Japanese Readers

1/10/2017
Extensive Reading Material Online
Liana's Extensive Reading Journal

W O R K I N G T O W AR D S , O N E P I C T U R E B O O K AT A T I ME
AB OU T L IAN A
WH AT IS E XTE N S IVE R E AD IN G?
Search
C L AS S IFIC ATION S YS TE M
Buy ing books online, part 1 (of, undoubtedly , m any )

The Benefits Of Reading Without A Dictionary
Extensive reading is known as , or tadoku

in Japanese. To try it, start with very easy
books (ones with no more than two or three

by LIA NA on JUNE 15, 2011
32 C O M M E N T S
in EXTENSIV E REA DING MA TERIA LS ONLINE
Free Japanese Childrens Stories and Fairytales
unknown words per page), and follow these

principles:
1. Dont look up words in the dictionary while
reading.
2. Skip over parts you dont understand.
3. If you arent enjoying one book, toss it aside
and get another.
Find something to read!
With over 1,000 free Japanese picture books, EhonNavi is like living next to a library!
Sign up here, its quick and free. (I wrote a walkthrough to help with this part.) Once
youre logged in, click the link on the right that says to see the available
books; click a book and find the yellow icon that says the same thing to read it.
There are books for everyone here! The
list of available books has a section where
they can be sorted by age. Ive also started
Hundreds of free books and stories online

Local bookstores and libraries
Buying new and used books online
For more information, read "What Is Extensive
Reading?" and "Classification System."
To learn more about Kunihide Sakai, who
developed the three principles of tadoku and
has worked to popularize it in Japan for years,
sorting them by word count. The lower
read this interview with him.
the word count, the easier the book. Ive
Finally, for more than you ever wanted to know
mostly focused on adding the very easy
about why I believe extensive reading is worth
ones so far, so that even beginners can
your time, read my tadoku manifesto.
start reading.
C U R R E N TL Y R E A D IN G :
You can only read a book once, and if

theres an error of some sort you should
be able to re-access the book, as long as
its within 15 minutes. The recommended
OS is Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 3, with Internet Explorer 8.0 or Firefox
3.6 and Flash Player 10 installed. It may not work as well with WindowsXP Service Pack
2 or Mac, and Chrome is not supported. I read them on a Mac with Firefox, and it works
consistently for me, but I have to follow a procedure. When I open the book, the first
thing I do is flip through the pages, waiting until each one loads. Once Im at the end
with all of the pages loaded, Ill go back to the beginning and read. If the loading stops
and some of the pages are still pixelated after waiting a few minutes, I have to shut the
whole browser down, then open it back up again and start reading again. (Just closing
the window with the book in it and trying to open that again never works for me.)
S U P E R F L U O U S S TA TS
Hopefully its not like this for everyone Remember, you have a 15-minute window to
Books read: 303
load the pages, but once you have them loaded you can keep the window open
Word count (since starting the blog): 380,500
indefinitely.
C A TE G O R IE S
Its a little picky, but I think this is the best resource out there for Japanese picture books,
so please give it a shot!
http://joechip.net/extensivereading/2011/06/15/extensive-reading-material-online/
About Myself
1/9
1/10/2017
(Hukumusumes Fairy Tale Collection)

With hundreds of fairy tales, short stories and fables, youll never be hurting for reading
material as long as this site is around! Start with the stories that have been made into
picture books. Many of the other stories dont have pictures, making them better for
Adventure
Books from my own collection
Classification System
more advanced readers. Try (Japanese Folktales), and if those are starting to
Detailed Reviews of Graded Readers
feel like youve read them a billion times, try the (Short Stories from Edo), or
Detailed Reviews of Level 2 Books
make a habit of reading (What Day Is It Today?)

