Finally, beginning to read books

I’d like to know some beginner stories. I saw the wanikani repository; there are quite a lot of books,but most of them are books on Amazon. Also few suggestions were to read news, but, news isn’t that catchy for me i’m afraid.
Anyone knows books, or even short stories? I know a fair amount of kanji, but still I’d wanna start from the lower level. Hopefully download a pdf and read it. Anyone knows good sites/ books?
Thanks

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You can try searching for graded readers online. There’s quite a few free resources avaliable, like those on this list. You can also try the content on Satori Reader.

My personal favorite option is to join a book club here on the forums. The Absolute Beginner’s Book Club is about to start reading レンタルおにいちゃん in just a week, take a look at the book’s home thread if you’re interested.

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As far as short stories i would recomment this app

There are a few stories here with the most being $5. It also comes with the first 3 pages free of a story with the rest being purchasable for $3. This is for Android though and im not sure about a Apple version

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Yay Book Clubs :grinning: The Beginner Book Club will also vote on their next book soon!
@Imro_0512 you can have a look at the current proposals (mostly Manga though) and rate their difficulties based on some sample pages.

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For super beginners, try this:

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The site Hukumusume has Japanese fairy tales and folk stories that are fairly short and also kind of important to understand the culture, as some of them get referenced a lot in the media.

For example, here’s the story about Momotarou: 桃太郎 <福娘童話集 きょうの日本昔話>
and here’s the story about Urashima Tarou: 浦島太郎 <福娘童話集 きょうの日本昔話>

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You can try the Satori reader app.

If you’re looking for more graded reader style ebooks, I’d recommend the basic/beginner stuff from

Their website might not look like much, but I’ve come to think of them like a virtual mom & pop store. They’re obviously no design or marketing professionals, but as a beginner I really like the content they offer.

I’m not sure any of this beginner stuff is supposed to be really interesting… It’s all just a crutch until we’re advanced enough for what we really want to read about.

This thread has a “Free Online Resources” section, which might be of interest:

In particular, if you’re very specifically looking for PDFs to download, there are these free graded readers available from Tadoku Supporters.

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Also a fan of these (and other) graded readers. This set is available in the App Store.

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Thanks all; I’d like to know a couple of things. Satori reader… is it graded? Or some pattern? I did try using it although, it just showed a list of some categories; like news, culture and sorts. Is there any order or is it pick randomly and start readin?
Also, book club; do we have to buy the books?

Yes, you have to purchase the books. They generally cannot be acquired for free legally. There are usually physical and digital options available across a variety of stores, and they don’t cost that much (especially digitally since you avoid shipping costs).

Then , sadly it’s beyond my boundary. I am still a student.:frowning:

Thank you very much, けど、do you happen to know ones which aren’t paid.? I don’t have any requirements like good interface or GUI or pleasing for eyes. As long as it’s an open source, I’m happy to use it. Or pdfs as well.

Sometimes manga go on sale and you can “buy” them for free, so keep an eye out for that. Books going on sale is rarer unfortunately.

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My teacher shared this website with me. It is on Japanese culture and each topic has very short passage to accompany the picture.

[Topic 1 | Life nad Culture Snap! 生活と文化スナップ | まるごと+ 日本のことばと文化 初級2(A2) | まるごと+ 日本のことばと文化 初級2(A2)](http://Life and Culture Snap!)

You can always look up kanji you do not know as they have the furigana.

Also joining a book club is great!

You can sign up to get free access to some graded readers till the end of the month here:
https://www.ask-books.com/mau/yomulimited

Matcha is a Japan travel site and has articles in easy japanese

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No sadly other than the sample story which comes partially free

There is a large collection of free books which is called Aozora; it’s like Project Gutenberg in case you know that, they make old books publicly available.
The drawback is of course that you may come across really old books, and that does not only refer to the language being used but also to the kanji and kana. But it does not apply to all of them, so you can just avoid those that look weird to you XD
Also, there is no grading system or anything, but recently somebody ordered those books by WK level:

BTW the index of the books is here: 総合インデックス
(these are the alphabet groups for authors and books)

Maybe you’ll find something interesting!

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