How To Improve Reading In Japanese

Being able to read in Japanese is an important skill, but also a difficult one. You will quickly learn it’s pretty hard to do and it will be something that you need to improve.

The reality is that you simply have no experience with reading in this language, everything is new and different, so you will need to bring this skill up from complete zero, but don’t let this put you off, as you can still reach a high level of proficiency.

It will take time and effort, so I will go through some of the ways you can help yourself to improve at reading in Japanese.

You Need To Read More

It might be obvious, but in order to get better at reading, you need to read more.

This is going to be even more important with a language like Japanese where you have zero experience. You can probably count the amount of pages you have read on one hand, so you can’t exactly expect to be good!

The core message you need to get today is that more is better …just reading more will help you improve.

Even if do nothing else that I talk about here and simply increase how much you are reading, you will see improvements.

This is exactly why you are so good at English, you where made to go to school every day and stare at books and overtime your ability grew stronger and stronger …until you can automatically recognise words.

If you read more in Japanese, you will get to this same level of automation that you have in English, you just need more exposure to Japanese. 

(you can rad more about – Exploring Different Types Of Japanese Reading Materials)

Focus On Your Understanding Of Hiragana and Katakana

If you want to get good at reading in Japanese, you need to start with mastering the basics, which is of course the letters (also known as kana)

Think back to your early days in school and how they would make you learn the letters, of course they were also making your write them too, which adds an extra level to things, but really they were trying to drill the letters into you before moving on to full words.

You need to really master hiragana and katakana and you need to get to the point that you can instantly recognise the letters. Overtime this will get stronger and stronger and will become automatic, just like your reading ability in English.

Getting good at this is really going to improve your overall reading skills. You general speed of processing a word is just going to be so much better if you have mastered the kana.

Improve Your Knowledge Of Kanji

Of course hiragana and katakana is not enough when it comes to reading, you will also need to master kanji.

This is going to be a lot harder and take more time and effort but it will be worth it. Once you can get to grips with the core kanji you will be able to read pretty much anything with ease.

There is no shortcut here, you are just going to have to sit down and start learning them one by one, but it is worth it.

The more you learn, the more you can read an while it can seem like an impossible task if you just chip away at it, learning a few every day, you will see results of the long term. You will not master kanji overnight, but give yourself a few months and you will.

Increase Your Vocabulary

While learning the kana and kanji will improve your reading skills, you will actually need to understand what you are reading, which means you need to increase your vocabulary.

When you pair this with the last two points of increasing your kana and kanji skills, it can be bit unclear what to do first, the reality is they are completely intertwined. By simply learning more vocabulary, you will be increasing your kanji knowledge as you will be seeing more hiragana and katakana, so really you can do these things all together.

Vocabulary really is the key to getting better at the language, the more words that you understand, the easier you will start to find reading.  Sentences will start to have meaning and things will start to make a lot more sense, vocabulary really will unlock a lot.

Reading and Listening To Japanese At The Same Time

A large part of being able to read is being able to internalise what you are seeing, which really means your internal voice needs to be good.

This whole concept is difficult in Japanese as you have not really heard much of the language so far and linking the sounds to the written words or letters isn’t really something you will be strong at when you begin.

A good way to fix this is to read and listen at the same time. This can be as simple as watching a film (in Japanese) and reading the subtitles (also in Japanese) at the same time.

Your brain is going to see and hear the language at the same time and this will help you when you are reading on your own. Your own internal Japanese voice will get stronger from doing this and your reading will feel more natural.

Reading Out Loud Can Help

Carrying on from the above, you can actually listen to yourself as such. You can read out loud and this will allow you to both hear the language and see it at the same time.

This is also going to be training that internal voice …and your actual voice. You are going to have to actually form the language in your brain to make the right sounds and linking this to what you are seeing on a page is very powerful.

It will feel strange and difficult at first, but when you go back to reading normally, you will feel more confident and your skills will have improved.

Re-reading Things Will Help You Improve

Most things in language learning require repeated exposure. You basically have to do the same things over and over again to make prpgress and an easy way to guarantee that this happens is to re-read the same material a few times.

How you go about this is down to you, maybe you want to do it straight away, or come back to something after a few weeks or months and then re-read when you have kind of forgotten the bulk of it.

Either way, re-reading things is going to be helpful for your brain as you are going to be seeing the same thing over and over again. This is going to help you get comfortable with the language and actually improve.

Practicing Your Writing Skills Will Help Your Reading

I kind of touched on this near the start, but writing will help your reading. As I already said, when you where in school they would make you write out the letters (and words) and while this was partly to help you learn to write, it was also helping you read at the same time.

Writing in Japanese is going to have the same effect. Having to create the Japanese characters from memory means you have a very good understanding of them, so when you see them (when reading) you are going to be able to recognise them very quickly and easily.

However, writing in Japanese is really hard and is a skill that many avoid, including me. This is really down to the fact that you will probably have no need to write, so it can be seen as a waste of effort that could have been spent in other areas.

I would say that typing does not require as much effort, but can still have same positive effects for your reading. You are still creating the language and having to consciously think about what to type and then seeing the results of that on your screen, will all reinforce your reading ability.

This is also usually seen as something you might focus on later on in your language journey, but if you are struggling with reading it may be wise to also focus on writing so that together both skills will help your overall improvement in the language.   

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can go away and work on your reading and see some improvements. Just remember that the real secret is to do more.

I know it can be tough and feel super slow, but stick with it and you will see improvements and there is no reason why you cannot get to a similar level that you have in English. You will be able to look at a Japanese sentence and fly through it at the same pace.

It just takes time and plenty of effort!

(You can read more about – Tips For Beginner Japanese Learners: How To Start Reading Japanese Texts)