and start "thinking" in Japanese or the target language. (this will of course depend on how far they are in their language skill) 4) reading a novel forces one to review and reinforce one's existing knowledge of Japanese grammar. Novels often make use of grammar points from several JPLT(or is it JLPT, I never seem to get it right...) levels throughout the book. Even better is that you get to see the grammar "in action". 5) reading novels help you get used to several words written in kanji. This means that, over time, you'll get to recognize words even if you are not actively studying kanji. This is the most natural way of learning kanji, as they are meant to be tools to help you distinguish between homonyms, and not something you memorize to pass some random test. Knowing how individual kanji are read by themselves is not helpful most of the time. 6) above all, novels are fun! You're basically learning new words, reviewing the grammar, learning to recognize kanji, all for "free" while you enjoy a chapter of your favorite novel! There are different levels of novels, aimed at different levels, similar in a way to how different manga can have varying levels of Japanese difficulty. There are novels aimed at elementary, middle, high, and college students/adults. As a general rule of thumb, you usually can't go wrong with the most popular novels written for a given target audience.

I understood the thumbnail *Wipes tears*

i didn't even understand novel in english lol,like a lot of strange vocabolary

I'm too beginery-beginner to be able to read in Chinese :) But I can read other languages that I learn(ed)

but at what level one should start doing this

Don’t you need to be at a B level at least to be able to read a novel in target language and not be frustrated? Would you recommend this for a beginner? I’ve tried reading novels but because I couldn’t understand nearly anything it felt like a waste of time and was really frustrating, so I eventually gave up. Thoughts?

I've been immersing in a lot of Spanish recently. But, I think I'm gonna add a lot more reading to what I do - ask me in 4 months how it's going

This is true for other languages. I used this method to learn English. Now it's my primary language.

I have some questions about reading as a beginner. When you open up a manga, a novel or any written material as a beginner, it will be like bunch of symbols next to each other, that you do not understand, you just see ,,things" on paper. I would not call that reading. Or in the beginning this is the part where your eyes get fimilar with the Japanese writing? When do you strart mining these textbooks?

Essentially start hitting those light novels.

Wikipedia is easily the best resource on the planet. Articles about major historical events such as the landing on the moon, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and World War II, are extremely informative, very descriptive, and available in 200+ languages. Did you know that アポロ13号 (Apollo 13) suffered a 酸素タンク爆発 (oxygen tank explosion) which forced the two 飛行士 (astronauts) to abandon their 機械船 (command module), and rack their brains in order to 無事に地球へ帰還する (safely return to Earth)? Or did you know that the 新型コロナウイルス (Covid-19) is a 潜伏性の高い感染病 (highly virulent transmissable decease) that originated in 中華人民共和国河南省武漢市 (Wuhan City, Hunan Province, People’s Republic of China)? The main 死因 (cause of death) is 急性呼吸不全 (acute respiratory failure) Although I consume tons of fictive material too, I’ve learned far more N1-level grammar and advanced vocabulary through Wikipedia.