How to Learn Japanese with Manga

Manga is one of the best ways to practise reading Japanese, because pictures carry the story when your vocabulary runs out and many series aimed at younger readers print furigana (small kana) over every kanji. The trick is to choose manga at the right level: start with everyday stories for children or teenagers rather than fantasy or historical series, read a few pages at a time, look up only the words that keep coming back, and read lines aloud to turn reading into speaking practice. This guide covers how to choose manga, what to watch out for in manga Japanese and a simple routine that works.

Choosing manga for your level

• Look for furigana. Manga for children and teenagers usually has furigana on all kanji, so you can read and look up every word. Manga for adults often doesn’t.
• Pick everyday settings. School life, cooking, family, work and slice-of-life stories use the Japanese you’ll actually hear. Fantasy, science fiction and samurai stories are full of invented terms and old-fashioned speech.
• Start with something you’ve already read or watched. Knowing the story in English lets you focus on the language.
• Try a free sample first. Many digital stores and apps let you read the first chapter free. If you need a dictionary for every bubble, pick something easier.

A rough guide: after around JLPT N4, everyday manga with furigana is readable with a dictionary; around N3 it starts to feel enjoyable. See how to start reading in Japanese.

What makes manga Japanese different

• Casual speech. Characters use plain forms, contractions (じゃん, てる, ちゃう) and sentence-ending particles. Great for understanding friends, but don’t copy it at work. See casual vs polite Japanese.
• Character speech. Tough boys say おれ and だぜ, old people say じゃ, and some characters have a made-up way of talking. Ask a tutor before using anything that sounds like a character.
• Sound effects. Words like ドキドキ, ゴゴゴ and シーン are drawn into the art. Many are real onomatopoeia used in daily life. See Japanese onomatopoeia.
• Reading direction. Pages and panels go right to left, and speech bubbles are read top to bottom, right to left.
• Vertical text. Manga is written vertically, which is good practice for novels, newspapers and signs.

A simple routine

1. Read a few pages once for the story, without a dictionary.
2. Reread and look up words you can’t guess, especially ones that appear more than once.
3. Add five to ten useful words or lines to flashcards. See flashcards and spaced repetition.
4. Read your favourite page aloud, acting out the characters. It’s good speaking and pronunciation practice.
5. Once a week, retell what happened in your own words, in speech or writing.

What manga won’t teach you

Manga is mostly dialogue, so it won’t teach you polite or business Japanese, and it can give you a skewed idea of how people speak. It also doesn’t practise listening. Pair it with anime or dramas for listening (see learning Japanese with anime and dramas) and with conversation practice so the Japanese you read becomes Japanese you can say.

Read manga with a tutor

A tutor can explain the slang and grammar in the pages you’re reading, tell you which lines sound natural in real life and use the story for conversation practice. Our native Japanese tutors teach one-to-one online, in English. Your first 15 minutes are a free trial.