Reading comprehension

A connected Japanese passage is more than a string of decodable sentences: the reader must track who did what, follow what each reference points back to, and supply information the text never states. This page is the cross-level language foundation behind the N4 reading expectations and the N5 reading expectations: the expectation pages describe what the test sections contain, this page describes what the language is doing inside the passages. Where a mechanism has a canonical explanation elsewhere — the writing system, particles, verb forms, numbers, counters, dates and time, N5 grammar and N4 grammar — this page links it instead of repeating it.

What connected reading requires

Reading a passage means coordinating four things at once:

• Decoding — kana and kanji recognition at reading speed: the writing system and the N5 and N4 kanji pages.
• Lexical access — recognising the N5 and N4 vocabulary in context.
• Sentence grammar — particles, conjugation and clause structure: the N5 grammar and N4 grammar pages and their foundations.
• Discourse tracking — the skills this page covers: topic chains, omitted arguments, reference, and clause linkage across sentence boundaries.

The four are coordinated: knowing every word does not by itself resolve who did what once references and omissions span several sentences.

Topic and focus: tracking who does what

Particles carry the who-does-what structure of every sentence. は marks the topic — the frame the sentence is about, usually continuing from the previous sentence — while が marks the grammatical subject and often introduces new information. In a passage:

• the opening sentence introduces the topic, typically with は (or が for a newly appearing character);
• following sentences keep that topic implicit and add new information with が, を or に;
• a new は-marked phrase signals a topic shift — the cue to re-anchor the reading.

The particles foundation explains each particle's functions; the reading skill is to follow the topic chain across sentence boundaries and to notice when が introduces a new participant.

Omitted subjects and information

Japanese sentences routinely omit arguments that the context supplies — especially the subject, which is recoverable from the topic chain or the situation. Reading means supplying those omissions: after a sentence sets a topic with は, following sentences usually continue about it without repeating it. The reader must also supply omitted objects of transitive verbs, and — in reported speech — who said what to whom.

Reference tracking: こそあど

Passages constantly point back to what was just said. The こそあど series (これ/それ/あれ, この/その/あの, ここ/そこ/あそこ, こう/そう/ああ) is the core of that pointing:

• the そ-series refers anaphorically to what the previous sentence or clause mentioned: その時, そこ, それで;
• the あ-series refers to knowledge the writer assumes is shared with the reader, not something just introduced;
• the こ-series points to something in the immediate discourse context — often what the other party just said in dialogue, or something about to be introduced.

Which series a passage uses for a given reference depends on the discourse context — what has been said, who is speaking, and what the writer assumes the reader already knows — rather than on fixed spatial rules.

Three points matter for passages. First, a demonstrative can reach across a sentence boundary to pick up a noun: 店は駅の近くにあります。そこはいつも 込んでいます。 — そこ refers back to the store from the previous sentence. Second, それ/その can refer to a whole proposition rather than a single noun: 明日は休みです。それを聞いて、うれしくなりました。 — それ stands for the fact that tomorrow is a holiday. Third, the reference may be absent entirely, in which case the reader supplies it from the topic (see the previous section).

Sentence linkage: how clauses carry passage logic

Connectors are the skeleton of a passage. Grouped by function, the forms the N5 and N4 grammar pages and the study vocabulary cover:

Function	Forms
reason / result	から, ので, 〜て/〜で
contrast	けど, のに, それでも
addition	〜し, それに
sequence	〜てから, 〜たあとで, それから
conditions	と, ば, たら, なら, 場合

Reading with the connectors means seeing the clause relation before the content: のに tells you the result contradicts the expectation, ば/たら tell you a condition gates what follows, 〜てから tells you the order of events.

Reporting, hearsay and modality

Passages often report what someone said or thought, and the reader must keep the reported claim separate from the writer's own statement. The N4 grammar covers the forms: と-phrases for quoting, naming and reporting (patterns 109–115), the evidentials らしい, そうだ, ようだ, みたいだ (patterns 70, 81–83, 125–126, with みたいだ at 44), and the certainty markers かもしれない, はずだ (patterns 19–20, 29, 32). Reading for meaning means noticing how the text presents a claim: そうだ/らしい report hearsay with reduced commitment, ようだ/みたいだ mark inference, while an unmodalised plain past statement presents the proposition directly.

Short versus mid-size comprehension

The official item types distinguish short passages from mid-size passages; the N4 reading expectations page gives the official sizes and counts. The language difference between them is cumulative: a mid-size passage develops a topic across more sentences, with longer reference chains and more connectors. The tracking skills are the same; there is simply more to track.

Information retrieval from practical materials

Notices, schedules, advertisements and messages are read for a different purpose: not gist, but a specific value — a date, a time, a price, a deadline, a condition. Retrieval requires finding the relevant field and decoding it correctly:

• dates and times — the numbers, counters, dates and time foundation: 時/分/日/曜日/月, relative time (昨日, 来週, 先月), 〜ごろ for approximate times, and 〜まで/〜までに deadlines (まで at N5, までに at N4).
• numbers, prices and counters — 円 and the counting sequences on the numbers foundation; a price can be given in two parts (base amount and tax).
• conditions and exceptions — 〜場合, 〜たら, and limitation phrases (〜だけ, 〜しか〜ない, 〜以外): what the notice applies to and what it excludes.

N5 to N4 progression

The same skills run through both levels; what grows is the load.

• N5 — short passages on familiar topics: short reference chains, simple connectors (から, ので, けど, それから), basic こそあど pointing at nouns, and subjects recoverable from the immediate context.
• N4 — mid-size passages and practical materials: longer reference chains, proposition-level それ, omitted subjects across several sentences, reported speech and evidentials, contrast and condition connectors (のに, ば/たら, 場合), and targeted retrieval from notices and schedules using dates, times, prices and deadlines.

The N4 reading expectations page gives the official item types and sizes, the question types overview shows where reading sits in the test, and the N4 grammar page carries the pattern inventory the passages assume.