You can already read more than you think

A sign you have walked past a hundred times

Next time you are out in your city, look at a station exit sign. You will see something like 出口（でぐち） — exit. You probably did not sound it out. You just knew it. That is the point of the last two weeks.

Yesterday we read whole words on vending machines and menus in under three seconds. Today we push that skill onto place names and loanwords, where the kana get longer and less forgiving.

Place names are just sounds in a row

Japanese place names are usually not mysteries. They are kana stacked in a line, and your job is to move through them without stopping.

• 東京（とうきょう） — Tokyo
• 大阪（おおさか） — Osaka
• 京都（きょうと） — Kyoto
• 名古屋（なごや） — Nagoya
• 札幌（さっぽろ） — Sapporo

Notice the long vowels. とうきょう has う after と and ょ after き. おおさか has two お in a row. These are not decoration. They are length, and length changes the word.

A train announcement will say 次は、新宿（つぎは、しんじゅく） — next is Shinjuku. You do not need to translate it. You need to catch the shape before the doors close.

Loanwords reward speed

Katakana is where reading speed shows up fastest, because most of what you meet is English or another language wearing Japanese clothes.

• コーヒー — coffee
• パン — bread (from Portuguese)
• アルバイト — part-time job (from German Arbeit)
• コンビニ — convenience store
• スマホ — smartphone

The trick is not to read letter by letter. Look at the whole word, especially the small ャ ュ ョ and the long ー, and let the sound arrive on its own.

If you are in your country and order a coffee, the cup may say コーヒー on the side. You have read that word for years without noticing.

The two-minute run

Set a timer for two minutes. Open a map of any Japanese city. Read every station name out loud, once, without stopping. Do not look up meanings. Do not check readings. If you stumble, keep going.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is to stop the habit of pausing.

When the timer ends, pick three names you found hard and read them five times each. That is the whole workout.

What to do after today

This is the last day of this series, friend, but not the last day of reading. From here, the useful move is small and daily.

Read one real thing a day. A receipt. A package. A train sign. Thirty seconds is enough. Keep a note of any kana that still slow you down, and review only those.

You do not need a new chart. You need more contact with real text. The kana are already in your head. Now they need to meet the world.