The Five Best Books for Learning Kanji

When I started teaching Japanese, I thought that beginner classes would be a kanji-free zone. I thought we'd be totally focused on speaking as much as possible, and reading and writing would be a homework-only activity for my students.

But, two things happened:

1) Students sometimes need help in class with reading and writing; and

2) It turns out lots of students are really interested in the Japanese writing system.

Which makes sense to me, as the writing system is kind of what got me interested in Japanese in the first place, too!

Anyway, I have a lot of kanji books. And today, I'd like to share some of them with you!

So here are my top five kanji books, for beginners up to advanced.

Links with an asterisk* are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, when you click through and buy the book. Thanks for your support!

1) Kanji Pict-o-Graphix*

If you’re a visual learner, or you enjoy storytelling, you may have learned hiragana and katakana using mnemonics.

But did you know that for a lot of people, mnemonic devices can be a great start to learn kanji, too?

Kanji Pict-o-Graphix* gives you visual hints for remembering common kanji characters.

The book is arranged thematically, so you have a whole page of kanji with one component (like this page of characters containing the kanji for "sun" 日:

2) Kanji Look and Learn*

Like Kanji Pict-o-Graphix, Kanji Look and Learn* combines visual mnemonics with stories. But whereas Kanji Pict-o-Graphix feels like a fun coffee-table book, this is more of a serious study tool.

As well as stories to help you recognise the shape of kanji characters, you'll also find readings and example vocabulary. If you've ever used the Genki textbooks, you'll notice that the layout of this is similar to the kanji sections at the back of those books - that's because this is an extension to the series called 'Genki Plus'.

There's a Kanji Look and Learn Workbook*, too, which offers practice exercises alongside the main book. I used the Kanji Look and Learn series on my short course Japanese Kanji for Beginners last year, and they were really popular with students.

3) Basic Kanji Book*

No bells and whistles here - the Basic Kanji Book* is a comprehensive guide to 500 kanji, arranged by theme. There's plenty of reading practice and quizzes throughout.

It's not going to hold your hand for you and you'll need a dictionary (or a good teacher), but if you're serious about getting out of the beginner stages, this is the book for you.

4) Remembering the Kanji*

People who've tried the system suggested by James W. Heisig in his Remembering the Kanji series fall into two camps: they either love it, or they think it's totally stupid. This is the first book in the series, and its full title is Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not To Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters*.

You won't find a single drawing or pictographic in Heisig's book. Instead he requires the reader to use their imaginative memory to memorise each character. And - here's the controversial bit - he argues that before learning any kanji readings, you should first learn their meanings using an English keyword.

It's not for everyone...but if you think it might be for you, read the first chapter (and its illuminating introduction) for free here.

5) Kanji in Context*

When I was studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N1, I came up with a picture in my mind of the kanji practice book I wanted.

I wanted to be given (in hiragana) a vocabulary word I should know, and be tested on my ability to write the kanji from memory.

A couple of years later, I discovered that the book of my dreams already existed. It's called Kanji in Context*, and instead of teaching you kanji in isolation, it presents them in example sentences and phrases - in (you guessed it) context. There’s a fantastic accompanying workbook* too.

So there you have it - my top five kanji books from beginner to advanced! I'd love to know what you think - how do you like to study kanji? And what did I miss?

First published 1 April 2016
Updated 8 January 2020

Useful Phrases for Your First Online Japanese Lesson

Can you say “can you hear me?” in Japanese?

In some ways, a Skype lesson isn’t that different from a face-to-face Japanese lesson. But all new situations need some new vocabulary! And when you start having one-to-one lessons online, you might need some new words and phrases you haven’t come across before.

1) もしもし　moshi moshi

“Moshi moshi” is another way to say “hello”, but it’s usually only used on the phone.

When you answer the phone in Japanese, say “moshi moshi”.

You can also say “moshi moshi?” if the line cuts out and you want to check that the other person can hear you.

2) 聞こえますか　kikoemasu ka

“Kikoemasu” means “to be heard” or “to be audible”. So in the context of a phone call or Skype lesson, “kikoemasu ka” means “Can you hear me?”

It’s a good way to check your mic is working at the start of a lesson!

3) 見えますか　miemasu ka

If you have Japanese lessons via Skype, it’s important that you can see the teacher, and they can see you!

“Miemasu ka” means “Can you see me?” Use this phrase if you want to check with your teacher that your video is working ok.

4) もう一度お願いします　mou ichido onegai shimasu

“Mou ichido” means “once again”, and “onegaishimasu” means “please”.

So “Mou ichido onegai shimasu” means “please say that again.”

Perfect for if you didn’t quite catch what your teacher said.

5) わかりますか　wakarimasu ka

“Wakarimasu ka?” means “do you understand?” Your teacher may ask you this.

You can answer this question with “wakarimashita” (I understand; I got it). Or “wakarimasen” (I don’t understand).

6) ＿＿＿＿はわかりません。 ＿＿＿＿wa wakarimasen.

This phrase means “I don’t understand [word].” For when you need to say exactly what you don’t understand!

You could also ask “[word] wa eigo de nan desu ka” (“What is [word] in English?”)

For example:

Teacher:　週末はどうでしたか。Shuumatsu wa dou deshita ka? (How was your weekend?)

Student: …「どう」はわかりません。…”Dou” wa wakarimasen. (…I don’t understand “dou”.)

Teacher: 「どう」は英語で”how”です。 “Dou” wa eigo de “how” desu. (“Dou” means “how” in English”)

Student:　ああ、わかりました！ Aa, wakarimashita! (Ah, I got it!)

If you can get a few of these phrases under your belt, you should be ready to face any new situation you encounter during your first online Japanese lesson!

But remember, you don’t need to be perfect before your first lesson… lessons are for practising, and making mistakes so you can learn as much as possible.

Click here to find out more about Japanese lessons via Skype, or contact me to arrange a free consultation.

What to Write in Japanese New Year's Cards

Every year, Japanese households send and receive New Year’s postcards called nengajō (年賀状). The cards are sent to friends and family, as well as to people you have work connections with.

Image: yubin-nenga.jp

If you post your cards in Japan before the cut-off date in late December, the postal service guarantees to deliver them on January 1st.

Card designs often feature the Chinese zodiac animal of the new year. For example, 2016 was the year of the monkey, so lots of designs that year included monkeys!

Cards sold in shops or at the post office usually have a lottery number on the bottom, too:

Nengajō greetings are a good opportunity to practice your Japanese handwriting. You might want to practice on a piece of blank paper before writing on the card itself.

Every year, we use printed templates to write New Year messages in class. I love helping my students write nengajō to their family and friends.

Photo by Bob Prosser

But what should you write in nengajō?

There are two key phrases to remember for writing nengajō:

1. あけましておめでとうございます！

akemashite omedetou gozaimasu

Happy New Year!

2. 今年もよろしくお願いします。

kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu

I hope for your favour again in the coming year.

You could also go for something like:

明るく楽しい一年でありますように

Akaruku tanoshii ichinen de arimasu you ni

I hope you have a wonderful year.

or:

旧年中は大変お世話になりました。

Kyuunenjuu wa taihen osewa ni narimashita.

Thank you for your kindness throughout the last year.

Photo by Bob Prosser

Photo by Bob Prosser

A very happy new year from me (Fran), and:

今年もよろしくお願いします！

Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

(I hope for your favour again in the coming year)

First published 31st December 2018
Updated 16th December 2019

Watching Japanese TV Every Day for a Month (Or, What to Do When Things Don't Go To Plan)

In my second year of university, when I should have been revising for my Japanese exam, I borrowed the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫 Mononoke-hime) from a friend and watched that instead. It was way too fast for me, and I didn’t understand anything. I think I literally caught about two words.

It definitely didn’t help with my exam. If anything it just left me feeling a bit discouraged. I should have watched Mononoke with subtitles. Or, probably, I should have watched something easier.

I gave up on watching Japanese films for a while after that. But later on, I discovered Japanese TV, and found it a fun and interesting way to develop my listening skills.

As one of my monthly challenges this year, I decided to watch Japanese TV every day for a month. I thought this would be easy – I already watch quite a lot of Japanese TV.

But just like my exam “revision”, it didn’t exactly go to plan…

Week One – A Promising Start

I spent the first week of September helping my brother move house. I had the week off work, I wasn’t doing any lesson prep or teaching, and I had good chunks of time to myself each day. It was easy to watch an episode or two of Japanese TV every day.

