Learning to read Kana with games and managa - Any suggestions?

[Deano Parker]

I started learning Japanese a few days ago and I have memorized around 80% of the Kana. I loaded up a huge list of words written in Kana and I got all excited when I could read them correctly!

I am enjoying being able to read Kana to a certain extent and I want to keep reading it until I can do it more naturally and quickly (At the moment it takes me a few seconds to read a each word)

I was wondering if you could suggest any Japanese video games or manga (with furigana) with basic sentences that I can read, translate and learn. I suppose I should be looking for something geared towards children. I enjoy playing most type of videos games but I think that RPG would be more beneficial to me and I will read just about any manga.
Any help would be must appreciated. Thank you

Note - I do understand the importance of learning resources such as textbooks and teachers. I am pursuing all them options but I just want to find something fun to do

[Shiriu]

Really, I don't think this is a good idea. Try it and see for yourself if you find it useful.
The problem is that something geared towards children can be difficult to read for a learner.
A child does not necessarily use "easy" vocabulary.
By the way, when I was at your level, I tried but couldn't bear reading something I could not understand at all.
You should learn more grammar and vocabulary before. Now my level is JLPT4 (I know all the vocabulary and all the kanji used in the words from the vocabulary list as well, that's about 600 characters I think) and I can read manga such as one piece without burning out.
The fact that there are furigana allows an easy search of any kanji one comes across.
As for games... In most games there is no furigana (I heard FF7 does have them but I never checked), so if you see a kanji you don't know, either you ignore it or you look up for about 1 or 2 minutes in a kanji dictionary, this is really tiring.
I think you should learn more before attempting to read native materials but you are free to try out.

Frankly, I think there is no way to learn japanese the "fun way" (unless you deem the learning of kanji funny). There are people who claim they've learnt japanese just by watching anime. I can't believe them. I've been watching anime since I am 13 and the only benefit of it is to acquire the right tone/pitch.

[nekojita]

Stuff for kids is not as simple as a lot of people first imagine it to be, grammar being a particular problem, and translation is not always a good way to learn (e.g. the bit where you try to get everything into understandable English). However, I do think games are a good fun way to practice - not if you're trying to translate every text box, but if you understand the instructions and can work out how to play the game, that's always a plus! As long as it's in addition to study, not instead of it. ;)

If you have a DS, the Zelda game Phantom Hourglass or whatever it was has pop-up kana (tap the kanji), and was pretty fun. I haven't played anything else that was all-kana, but I know some stuff is. I do like online RPGs or city-building type things, since you can work your way through the tutorials and it's pretty much along the lines of "go here, kill three wolves, then talk to so-and-so" or "click here and equip your new helmet" or whatever. There's loads of stuff like that for free on places like bg-time.jp/ or 無料ゲーム・オンラインゲーム・PC ゲームのハンゲーム but none that I know of that's kana-only.

Other stuff that is online and free:

Hiragana reading/writing practice sites:
勉強しよう！Leeのきょうざいかん・国語・こくご・ひ� 轤ｪな
(All the various links underneath おぼえる are basically "match the kana word to the right picture" tasks with various themes)
ひらがな 練習 プリント [ジャッカ -JAKKA.JP-]
(More for writing, meant to be traced over or copied, but any link here which contains the word "短文" gives short simple sentences in hiragana so could be used for reading practice).

Major kids portal sites:
kids.yahoo.co.jp
kids.goo.ne.jp/
These will have a few simple online games/study 'games' and a variety of other stuff. Some is kana-only, other stuff will only use low-level kanji. At least see how much of the front page you can work out.

Free (legal, older+out of print stuff only, ad-supported) manga site, some of which has quite a bit of furigana, try a few (grammar/vocab is likely to be the issue):
Jコミ

[Deano Parker]

Thank you for your replies.

I think I agree with your statements. Translating and understanding the Kana would be pointless if I didn't understand the grammar. I think I will get to grips with that before using Japanese games and reading manga. It's a real shame because it's one of the things that has made me interested in the language in the first place.

The links you provided nekojita are fantastic! Thank you again

[Mike Cash]

If you just started learning a few days ago, then there is no particular rush about getting stuff to read. It is going to be a looong while before you're ready to read stuff. Hang in there, though.