Kanji Learner's Course Graded Reading Sets, Vol. 1: Kanji 1-100

Content: This is a collection of unrelated sentences and sentence fragments that progressively introduce kanji in the order of the main book KKLC (which teaches kanji with mnemonics that I think are the best out there). There are extra features like referencing grammar points as they appear (see the introduction - it has good coverage of textbook references), and including common set phrases and collocations. The idea is you first read the sentence without furigana, then check the furigana, then check your understanding with the translation.

You can read this first set free from the author's website, or on the (unrelated to the author) Chase Colburn's Kanji Study App. I ended up buying all of them on the app because it is so convenient to use (and it's the best deal to buy them in just 2 purchases at the time).

Difficulty level: upper intermediate to advanced (N3+). The KKLC system and these graded reader sets (GRS) use complex (often N3+) vocabulary and grammar. In other words, it is not starting from N5 material and working up. The grading is in kanji use only, not vocab and grammar. The idea is to only use words with kanji that have already been introduced. For the most part, the author achieves this. He can rely on the many words that appear frequently in kanji or kana (even in adult level books).

(Therefore, due to the higher vocab and grammar level needed to read these, for complete beginners: I suggest pairing KKLC with the (Genki related) Kanji Look and Learn WORKBOOK for kanji reading/writing practice at first, then move up to these harder GRS once you can read at Natively level 23+). This is because the Kanji Look and Learn uses vocab and sentences with simple vocab and grammar that gets gradually more complex in line with the Genki (N5/N4) textbooks, or whatever beginner grammar resource you're using.

Process / how to use KKLC-GRS

The author recommends reading them straight through as you study kanji with some strategies for rereading. It's so boring and repetitive, that was not effective for me and I almost abandoned them completely.

Instead, I read the sentences (on the app) as follows. I enjoy this and get a lot from it:

• as a reference to get a quick overview of context when learning a new word (searching the app for a word highlights all graded reading sentences containing that word)
• just reading a few new sentences per day from multiple kanji (you can set the app to automatically mark them as read as you go and then you can easily start with the "first unread").
• using the quiz feature to study recently learned kanji or weak kanji and instead of it using a random word as a prompt, it uses a random or "favourite" graded reader sentence as a prompt.

Here is more detail on my method for reading these in the app (because this dramatically increased my enjoyment and learning compared to the author's recommended method):

I start at the hardest level I've studied (e.g., so if I'm studying kanji in the 300s then choose "set 4"). I'll just start reading at the first unread entry. I like to read sentences just at my sweet spot of learning about one new thing or being just a little challenging a few times, so I leave sentences "unread" so that I know I haven't read them or I want to read them again. I mark them as read when that's the last time I want to see it (it's too easy, too hard, or I've seen it a few times and I don't want to review it again). I mark it as favourite if I want it to appear in a quiz (I can set the filter to prefer favourites). After I read a few entries for one kanji, I'll skip to the next kanji (enter "skip only" so the remaining sentences don't all get marked as read). Once I get bored if I have time I'll stop or go to the easiest level I haven't finished. I'm not bothered about when I "finish" these. It is great practice for reading and although it's not that interesting, it is very bite size and easy to do a few minutes a day. I have transitioned to reading these instead of doing Anki.

This won't be everything for everyone, and early on I thought some phrases were too obscure to be useful, but now that I read daily at the intermediate level and above, I have to say I'm impressed how much I learn from these sentences that comes up relatively soon in my reading (manga and novels level 26+)

Great resource if you can stomach the woke bullshit

This looks like a combination of the Joyo kanji, graded reader, and Dictionary of Japanese Grammar rolled up into one and very concise plus the kana readings of the passages. It also gives various example usages inside natural material when there are different readings of the kanji. The blurb summary of references after each passage has an extremely brief but helpful one-word description of every piece of the passage that you just read. It is very helpful to see this quick descriptors of the words, particles and grammar points. This could be the most valuable part.

I am reading the Kindle-dedicated version and the lookups have not been Kindle-friendly so far. For example, if I highlight a word on the Kindle to lookup, the highlight automatically includes a particle and thus the compound word plus particle cannot be found in the Kindle dictionary. This is very unfortunate and I hope it is only the case from the initial examples in the introduction. Luckily, the kana readings follow each passage so I can look up words manually.

There is an eye-rolling woke blurb at the beginning about "diverse sources" and altered pronouns and then the author proceeds to add a female gender to a genderless Japanese sentence in one instance. Furthermore, there are 2 shameless anti-Trump sentences that in total distract from study and are irrelevant to Japan and Japanese. I would hope that the next volumes would have less of these injections but I am skeptical.

Minor complaints are that some sentences are a bit weird and unnatural, and there are occasionally some very similar almost repetitive examples in a row. I also wish that the main way to read the standalone kanji was given at the start of each Kanji; the way Japanese would communicate it verbally.

Because you go through this sentence by sentence, it is perfect to read when you just have a few minutes or are in a situation where you will be interrupted often, as one might do with Anki flashcards. I am using a kindle and the kindle app on my phone.

Some of the sentences are a bit difficult so I'm not sure how well a beginner would get through this.

Not the most entertaining, but amazing for learning

These graded readers are well worth it for language learning purposes, albeit not the most entertaining. Personally, I go through 5-10 kanji in these every day which takes around 30 min or so depending on the kanji. I still focus the vast majority of my reading in novels/manga/etc.