(Picture Books For The Heart)
Nicely illustrated short stories, mostly little folktale types of stories featuring cute
animals. (They are even written in all hiragana and katakana, no kanji; this is a pain for
adult readers who already know and would like to practice kanji, but it is exactly what

EhonNavi Books
youll find in a real picture book.) Click here for word counts and levels for some of the
Extensive Reading Basics
stories. (Again, the lower the word count, the easier the story.)
Extensive Reading Materials Online
(Digital Picture Book Site).
Extensive Reading Paper Summaries and
This site has around a hundred picture books, all illustrated by children. My only
Notes
problem with it is that there are a lot of compression artifacts around the text for most,
Extensive Reading Resources
though not all, of the stories, and it really bothers me, considering that actual kids books
Illustrated Reference Books
start with nice, clear, large text. If the poor quality of the text is a problem for you, start
with the stories in large text theres about thirty of them.
Interviews
Japanese Language Learning Resources
The Great Chokochoko Library

A collection of reading material, sorted by level. Theres various types of material
available: stories, articles and so on. It seems to be geared towards a more traditional
type of reading practice, with no pictures and long wordlists.
(Old Stories Of Japan)
Mini Reviews of Level 1 Books

I would recommend the other story sites over this one because it might be too tempting
to rely on the English translation; there are, however, many Japanese fairy tales
Mini-Reviews of Level 6 Books
available here, and my impression is that they use more advanced kanji than the other
Nikkei Bunko Library Books
two sites, so it may be worth a look.

Japanese books from the International Childrens Library
There are only a handful of stories in Japanese, but I do like to see kids books from the
Showa era, so Im including it anyway.
Non-Fiction
Picture Books
Pierce County Library Books
Reading in a Foreign Language
Gakken Books for Supporting Reconstruction

Gakken has made some of their books available for free in PDF form to help support the
children and families still living in shelters after the 2011 Thoku earthquake and
Seattle Library Books

Short Stories
tsunami, as well as volunteers and nurses. The page is divided into three categories:
Society and Culture
picture books/reading material, games that can be played without special equipment and
Tacoma Library Books
disaster nursing.
Tadoku Contest
(The Boat)
Weekly Updates
This is, unfortunately, just one story, but if you are thinking about buying the
Japanese graded readers (or of course, just for reading practice in general), try this
Level 1 (beginner) story, which was put up as a sample of the series.
(Fantasy Time)
More of a listening resource than a reading resource, but thats good to have too! Each
story has a link to its corresponding Aozora entry, so you can read along while listening
A RCHIV E S
December 2013
November 2013
if you like, or read the story first if you prefer. (This may also be a good way of finding
October 2013
more reading material by the same authors on Aozora, which I think is a hard site for a
September 2013
beginning reader to find suitable content on.) Stories with a green button marked
June 2013
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1/10/2017
have lovely illustrations and text to go along with the audio.

These are generally more complicated than stories from Hukumusume or the Digital
Picture Book Site.
(Dream-Reading Storytime: Basking In The Sun)
This used to be available as a podcast, but I cant tell if it is anymore or not. Its a mother
and her son reading stories from different sources such as Aozora and , and
its really charming! There are links to all the stories, so you can read along.
Intermediate Reading Resources
(Aoitori Bunko: Trial Reading!)
Aoitori Bunko is a line of classic books and original fiction aimed at children between
around 3rd grade and 6th grade; I would estimate most of their books are level 6 or so.
April 2013
January 2013
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
This page has previews of dozens of their books, so check it out if you are a fairly
advanced reader and looking for a new book or series to try!
(Magic Tree House: Trial Reading)
E XT E N S I V E R E A D I N G
Extensive Reading group
The Magic Tree House series has been translated into Japanese, and you can read
Goodreads Tadoku Group
around a dozen pages from each of the books here, so you can test them out and see if
Overview of the "Start with Simple Stories"
theyd be at your level and fun for you.
method
(Various Situations / 4-Panel Manga)
Read More or Die
I dont know about the rest of you, but I find (sound words) and ,
Reading in a Foreign Language
(emotional state words) to be extremely hard to learn just from context, so one of my
Tadoku Livejournal Community
friends was kind enough to find this site for me. It presents those kinds of words in
context and in comics.
(Open Air Library)
Aozora is similar to Project Gutenberg, with impressive amounts of public domain
material freely available. As far as extensive reading goes, though, I think its really only
tadoku.org (in Japanese)

