Thanks, I’m talking about structured exercises though that are based on the readers level. For me that made learning from textbooks better than anything I’ve found online (not counting pure vocab resources/SRS). A beginner doesn’t have a chance of understanding Yotsuba, but a good textbook should have him reading easy paragraphs in Japanese right from the beginning, based on his level. Then build up in complexity as he learns new grammar, so by the end he is reading conversations, short stories and articles in Japanese.

It may not sound much, and some may not care for them, but for me such exercises improved my reading comprehension in a way that I was never going to get from just reading short, contextless example sentences on Tae Kim, or in a reference book. I actually went through all of Tae Kim before doing any standard textbooks, but I found there wasn’t enough reading practice in there, and when I tried native material I didn’t understand enough of it to really get any benefit from trying to use it as practice – my reading comprehension wasn’t good enough.

Going through the Genki books and then on to ‘Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese’ (which is written entirely in Japanese, aside from the grammar, and is a fantastic book) improved my reading ability so massively that I can no longer dismiss textbooks as a learning tool. I think some people just benefit from more structured learning and practice, while others do better jumping right into more difficult stuff. It’s good to have to so many options available, and would seem a mistake to dismiss any of them too easily when making recommendations, as we all learn differently.

I think a lot of people discount how useful good exercises can be though, and no online based textbooks seem to have put any effort into this area. Though Lang-8 can largely take care of the writing based stuff.

Reading exercises are just short stories and articles in the target language that are specifically written to be readable by learners who have gone through the associated lesson. Then the next lesson they will learn new grammar and have another reading exercise which incorporates the new grammar, along with grammar learned in previous lessons so that they build up in complexity as you progress. It provides a good sense of progression and builds up your reading comprehension over time.

I think graded readers would probably be similar and a good alternative (though probably not as specifically structured), but I haven’t seen any that are available to read online. Unless you’re lucky it seems the only option is to import from Japan, it’s a good idea though.

I think Yotsuba is mostly just hard for beginners because it’s so full of casual language, contractions and expressions that learners likely haven’t encountered. I don’t think it’s all that great for focused reading practice anyway as it’s mostly just brief dialogue exchanges (no written descriptions and so on), but it’s enjoyable and that’s important. Reading anything is good. I think some of the popular children’s books/stories are perhaps a bit more useful for practice, but maybe I’m wrong.

Really though, the point was that a good textbook will have beginners reading easy Japanese from before they’re even at that stage, so right from the beginning they’ll be working on their reading comprehension and it will keep improving from there at a steady pace. Of course some textbooks are better than others, and not many are cheap :(

Yeah its weird because Yotsuba is such a mixed specimen. Disregarding it as a learning tool, its one of my favorite manga of all time, its cute and somewhat childish but even for adults the humor is pulled off so well and with such clean artwork, I cant fault it

In terms of learning though its weird. I don’t think I know an easier manga, but casual/slang wise its incredibly dense with. Either way its always good to just be doing SOMETHING. Some people end up obsessing over which method is best/safest but don’t get into it.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYjjsKe5gzQ&feature=related

I just started using Genki for reading practice this week, as Elenkis suggested. It’s really a great reading resource. It’s hard (impossible) to find texts suited for N4/N5 level of Japanese. Even example sentences for N4 level at ReadTheKanji.com have higher level kanji and grammar in them, making comfortable reading impossible. And the price of Japanese Graded Readers is just too damn high! :)