I watched The Naked Director (全裸監督 zenra kantoku), a Netflix series about the life of Japanese adult video director Toru Muranishi. These episodes are 45 minutes, so I’d watch one a day, or half an episode a day if I was short on time.

Tip: Don’t feel obliged to watch whole episodes. Half an episode is better than nothing.

Watching Japanese TV every day was going to be easy, I thought.

Week Two – Branching Out

Back home in Brighton, the following week, I watched some of Atelier (アンダーウェア andāwea, meaning Underwear), another drama series. Atelier is about a young woman, Tokita-san, who works for a high-class lingerie shop in Tokyo’s Ginza district. It’s a gentle, chocolate-boxy show about Tokita’s relationship with her intimidating boss.

I started watching Atelier when it came out in 2015, got bored and came back it this month. I watched about six episodes again this time, and then got bored again.

One of the great things about Netflix, of course, is that it has a wide range of shows, so you can jump about and find something you like. You don’t have to commit to watching in the same way that you would if you were buying a TV series or paying to rent it from a DVD shop (remember those? I do.)

Tip: If you get bored, stop watching and try something else!

I moved on to Netflix’s Terrace House (テラスハウス, terasu hausu).

(Interestingly, テラス (terasu) is the Japanese word for a balcony, so the “terrace house” of the title is a fancy modern house with a balcony, not a UK “terraced house”, which is a house built as part of a row of houses.)

Terrace House is a housemate-format reality TV show. Unlike other house-based shows, though, it’s slow-moving and meditative. There are no “evil” tasks or conflict-inducing rule changes.

The housemates are allowed to come and go as they please. They go to work. Not much really happens. No one is voted out, and mostly they seem to sit around talking about what to have for dinner.

It’s delightful, and from my students I know it’s pretty popular among learners of Japanese.

The format of Terrace House is great for comprehension, too. You watch the intro, which previews the action and shows you what’s going to happen. Then the action happens. Then the studio cast discuss what’s happened. Then we preview what’s coming up on the next episode. This is great for comprehension, because key points are repeated.

It’s a bit like this sketch:

Of course, reality TV is great listening practice for natural speech. It’s how real people speak, in fairly real situations. If you find natural speech fast or difficult to follow, try watching with subtitles.

Tip: turn the subtitles on. It’s not cheating to watch with subtitles! If you’re at intermediate level or above, try watching with Japanese subtitles.

I also watched a beautiful film, 聲の形 (koe no katachi, A Silent Voice), which was recommended to me by several of my students. It’s an animated teen drama, following the relationship between a deaf girl and a hearing boy, and exploring themes of bullying, disability and redemption.

If you liked Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name (君の名は, kimi no na wa), you should definitely watch A Silent Voice:

Things were going well!

Week Three – Forgetting

I went vegetarian when I was ten. A few months later, my friend’s sister decided she was going to be vegetarian too. But then the next week, out for a meal, she forgot and ordered spaghetti bolognese. Once her meal came, she remembered that she was supposed to be vegetarian and was quite upset.

I found this totally baffling. How could she forget something so important? How could someone forget that spaghetti bolognese isn’t vegetarian? Why didn’t her parents question it when she ordered? None of this made sense to me.

I was similarly surprised, in the middle of the third week of September, to remember that I was supposed to be watching Japanese TV every day. I hadn’t watched any Japanese TV for four whole days. Not only that, I even hadn’t noticed I hadn’t done it. I just completely forgot.

I’m usually a pretty organised and disciplined person, so this was an unpleasant surprise. September is a busy month for me, as my new courses start, and this year was particularly busy, as I had other things going on too.

But what to do now?

When you realise you’ve “failed” at a challenge you've set yourself, you basically have two choices.

Option one is to give up. There was no way for me to turn back time and achieve what I set out to do – to watch Japanese TV every day in September. So, I figured, I could just quit, and take it easy for the rest of the month.

Option one was pretty tempting, especially when I started to think about why I had managed to forget that I was supposed to be doing this challenge.

I think the key problem was that watching Japanese TV is not really a challenge for me. I don’t mean that it’s not difficult – obviously I don’t understand everything. Or that I have nothing to learn – I do.

But I already watch TV most days, and I watch quite a bit of Japanese-language TV, so watching Japanese TV every day was not enough of a change in habit. I did it for half the month, and then I forgot I was supposed to be doing it.

