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Manga recommendations for a beginner at Japanese?

foodcubes

後輩
9 Jul 2010
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Hi Guys, I've taken a year of Japanese in college about five years back, and I'm just getting back into learning Japanese. I'm wondering is someone can recommend a manga, or a method of reading manga for a beginner at Japanese.

Do you think that "Yotsuba&!" would be too far above my reading level? And is there any method for reading Manga, ei, do they have versions with subtitles at the bottom of the page, or do you read with your dictionary handy? For the second choice, I imagine it would be incredibly tedious for a beginner to have to look up nearly every sentence.
 
And is there any method for reading Manga, ei, do they have versions with subtitles at the bottom of the page, or do you read with your dictionary handy? For the second choice, I imagine it would be incredibly tedious for a beginner to have to look up nearly every sentence.

I've never heard of the bilingual comic books you describe. You don't have to look up every sentence. Just look up the words that you keep seeing a lot, and try to infer the rest. The more you do it, the easier it will get.
 
Yotsuba&! should be fairly easy (i have only read the english, but I do not recall many complex words) I would have the raws and the already translated copies open in separate pages just in case you get stuck, I know for a fact you can find the english version at mangafox for free.
Good luck
 
Thanks for the tips! I'll be getting the hardcopy of Yotsuba&! (raw) and use the online translation if I get stuck.

On a related note, I tried watching the anime, Porco Rosso, without subtitles and other than a few words here and there it was impossible to understand. I think I'll definitely have to start with something like Manga so that I can go at a much slower pace.
 
Hey,
I have taken about a year and half of japanese. Im reading Tegami Bachi (ニ弾ニ狸ニ蓄ツ ニ弛ニ蛋ツ)If you know your hiragana/katakana I can really recommend it! It has furigana over every kanji. Even though I didnt know most of the words, after a while I could figure out a few and it definitely improves your hiragana/katakana.
Ganbatte! :3
 
Doraemon is available in a bilingual format (for the Japanese market), and would also be good in straight Japanese. When you get a little better virtually anything by Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura) will be rewarding.
 
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