I’d been learning Japanese on and off for years when, on New Year’s Day 2022, I realised I could still barely master the sushi bar menu. Three years on I’m now reading my ninth book, having finished a few hundred comics and a videogame – all in Japanese.
I’m still amazed at my achievement. My biggest breakthrough? Learning to embrace ambiguity and finding comfort in incomplete understanding.
Growing up, I would constantly ask my parents and teachers what new words meant in English. Whether I was flicking through Thomas the Tank Engine as a toddler, or reading The Hardy Boys novels in primary school, regardless of how much I understood, I returned to these books because reading in and of itself was enjoyable.
Of course, looking up every word in a sentence is no fun. So when I was trying to read books and comics in Japanese I adopted something akin to a weightlifting routine: finding my comfort zone, then pushing a bit beyond it, resting, and trying again. It did suck at the beginning – reading stories for literal babies – but it wasn’t long before I could tackle more complexity. I made a goal to read material just above my comfortable level; if I felt confident when I finished, the next book I chose would be a bit harder. If I got frustrated, I dialled down the difficulty.
I embraced practice; the words I could understand were enough to keep me going, even if my comprehension wasn’t perfect.
Reading turned from self-imposed “study” to a fun, sustainable habit. Letting go of the specifics – embracing the fact that I didn’t understand every word – helped me cover more ground, allowing me to see phrases and vocabulary over and over in hundreds of contexts, however imperfect. And I became invested in the stories; I grew fond of the characters and wanted, nay, needed to know what happened next.
While I’ve still got a long way to go, my primary schooler-equivalent ability to read Japanese has opened me to a whole new world of literature. Tools including Natively and recommendations from communities helped me find material I could comfortably read, even if they were still a challenge.
Consistency was also key; reading a few sentences a day was better than nothing. It was also important to check my understanding occasionally, if only to confirm that the absurd stuff I was reading was accurate (and when you’re reading manga about cooking and eating fantasy creatures that also deals with a boatload of trauma, grief and regret, there is plenty of room for absurdity).
I’m still terrible at reading sushi menus – all those fish kanji (characters) look alike. But when you read widely, however basic, you broaden your experiences. Manga series including Delicious in Dungeon and Sweetness and Lightning taught me basic cooking vocabulary; I Saw the Same Dream Again, basic philosophy; My Former Boyfriend’s Cat, a crash course in business Japanese (and the dialect spoken in Osaka).
All of these lessons I used on my trip to Japan last November, speaking haltingly with friends over food and taking pride in being able to read timetables, signs, instructions and pamphlets. It’s as though an ocean has opened up before me, and for now I’m just wading in the shallows – knowing that someday I’ll swim.