The other monthly challenges I’ve done have been harder, and yet I managed them. Speaking Japanese without being in Japan required planning, effort, early mornings and occasional bribery. Reading Japanese books every day, I needed to have a book on me at all times. Even playing Japanese video games every day required me to work out when I was going to squeeze 20 or 30 minutes out of each day.

But watching Japanese TV when I get home from work just feels a bit too similar to watching English-language TV when I get home from work.

Tip: don’t make your goals too easy, or you may find that they’re not motivating.

Option Two was to keep going, and see how it went. I figured that even if I didn't clock up the hours I was hoping for, it would probably still be more Japanese TV than I would have watched otherwise.

I decided to keep going.

Week Four - Taking a Detour

At the weekend, I watched five episodes of Terrace House (2.5 on Saturday, 2.5 on Sunday. See, the half episodes do add up).

I also watched another Japanese film, Tokyo Sonata:

Japanese TV started to crop up everywhere. A colleague asked if I was into Kore-eda films. The new term started, and I overheard my new beginner students talking about Terrace House. My STEP 2 students swapped recommendations for easy Japanese shows to watch. I went for a walk with a friend, and she told me she’d been exploring the Japanese side of Netflix.

As for me? I might watch Princess Mononoke again some day, now that I can understand it.

It’s good to make a plan for your language learning, but it’s ok if the plan doesn’t work out. Taking a detour can be more interesting anyway.

Learning Japanese is Easier Than You Think

People LOVE to say that Japanese is difficult. Like all languages it has its challenges - but it also has some key things that make it easy peasy.

1. Pronunciation

The Japanese phonetic system is pretty simple - much simpler than many other languages. Each hiragana character has one - and only one - sound. For example, ら / ラ / ra always sounds the same, no matter what word it’s in:

ラ ム ネ

ra mu ne

ど ら え も ん

do ra e mo n

Compare that to English, where “meat” and “bread” have the same letters “ea” in the middle, but with totally different pronunciation.

And, unlike Mandarin or Cantonese, there are no tones* in Japanese! Hurray!

*Japanese does have pitch accent. Put simply, all syllables in Japanese are either high-pitched or low-pitched. But this is much simpler than tones in Chinese languages. If you’d like to learn more about Japanese pitch accent, I really recommend the Japanese Phonetics by Dogen series on YouTube.

2. Loanwords

Japanese has thousands of words borrowed from other languages - and most of these modern loanwords come from English. How do you say "ice cream” in Japanese? AISU KURIIMU. Tennis? TENISU. Smartphone? SUMAATOFON.

So there’s a whole bank of Japanese words that you already know. Well done you.

↓ Words like "biiru"

3. Straightforward grammar

Japanese word-order has a certain Yoda-like quality at times:

わたしはコーヒーを飲んでいます

watashi wa koohii wo nonde imasu

I, coffee am drinking

BUT making simple questions in Japanese is dead easy. You take your sentence:

日本に行きます

nihon ni ikimasu

I go to Japan

and stick the magical question word “ka” on the end:

日本に行きますか

nihon ni ikimasu ka

Will you go to Japan?

No need to change the word order. Just add か. 

Let’s try that again!

これはたこやきです

kore wa takoyaki desu

This is takoyaki.

これはたこやきですか

kore wa takoyaki desu ka

Is this takoyaki?

Making simple Japanese questions - as easy as adding “ka”.

4. Particles

Particles are short Japanese words that connect parts of a sentence together. They turn a sentence like “I study home evening” into one that sounds like “I study at home in the evening”.

But I’m going to let you in on a secret.

If you don’t know what particle to use, 90 percent of the time you can get away with not using one at all.

People will still know what you mean - and Japanese people drop particles in speech half the time anyway.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t learn how to use particles (it’s good to know the difference between いぬがたべる “the dog eats” and いぬをたべる “I eat my dog”). But remember: you will still be understood without them.

5. No articles…and no plurals!

Japanese doesn’t have equivalents to the English “a” or “the”. There’s no need to say “where is THE book?” in Japanese. You can just say:

ほんはどこ？

hon wa doko?

Where is book?

AND there are no plural forms.

りんごがあります

ringo ga arimasu

I have an apple / some apples

See? The Japanese language. Easier than you thought.

What do you find easy (or difficult) about learning Japanese? Let me know in the comments!

