Advanced Japanese: literature, keigo, news and beyond

Advanced isn't a finish line. An advanced learner can do almost anything with some preparation, and many things on the spot: read a novel for pleasure, follow a heated group discussion, handle a work meeting. What's left is the long tail that native speakers also spend their lives on: literary style, formal writing, specialist fields, the history buried in the language.

It's also worth asking whether you need it. A Year to Learn Japanese (opens in a new tab) compares proficiency to housing: beginner is a foundation, intermediate a house, advanced a mansion. Very few people need the mansion to do what they want in Japanese. If you do, for work, study or love of the language, this chapter is a map of what's left. If not, the house is a fine place to live, and it keeps growing as long as you keep reading and listening.

Modern novels are readable at upper-intermediate level. Literature, especially from before the war, is a different step: older vocabulary and kanji, older spellings, longer sentences and denser style.

• Aozora Bunko (opens in a new tab) has thousands of out-of-copyright works free online, including Natsume Sōseki, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Dazai Osamu, Mori Ōgai and Miyazawa Kenji. Short stories are the way in: Akutagawa's 羅生門, Dazai's 走れメロス and Sōseki's 夢十夜 are each short enough to read slowly and more than once.
• Old spellings. Some editions keep pre-war kana spelling (歴史的仮名遣い), such as いふ for いう and ゐ, ゑ for い, え. They're read as modern Japanese; you just need to recognise them.
• Post-war and contemporary literature, from Mishima and Kawabata to prize-winners today, sits in between: modern grammar, literary style.

A Year to Learn Japanese's reading ladder puts Meiji-era short stories after modern short stories and before full novels: short enough to reread until they make sense, and a step up that makes everything after it feel easier.

• News articles use a compressed, kanji-heavy written style: headlines drop particles and verbs, and Sino-Japanese compounds replace everyday words. NHK News (opens in a new tab) is the standard starting point, and its Easy version is a useful crib for the same stories.
• Editorials and columns (社説, and columns like the Asahi's 天声人語) argue a position in formal, allusive prose; they're a classic exercise for advanced readers in Japan too.
• 新書, short non-fiction paperbacks on a single topic, are the best way into explanatory and academic Japanese: history, science, economics, psychology, written for a general reader.
• Specialist fields. Whatever you work in has its own vocabulary. Anki earns its place again here: a focused deck for your field, the way A Year to Learn Japanese's author crammed psychology terms for a university course taught in Japanese.

Understanding keigo comes from exposure; producing it correctly, under pressure, takes deliberate practice. The sounding natural chapter introduces the three kinds. For work, add:

• Watch for double keigo. Stacking two respectful forms (おっしゃられる instead of おっしゃる) is a common mistake even among native speakers.
• In-group and out-group. You use respectful language about your boss inside your company, but humble language about the same boss when speaking to a customer, because to an outsider your company is “us”.
• Learn from models. Business Japanese is formulaic: collect real emails and phrases, and adapt them. Workplace dramas like 半沢直樹 show keigo under pressure.

Written Japanese has styles speech never uses. Essays, reports and newspapers are written in the plain である調 (これは問題である) rather than です/ます; academic and business writing favour Sino-Japanese vocabulary (実施する rather than やる, 困難 rather than 難しいこと) and connectives like したがって, 一方で and すなわち.

• Read the kind of writing you want to produce, and imitate its structure before its vocabulary.
• Get corrections from someone who writes that style professionally; everyday tutors often don't.
• Handwriting for formal documents is rare now, but if you need it, the kanji chapter covers learning to write.

Educated Japanese leans on fixed expressions that textbooks barely touch. Three families to know:

They turn up in speeches, headlines, novels and anime titles. Mine them when you meet them; Donkuri's resource list includes a 四字熟語 deck for people who like to be thorough.

Standard Japanese (標準語) is based on Tokyo speech, and it's what media and schools use. But regional speech is alive, especially among older people and in the regions: Kansai (see the sounding natural chapter), Hakata and other Kyūshū dialects, Tōhoku dialects that even other Japanese speakers find hard, and the Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa, which linguists treat as separate languages. Anime and dramas use dialect to place characters, so listening to it becomes necessary; speaking it is optional, and usually best left to people who live there.

IMABI, whose lessons run up to advanced grammar, also has an Okinawan section for the curious.

Classical Japanese (古文, written Japanese before modern reforms) is taught in Japanese high schools, and pieces of it survive everywhere: proverbs, song lyrics, formal signs, fantasy dialogue, and set forms like 〜べし (should), 〜ず and 〜ぬ (negatives), 〜なり (is). You don't need to read the Tale of Genji, but recognising these makes a lot of “weird grammar” suddenly obvious.

• IMABI (opens in a new tab) has a full Classical Japanese course alongside its modern lessons.
• Japanese school YouTube channels teach 古文 as Japanese students learn it; TheMoeWay's resource list links a playlist.

The top of Jiten.moe's scale among well-known titles: shows and books that native speakers also find demanding. The Sōseki and Dazai here are free on Aozora Bunko.

After this

There's no next chapter, only more Japanese. Keep a backlog of things you're excited about, keep logging your hours, and every so often reread something that once defeated you. That's the best measure of how far you've come.