Japanese Short Stories for Beginners: 20 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Japanese & Grow Your Vocabulary the Fun Way! (Easy Japanese Stories)

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At the intermediate level, you will be able to understand longer sentences and more difficult works. You can also read some kanji. You need some reading resources that introduce these features of the language, but you still need a bit of help understanding new words. Thankfully, this is where graded readers come in! Graded readers are book series that feature a variety of stories sorted into different levels of difficulty, or "grades." For Japanese, this usually is determined by the vocabulary and grammar used, often corresponding to the 5 levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), but different publishers and organizations have different levels and definitions. Graded readers offer everyone, even Japanese beginners, fun stories to read. Not only is this an enjoyable, confidence-building activity, but it'll make your Japanese a lot better too! LingQ makes it easier for you to read Japanese by allowing you to look up new words and phrases using text-to-speech, save, and review them to grow your vocabulary. You can also store all your content into LingQ making it easier to navigate through your favorite stories and save you time. LingQ is the best way to learn Japanese online because it lets you learn from content you enjoy!

Okay! Make sure you get started now. Do the work, don't just plan to do it! Sitting down and starting is the hardest part. Learn to Read Katakana The most difficult thing about learning Japanese is kanji. At least, that's what people say. But trying to save it or brush it off until later isn't going to help you learn Japanese. Almost everything uses kanji, making it one of the most important aspects of learning this language. Your learning quality of life will drop drastically if you choose to ignore it. An intriguing, low-key story examining the pressure on young Japanese men and women to marry—as a mark of success in life. Again fairly simple, domestic language here. Aside from some societal discussion and some words relating to mental illness, this novel is a good starting point for breaking into Japanese reading. Easy Japanese Short Stories 6. “After the Quake”

Read-aloud Method with Easy Japanese

Aozora is where it gets more advanced. While there are not so many children’s stories in the form of picture books, you will find plenty of youth literature (as well as full novels for adults when you reach that level). Except for a few fancy words describing Mikage’s soul-crushing grief, the language in this book is again quite domestically focused. You’ll find reading this book is quite a calming endeavor…grab a cup of tea on a rainy day! 8. “Stories You Can Read Smoothly” The why is super simple: when you make the jump from vocab lists and flashcards to actually reading real-world texts, you’ll get to start reading authentic Japanese. The sooner you start this, the sooner your brain will become totally familiar with the sounds, structures and rhythms of the language. Plus, you’ll get the satisfaction of engaging with Japanese content—wasn’t that your big goal all along? Though she only lived to the age of 24, Ichiyo Higuchi wrote a number of short stories that have become well loved by Japanese people. In fact, she’s so well respected that she appears on Japan’s 5,000 yen bill.

Finally, a collection of stories chosen and laid out specifically for the Japanese language learner. This well done collection, translated by Giles Murray, who’s famous for his Japanese translation work, is a fascinating and satisfyingly cohesive read. This collection is also available in English here. 13. “The Cat That Lived a Million Times” by Yoko SanoDon’t let native Japanese-level texts intimidate you, with the aid of helpful tools like readers, dictionaries and furigana, Japanese reading can be both enjoyable and easy. It's time to learn how and when to introduce vocabulary words from outside your kanji studies into your study routine. The most important thing is to have a good system in place. This is your all-around tool for translation of real-world materials, online and offline. This will save your butt while reading menus, maps and more while traveling in Japan. It’s also a fun and convenient tool to have on hand for any printed Japanese materials, like books and newspapers, that you’re currently reading. Most Japanese classrooms spend an entire month learning how to read and write hiragana. That's too long! Instead of writing out each hiragana character over and over to memorize them, use the guide below and you may be reading hiragana later tonight. It uses mnemonics and worksheets that are designed to help you learn and be able to recall hiragana faster than you thought possible.

Love blogs? This blogger helps you read casual, blog-style narratives by providing all the easy Japanese reading fixin’s you’ve already come to rely on: English translations, furigana and relevant images for context. She meanders through the ups and downs of daily life, marriage, travelling, overcoming language barriers, fun outings and more. There are years worth of entries categorized for your convenience. Definitely bookmark this one! When I say "learn kanji" I mean learn the kanji’s most important (English) meaning(s), and their most important (Japanese) reading(s). As you know from reading about on'yomi and kun'yomi, some kanji have a lot of readings. And, unfortunately, English meanings are just translations and can't always match the Japanese meaning one-to-one. That means there can be many correct English meanings for a single kanji that you'll need to deal with. We'll narrow those down so you only learn the most important meanings and readings first—the ones used 80-90% of the time. The remaining meanings and readings will come via vocabulary and other practice. For the remaining 20%, we wrote a guide covering the basics of Japanese pronunciation. Before you begin learning how to read hiragana, you should read up to the "Japanese Sounds and Your Mouth" section. Well, it's time to get to reading! Even if your primary interest with Japanese is in having conversations, reading is a fantastic way to increase your abilities across all the different language domains. The more you read, the better you'll get! And best of all, it can be a lot of fun too. Since incorporating reading as a regular part of my own Japanese study habits, not only has my Japanese gotten noticeably better across every different domain, but I've enjoyed a lot of new stories I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise, all in their native language. Before moving on, you should reach level 10 on WaniKani (or around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words using your own method).Although not categorized by reading levels, the stories are longer and generally more challenging than those in “Breaking into Japanese Literature,” so use caution with this one if you’re intermediate level on or below on your Japanese language journey. 16. “Short Stories in Japanese” translated by Michael Emmerich

University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative– a huge library of Japanese texts online, and you can even choose to read with furigana Practice with the training wheels on (using audio, dictionaries, etc.) and then take them off little-by-little The Japanese Graded Reader series offers a nice, clean layout without squeezing the print together too closely or being hard to read (besides the fact that they're in Japanese!). The topics presented in each box set contain a wild variety, ranging from lighthearted and silly to genuinely heartbreaking. Each book's illustrations are stylistically unique, and even the higher levels still include pictures. Be aware, though, that the tone or other elements of some stories may strike you as old-fashioned. Thematically, this collection shows another side of Murakami’s literary obsession. Loneliness, loss, destruction, confusion and loneliness are highlighted here, which will give Japanese language learners accurate insight into the melancholy present in Japanese culture. The collection also leans heavily into surrealism, a trademark style for the author.Most likely, you will find most of the vocabulary that you want to learn in your Japanese textbook (we'll cover that really soon!). As I mentioned earlier, these might be words that don't have kanji, or maybe they're words that you didn't learn in WaniKani. There are a lot of words out there and no one resource will teach you all of them. FluentU makes these native Japanese videos approachable through interactive transcripts. Tap on any word to look it up instantly. The language in here is pretty simple, although a few words might not be heard in everyday conversation. The tone throughout, however, should make for a cozy, non-threatening read. 4. “Heaven’s Bookstore”