First published November 20, 2015
Updated September 17, 2019

Say Good Morning to the Room - The Importance of Aisatsu (Greetings) in Japan

By the entrance to the conference room, there was a flip chart with a message: “Please sign in here, and then go through the door and say good morning to the room”.

“OHAYO GOZAIMAAASU!” I yelled. (GOOD MORNING!)

We had practiced this yesterday. “In Japanese workplaces,” they told us, “you must greet the room enthusiastically when entering.”

As I took my seat, I noticed that some trainees had been given a piece of card by staff as they entered.

A member of staff took to the podium. “Well done everybody on your amazing greetings this morning. You sounded so energetic and loud!

“Those of you who’ve been given a card, your greetings were not quite as genki (energetic) as they could have been. Have a think about that.”

I was at a week’s training for my new job as Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Nagoya.

I wasn’t sure about the method of handing out cards to let some people know their greetings weren’t up to regulation enthusiasm standards. But I got the message - greetings are important.

Fast-forward three months, and I was teaching in Junior High school. Every morning, I’d take my shoes off in the entryway to the school and change into my indoor slippers. I’d slide open the door to the staffroom, and greet the room: “OHAYO GOZAIMAAASU!”

“Ohayo gozaimasu!” other teachers would say back, at varying volumes and with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Good morning!

A few minutes later, the vice principal passed by my desk:

フラン先生は、挨拶がいつも元気ですね。

Fran-sensei wa, aisatsu ga itsumo genki desu ne.

(“Your morning greetings are always so cheerful!”)

そうですか。ありがとうございます。

Sou desu ka. Arigatou gozaimasu.

(“Is that so? Thank you.”)

I smiled all day.

How to Practise Japanese by Playing Video Games Every Day

Earlier this year, I was telling a friend about the various monthly challenges I set myself to practise Japanese.

“What are you going to do in July?”

“I might try writing every day, like a diary or something? Or I might watch Japanese TV every day…”

“Fran, watching TV every day doesn't really sound like a challenge.”

“…or I might play video games every day.”

“That definitely doesn't sound like a ‘challenge’ to me.”

“…all the more reason to do it, right?”

Who says challenges have to be challenging? I played Japanese video games for about 20 minutes a day for a month. Here’s what I learned: six reasons to play video games in a foreign language. 

This is not really a “how to” post. I’m not going to tell you how to “learn Japanese in a week just by playing video games” or to claim this is a “quick route to fluency” (it’s not, namely because there is no quick route to fluency, just an endless and potentially very enjoyable road trip).

Instead, I’m just going to share some reflections on the very fun experience that was playing Japanese video games every day.

In July, I played the second and third Gyakuten Saiban (逆転裁判) games. (I’ve played games one and two before, a few years ago.)

The English title for the series is Ace Attorney. I mostly use the Japanese names here, because I play the games in Japanese, and I don’t know the English names.

I also played some bits of Life is Strange, another story-based game. Life is Strange isn’t a Japanese game, but as with a lot of video games, you can just switch the language to Japanese. But mostly I played a lot of Gyakuten Saiban, so I’ll talk about that here.

What is Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney)?

Gyakuten Saiban is a Japanese visual novel adventure game based in and around courtrooms. In the games I played, you play as Naruhodō Ryūichi (his name in the English-language version is Phoenix Wright), a defence attorney who fights for justice for his clients.

Put simply, the aim is to win all the cases by shouting “objection!” at appropriate points, finding contradictions in evidence, and therefore ensuring your defendant is found “not guilty”.

What kind of language level is it?

The Gyakuten Saiban games are suitable for students of Japanese at the advanced level. If you’ve played the game in English before and have intermediate level Japanese, you could probably give it a good go.

If you’re a beginner, this one’s not for you. Try tabikaeru (旅かえる, ‘Travel Frog’) instead.

Practicalities

I started playing on Nintendo DS, but switched to playing the iOS port, on an old iPhone 5.

I played the game every day for at least 20 minutes, by putting the phone in my bag and playing it when I was waiting somewhere, on a bus, or having lunch. Probably, if I’d tried to play the DS every day, I would have forgotten and left it at home.

I don’t really like phone games, but the iPhone has no connectivity. So it functions as a little hand-held, and without the distraction of phone notifications going off.