Talk to the Clouds
The Extensive Reading Foundation
The Extensive Reading Pages
likely to be of use to someone already reading at a fairly high level (level 5 and up by my
(Japanese Graded Readers
classification system), and they use the ruby tag for furigana, which displays kanji
Research Group)
readings in parentheses if youre using a browser that doesnt support the tag. (Chrome,
Safari and Internet Explorer support it.) If youre not yet at the level where you can read
advanced material without decoding it, I think even the time spent trying to navigate
JA P A NE S E L A NG UA G E L E A RNING
RE S OURCE S
this site to find something interesting and suitable to read would be better spent
Lang-8
elsewhere. Still, if you can handle advanced material without decoding, it might be time
My Japanese blog
to try some authentic literature here. You could start with (Miyazawa Kenji),
who wrote childrens stories such as (The Restaurant of Many
Orders), or (Niimi Nankichi), whose (Buying Mittens) is a classic.
My profile on lang-8 (feel free to add me as a

friend!)
My profile on (again, feel free to
(Digital Library from the Meiji Era)
add me as a friend)
I suspect there is fun to be had here if you are not only a fairly high-level reader, but also
patient with the interface and able to cope with unexpected things like old-style kanji and
orthography and horizontal Japanese read right to left. Theres Japanese kids books in
the 909 section (use the link to get there), you could search for stories you
O T H E R E XT E N S I V E R E A D E R S
already know like , or start with this page about childrens stories, from the
Informal Language: a language learning
announcement of the merging of the (Juvenile Literature
journey
Digital Library) with this site. I cant say Im seriously recommending this for most
KSaiydT's Room
extensive readers, even if there are childrens books I just think its so amazing that
Lan'dorien's Mysterious Journey
something like this is available to the world.
Ryan Layman
News Sites for Kids
Shall we Tadoku
NHK NewsWeb Easy
sloppyreader
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News written in easy Japanese. Of the news sites Im listing here, this one is the simplest.
The language is simplified and theres a pop-up dictionary for words that a reader might
not know. Plus, theres audio to go along with it, you can make any place names or
names of people show up in a different color and you can follow a link back to the
Three Pounds Flax

Wings English School
original article if you want to challenge yourself a little more. I wouldnt recommend
any of these to a beginning reader, but if youre an intermediate reader and you want to
start reading the news, start here!
(Childrens Asahi)
M E TA
Log in
News articles written for grade-schoolers and middle-schoolers from the Asahi
Entries RSS
Shimbuns sister paper, . Theres also a digital version of the full newspaper
Comments RSS
that you can subscribe to for 1720 yen a month. If anyone actually does this, please tell
me how you liked it!
WordPress.org
(Mainichi Grade-Schooler Newspaper)

Articles and so on for grade schoolers from the Mainichi Shinbun. I havent spent much
time reading this one, but the sense I get from it is that it uses harder language and
fewer supports than NHK News Web Easy, and that theres more types of content, such
as interviews and explanations of words used in the news.
Im always on the lookout for more online reading resources, so feel free to post them in
the comments! Im particularly interested in low-level resources, because those are the
kinds of things that are the most useful, but the most hard to find if youre a beginning
reader. I presume that anyone who is able to read things like the texts at the Japanese
Text Initiative already knows how to find them.
Tagge d with: e xte nsive re ading in japane se fre e japane se kids' storie s fre e japane se storie s japane se childre n's storie s
japane se fairy tale s japane se folk tale s japane se kids' ne ws japane se ne ws for kids japane se ne wspape rs for kids
japane se picture books online japane se re ading mate rial japane se storie s online japane se tadoku storie s in japane se
tadoku
32 Responses to extensive reading material online

T subasa says:
June 1 5, 201 1 at 3 :1 1 pm
Hi, Liana
Good morning!!
This post is really great!
I know how hard it is for foreing people to get easy books ,
especially Japanese books. Those sites would be really helpful for people who
need such levels of Japanese books but have no sources like big libraries around
them like you.
Well, can I put these information and your blog itself on my lang-8 diary? I bet
some of my freinds who need those information would be very happy to read
these posts. ^^
REPLY
Liana says:
June 1 5, 201 1 at 4:1 9 pm
Hi Tsubasa ^^ Thanks! If you come across any other good sites, feel free to let
me know or post a comment!
Of course youre welcome to write about my blog and these sites ^^ Id be
honored!
REPLY
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T subasa says:
June 1 5, 201 1 at 6:40 pm
^^
REPLY
e_dub_kendo says:
June 1 6, 201 1 at 8:3 0 am
Really great post, you listed a couple new resources I was previously unaware
of. Thats like gold to a language learner. ()
REPLY
Liana says:
June 1 6, 201 1 at 9:42 am
Hi Tsubasa ^^
^^
Hi e_dub_kendo ^^
Thanks, Im really glad! Let me know if you happen to find any more.
REPLY
e_dub_kendo says:
June 21 , 201 1 at 8:54 am
Came across this site today: http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ . Really just a

