Contents

Introduction

Foundation

Core

Extra

FAQ

Introduction

This is a concise guide on how to learn how to read in Japanese. For something more comprehensive see Kuri's guide. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on Discord (username: nullspace02).

Last updated 2025-06-22.

Foundation

Kana

Hiragana and Katakana are the 2 basic "alphabets" used in Japanese. You can learn them here.

Kanji

Kanji is another writing system used in Japanese. ~3000 characters are regularly used, and each kanji represents a meaning. However, the pronunciation ("reading") of a kanji changes depending on the word it is used in. For example:

• 一 (いち) "one"
• 一つ (ひとつ) "one thing"
• 日 (ひ) "day" or "sun"
• 一日 (いちにち) "one day"

Unlike kana, it doesn't make sense to learn kanji or their readings in isolation. Learn words.

Basic Vocabulary

Memorise ~1000 common words. I recommend you do this with Anki and the Kaishi 1.5k deck. You can learn how to use Anki with the Anki Manual. You can find the recommended Anki setup in the "Extra" section near the end of this guide.

Basic Grammar

Read through the Yokubi Grammar Guide.

Core

Yomitan Setup

The Yomitan browser extension will allow you to look up unknown words as you hover over them. The most important dictionaries you should install on it are:

• Jitendex for vocabulary
• Dictionary of Japanese Grammar for grammar
• JPDB Frequency v2.2

To make sure results are sorted properly, go to Yomitan settings > Dictionaries and set "Frequency sorting dictionary" to JPDBv2.

How to Read

Mindset:

• The first thing you read will be extremely difficult, no matter what it is or how many words you've memorised. Vocabulary size and reading ability are not the same thing, so don't fall into the common trap of putting off reading by memorising more words instead. The only way to get better at reading is to read, and it will be much easier after you finish your first book.
• DO NOT use machine translation (Google Translate, DeepL, ChatGPT etc), even if you are stuck! It will most likely be wrong, unnatural or misleading.
• Enjoyment always takes priority over efficiency. If you have a choice between something that is easy but boring or something that is interesting but hard, choose the hard one.
• Why you can't understand sentences (even though you know all the words)

The reading process:

• Look up every unknown word/grammar in the sentence with Yomitan. Try to memorise their meanings and readings.
• Try to understand what the sentence as a whole means. If you're struggling, try to identify the main structure of the sentence as explained in this video. If you still can't figure it out after a little while, just move on.
• Move on to the next sentence and repeat.

How to remember words:

• Read more. After enough lookups, you will eventually remember the word.
• Use Anki. You can download the Lapis notetype and read the instructions to set it up. Now whenever you look up a word in Yomitan you can make it into an Anki card (often referred to as "mining") by pressing a green + button in the top right. It's a good idea to only mine words that have unfamiliar kanji or unfamiliar kanji readings as those words will be the hardest to acquire by reading alone.

How to spend more time reading:

• Make reading into a small habit (e.g. 10 minutes every morning) then slowly increase it over time.
• Get rid of distractions. This could involve using something like Leechblock (Firefox, Chrome) to block social media for certain times of the day.

Read!

Read whatever you like!

For visual novels, you can use a texthooker (Agent or Textractor) and a clipboard inserter (Firefox, Chrome) to extract text to a texthooking page (or JL).

You can read novels (as EPUB or HTMLZ files) with ッツ Reader.

You can read manga (with Yomitan-able HTML text) at the Mokuro Catalog. For manga not in the catalog, you can use mokuro or YomiNinja.

You can browse and track VNs with vndb and novels with Bookmeter.

If you're unsure on what to read, I'd suggest 月姫 (Tsukihime) as an easy visual novel that you can read for free in your browser. You can change the language to Japanese via Config > Advanced > Language > 日本語.

For more recommendations, see Kuri's recommendation sheet. Anything rated Medium or below is suitable for your first read.

Extra

Further Yomitan Setup

There are many monolingual (JP-JP) dictionaries available for Yomitan. These provide more accurate definitions and larger coverage of unknown words. I use the following:

• 漢検漢字辞典　第二版 for concise vocab definitions and kanji information
• デジタル大辞泉 for much larger coverage
• Pixiv Light for cultural references
• JMnedict for general names
• VNDB Names for visual novel character names

To be able to look up unknown words within monolingual definitions, go to Yomitan settings > Popup Behavior and enable "Allow scanning popup content".

You can find more dictionaries in Marv's collection.

Recommended Anki Setup

Addons:

• AnkiConnect is required for Yomitan-Anki integration.
• Pass/Fail changes the buttons from Again/Hard/Good/Easy to Fail/Pass. This reduces mental strain and helps FSRS perform better.
• Speed Focus Mode adds a time limit for answering cards before automatically failing. While this sounds like it would make things difficult and stressful, it counterintuitively makes review sessions quicker and more focused.

Deck Options:

• New cards/day: 10-20
  • Try 10 to begin with. After 2 weeks the review workload should plateau and you can choose whether to increase, decrease or maintain this amount.
  • Ideally you should spend 20-30 minutes per day on Anki. Reading is more important; Anki is only a supplement.
• Maximum reviews/day: 9999
• Learning steps: 2m 4m
• Relearning steps: 1m 5m
• Leech action: Tag Only
• New/review order: Show after reviews
• FSRS: on
• Desired retention: 85%

Speed Focus Mode Options:

• Automatically play alert after 0 seconds.
• Automatically show answer after 5 seconds.
• Automatically rate again after 5 seconds.

FAQ