Six Great Things About Playing Japanese Visual Novel Games 

1) Vocabulary you would not otherwise encounter

Just off the top of my head, here is a short and incomplete list of words I have learned from playing Gyakuten Saiban:

検事　　けんじ　　　　public prosecutor​

異議　　いぎ　　　　　objection

刑事　　けいじ　　　　police detective

拘置所　こうちしょ　　prison

裁判所　さいばんしょ　court

裁判官　さいばんかん　judge

矛盾　　むじゅん　　　contradiction, inconsistency

逆転　　ぎゃくてん           turn-around, reversal

This is not useful vocabulary for my day-to-day life (unless I have a run-in with the Japanese judicial system anytime soon). 

But it’s precisely because this vocabulary is not particularly common, that I hadn’t encountered it before.

Just like books, video games introduce you to new and interesting vocabulary you might not encounter in everyday life.

And sometimes, understanding that vocabulary will be entirely necessary in order to progress in the game…

2) Solving riddles

The great thing about Gyakuten Saiban, from a language-learning perspective, is that the gameplay mostly revolves around finding contradictions in evidence.

For example, a witness on the stand says they saw the victim being stabbed in the chest. But the autopsy result shows that the victim was stabbed in the back!

In order to move on in the game, you have to find this contradiction and present the evidence in order to show that the witness is lying.

You don’t need to understand everything that’s going on at all times, but you do need to understand (in this example) the words for “chest”, “back”, “cause of death” etc.

In this way, playing a text-based video game in Japanese is a little like taking a test (a really fun one). The game is testing your understanding of what’s going on. If you don't understand, you can’t go any further.

(Image source: Nintendo)

3) A non-boring way to learn vocabulary

Video games are a great way to learn new vocabulary in a fairly natural way.

Let’s look at another example from Gyakuten Saiban. You’re examining a crime scene. You select an item in the scene, and the game tells you what that item is called. If the item is useful, you’ll probably see it again, and its name will be mentioned again and again, cementing the word in your mind.

If it’s not a useful item in the game, you might not see it again, but that’s ok too. We’re here to play the game, not to memorise a boring list of useless vocabulary. 

And if the word is one that the writers think may be unfamiliar to the player, there’s usually a younger character around to help out…

4) The younger assistant role

Naruhodo, the main character, has an assistant and friend named Mayoi (Maya, in the English version).

Shu Takumi, creator of the games, explained the presence of Mayoi as follows:

“I thought that, rather than investigating alone, it would be more fun for the player to have someone with them from whom they could get advice.”
(Source)

Mayoi is a great character – a good friend to Naruhodo, and a really fun sidekick character. Their interactions are one of my favourite things about the games. She’s also young and sometimes naïve, which means she serves an important practical purpose.

She asks Naruhodo how names and difficult kanji are read. And when new or difficult concepts come up, Mayoi is there to ask what things mean and to require explanation. This is super helpful.

(Image source: Famitsu)

5) Video games are basically books

Gyakuten Saiban is a visual novel game. There’s really quite a lot of reading required.  

But the text is accompanied by visual explanations – pictures and animated sequences, so I think it’s easier to understand than a conventional novel. 

And compared to most books, it’s very dialogue-heavy. Almost all of the text is dialogue. That’s good, because dialogue is how people speak.

You can learn a lot by reading narrative stories, but you won’t learn how people speak unless you’re exposed to a lot of dialogue and conversation.

6) You don’t have to understand everything

This game is very pun-heavy. Honestly, I don’t get all the puns. But that’s ok. When you learn a foreign language, you need to be prepared to not understand everything. I probably wouldn't get all the puns in English either.

As Katie Harris from Joy of Languages puts it:

“Tolerate ambiguity. When you’re listening in a foreign language, you’re going to spend a lot of time not getting stuff – that’s normal. If you have a tendency to get frustrated when you don’t understand things, you’re going to make life unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Accept ambiguity as a natural part of language learning and you’ll be able to remain calm and keep moving forward.”

(from Improve Your Listening in a Foreign Language - The Ultimate Guide)

Katie’s talking about listening, but I think we could confidently swap out “reading”  here and the idea definitely still applies. Not understanding everything you read and see is totally normal. 

…and if you get really stuck, there’s always the walkthrough.

There’s another word I learned:  

攻略　こうりゃく　walkthrough

I really might watch TV every day in September, though. Who says challenges have to be challenging…?

(Top image source: Nintendo)