Thank you for letting me know we have that. I had no idea!
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I got a couple of 小学中級から adaptations of classical Chinese novels (Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West) and literally on the very first pages of each there were multiple vocabulary words that don’t even appear on JLPT word lists. Unless you already have an extensive vocabulary, you might have to go younger than even the middle of elementary school. Either that, or realize and accept right away there’s going to be a lot you don’t understand.
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alr cool! ill start doing these things. thank you so much!
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What kind of things would you be interested in reading? Anime? VNs? News articles? Tbh based on your post, it’s going to be a struggle to comprehend a ton of stuff but that shouldn’t put you off! A ton of learners, including myself!, put reading off for awhile just because the concept of not understanding most and the frustrations does not make for enjoyable times but you just gotta push through it.
I would use jpdb.io to get a gist for which anime/manga/VN/etc. is easy for beginners. Keep in mind it’s still going to be tough regardless, but this way you won’t jump into deep end of a pool before you know how to swim. If you’re looking for suggestions of particular titles feel free to ask! Myself or others here would be happy to guide you in the right direction.
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I highly recommend Natively for finding things to read. It’s a database / reading tracker for anything from graded readers to manga to novels. I’ve been finding this site really useful for gauging whether or not something will be too difficult for me to read.
So for example, you can use it to find N5 reading material. Or, since Tadoku graded readers have been recommended, here’s a list of those in order of difficulty.
And here’s an overview of what Natively’s levels mean b/c they don’t align with WK or Bunpro levels. Based on what you’ve mentioned in your post I’d suggest you start with content marked levels 0-12, but don’t be afraid to try something more difficult!
I also recommend Satori Reader and/or the WK Beginner Book Club
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yeah i guess my reading goal currently is just to read manga and stuff.
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sounds good ill check it out
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+1 for the learn natively site, it’s how I also broke into reading. I started with all the free graded readers and have worked my way up to… well more graded readers 
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One more thing I forgot to mention is children’s novels.
From Tsubasa Bunko collection I really really recommend 世にも奇妙な商品カタログ.
Bought it to practice reading, but in the end I’m just hooked to it.
Note it’s light horror, so I’m not sure how they are even in a children collection, but nevertheless. Also the structure of being short stories makes it easier as it reduces the chance of getting lost in the plot.
I wrote a review of the first book here:
I recommend jumping to easy light novels as soon as you are able to. It makes you pick up speed.
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I used to use Manabi reader which had a reasonable range of content: blogs, news, forums and folk tales. Also has audio recordings of some of its content. Might only be IOS though.
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Do you have a link to/author’s name for those? I’m a big fan of Journey to the West and reading it is a goal of mine; I’ll gladly use a children’s version as a stepping-stone.
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Sure, it’s part of the 青い鳥文庫 series published by Kodansha. As you’re probably already aware, the Japanese title of Journey to the West is 西遊記 (さいゆうき). The frontpiece says 小沢章友／文 (Ozawa Akitomo?, writer) and 山田章博／絵 (Yamada Akihiro?, illustrator). The ISBN is 978-4-06-285347-7.
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Reading is cool, stay in school!
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They have an app as well for phones and I love it. It’s one of the most useful learning applications I’ve used by far.
You should just start reading shounen or shoujo manga. It doesnt get any easier. Every single kanji has furigana. And every single phrase has a picture for reference.
You probably know this already, but Dragon Ball is loosely based on Journey to the West. (according to wikipedia.)
I can really recommend Japanese Short Stories for Beginners. It’s not exactly captivating (despite its name), but it’s a fantastic first “Wait, I can actually understand that and it doesn’t even have pictures, woah.” reading experience. At least that’s what I felt when I started reading it.
Apart from that, yeah, the already mentioned learnnatively.com got your back.
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Has anyone read this? I just got ordered it and am hoping I know enough to at least struggle through it.
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