Best Places to Read?

Japanese
#1

I’ve tried a few websites and apps but they all focus around news and old fairy tails/stories I have really no interest in (also cost money).

I like Bunpro’s reading section in a sense that it’s short and concise, challenging, while still being quite interesting to read.

Also side note I also like how theres a sense of accomplishment for reading a passage (ticking it when you complete it and get Points).

Anyone have any recommendations?

P.S. I’m personally looking for online websites or apps only no physics books.

Thanks!

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#2

Tadoku free books (Free Tadoku Books – にほんごたどく) are really short so should be able to finish them pretty quickly and get that sense of accomplishment in that way. Plus they have a decent variety

I’ve heard really good things about Satori Reader (https://www.satorireader.com/) and they seem to have a good variety but haven’t tried it myself

What kind of reading level are you at? Might help give some more personalised recommendations

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#3

Cool website, seems to me that is works like medium.com but for Japanese.
There are categories all around so you can just choose what you like. Some language stuff present as well: 「自己評価が高い」と「自己肯定感が高い」の違い｜描き子

I’ve been reading a lot of comment section reading under vocaloid songs lately, and it’s quite pleasant as I it flows quite smoothly and I can get the idea of what is the subject of the song)
I bet most comments there have awful grammar :laughing:

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#4

I learned about bookwalker from another user. It has a lot of free books. But they are native materials, so you’ll have to do some work to find what matches your level.

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#5

In bean bag chair :sunglasses:

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#6

What’s your level?

#7

I’m not sure what country you’re in but check your local library – many have online resources or digital media! Recently I’ve used the app Libby, restricted the language to Japanese, and actually found a couple of magazines (including ones geared towards kids) that gave me tons to read!

The magazine I’m reading right now is called 子供の科学, and talks about science concepts and new discoveries in fairly simple (N3ish) terms. For instance:

分類の見直しで、キリンが1種→4種に! 遺伝情報にもとづく研究から分類が見直しに…

(With all kanji having furigana)

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#8

I second your recommendation on Tadoku.

Satori is pay walled for the majority of their content.

#9

This is a great tip. Also as shadowstar said, children’s books are great since they usually have furigana as they are in the process of learning kanji. There are also some Japanese books that are published with side by side Japanese and English. Most of the ones that I have seen are non fiction and food related.

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#10

The best place to read is ttsu reader (online) with integrated lookup dictionary through yomitan or jpdbreader. You bring your own epub book that interests you.
For sense of accomplishment you could track pages read on something like learnnatively.

#11

I started with the Tadoku free books last year and eventually got bored with the options there. The topics didn’t appeal to me enough to consistently read the books.

I recently signed up and paid for a year of Satori reader and I really like it so far. It has a lot of features to support the reading process (such as clicking to see definitions, extra explanations for grammar quirks, and it’ll read things to you sentence by sentence or as the whole story). I think it’s helping with both my reading and listening.

(In case it’s helpful: I’m still fairly low level. I’m somewhere in N4 for grammar on bunpro and level 19 in WaniKani.)

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#12

Satori is great, think I started paying when i was N4 (maybe N5) and it carried me through N3 and now while studying for N2, I still feel like complete books are too overwhelming for me, but I think I’ll start trying to read something simple like また同じ夢を見ていた or コーヒーが冷めないうちに when i finish all of satori readers content (getting close)

#13

I didn’t realise Satori helped with listening as well…I’ll have to check it out. I’m seriously shocking at reading so I really need to find something :sweat_smile: