Separating words in a sentence


I am teaching myself Japanese with the aid of beginners textbooks and internet
resources. I have learnt to read both the hiragana and katakana alphabets
(yay!) I felt super excited and started trying to read everything I could... I
bought little manga books intended for _very_ young children, and thought I
could just use translators to translate what I was now reading. However, not
knowing where words start or end I cannot differentiate actual sentences from
just a jumble of sounds :-(

What should I do to understand what I'm reading?




If you work through a textbook, the vocabulary you need should be built up
from the ground. Once you know some sentence structure, this should be enough
to figure out word boundaries in elementary picture books, which allows you to
look up words in any dictionary.

Some books for pre-school children actually do put spaces between words for
better readability, so could start with that. (For example, you may know [すてきな
三にんぐみ](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%99%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8D%E3%81%AA%E4%B8%89%E3%81%AB%E3%82%93%E3%81%90%E3%81%BF-%E3%83%88%E3%83%9F%E3%83%BC-%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B2%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC/dp/4033270205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425986080&sr=8-1&keywords=%E3%81%99%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8D%E3%81%AA%E4%B8%89%E3%81%AB%E3%82%93%E3%81%90%E3%81%BF),
which has spaces and is translated using only katakana & hiragana.)

Generally, I think it's a great idea to try to read children's books, but be
aware that these are intended for children who are already fluent in spoken
Japanese. At times you may have trouble finding words, even if you know how
they are spelled in kana (which is why I would suggest you start with a book
you know well in your native language).