handful of Japanese books here, but they have managed to make reading online
feel about as close to reading a physical book as its possible too. Beautifully
done. Also, if you happen to be learning English, Spanish or a few other
European languages they have a great many more books in each of those
languages :(.
REPLY
e_dub_kendo says:
June 23 , 201 1 at 6:44 pm
heh realized that you had already linked to this, just called it by its name, not
its url so i didnt recognize it
REPLY
Liana says:
June 23 , 201 1 at 1 0:1 2 pm
The first draft of this post had been bouncing around in my head for a while, and
the entry about that site said that they had a few childrens books in Japanese,
but just a few and that number hadnt changed ever since I had first found the
site, which was some time ago. Then, to my surprise, I found that between the
time I wrote that and the time I fixed it up to publish, they had actually added
5/9
1/10/2017
some Japanese books! So theres hope for it yet ^^

REPLY
e_dub_kendo says:
June 25, 201 1 at 1 2:47 am
Heres one Ive had mouldering in my bookmarks a long time, though Ive read
from it here and there. These stories are a bit shorter than those from some of
the other sites out there.
http://edokobanashi.blog100.fc2.com/blog-date-200903.html
REPLY
colleen says:
August 2, 201 1 at 1 :01 am
Thanks for these links as everyone else seems to find its difficult and
expensive to find interesting graded reading in Japanese outside of Japan.
This is just to say Thank You Im trying to go with the Simple Stories
approach, but I am getting a bit tired of fairies and princesses.. :-(
Anyway, its just lovely to know I have some fellow travellers out there.
REPLY
Liana says:
August 2, 201 1 at 5:48 am
Thanks, Colleen, Im glad to hear from a fellow traveller too ^^ It is so difficult

and expensive as to seem pretty quixotic, but I hope that as more people get
interested in it we can find more resources and make it easier for each other.
Happy reading ^^
REPLY
My T houghts on Extensive Reading | Jamaican Learning Japanese

says:
August 1 0, 201 1 at 1 2:53 am
[...] check this link for all information on extensive [...]

REPLY
Jorge says:
Nov em ber 1 4, 201 1 at 5:3 9 pm
Another one for your collection http://www.nihongoask.jp/tadoku/sample.html. I havent seen all the samples but it seems that
most of them are only one page samples;nevertheless, this one is a full
beginners book http://www.nihongoyomu.jp/en/learners/books/level1/sample-hune.html :D
REPLY
Ana Mara says:

January 26, 201 2 at 4:00 pm
I just wanted to thank you. I am a beginner student of japanese and this page is a
dream come true. I have searched reading sources by myself, specially children
books cause that is the easiest method for me to learn real japanese, or any
other language, as you put it, through extensive reading and not only (boring!!!)
text books. So thanks a lot from Mxico.
REPLY
Dan says:
February 9, 201 2 at 1 1 :43 am
This a great collection of resources.

I wonder if you know of any places that have Japanese ebooks like epubs! That
would be great for reading on the go.
6/9
1/10/2017

REPLY
Android Immersion Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese says:

February 1 4, 201 2 at 9:54 am
[...] place to get started. (Its amazing how often other media references these
tales!) There are many good places to find stories, and Aldiko is quite good at
adapting to whatever format you import, so give it a [...]
REPLY
LWT : T ricks of the T rade Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese says:

April 6, 201 2 at 8:1 9 pm
[...] Kindaself explanatory : Sites like those Liana lists, or Aozora Bunko are
[...]
REPLY
? | says:
April 29, 201 3 at 9:58 pm
[...] ,

. [...]
REPLY
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October 1 1 , 201 5 at 5:25 am
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October 1 8, 201 5 at 4:3 9 pm
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REPLY
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February 1 5, 201 6 at 5:3 0 am
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February 1 6, 201 6 at 1 1 :43 pm
yo
REPLY
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February 1 9, 201 6 at 1 2:06 pm
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REPLY
7/9
1/10/2017
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June 4, 201 6 at 6:1 9 pm
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REPLY
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Alejandro says:
Septem ber 7 , 201 6 at 1 1 :49 am
Youre so awesome! I dont think Ive read thrlugh something like this before.
So good to fihd somehody ith ssome genuine thoughts
on this subjet matter. Really.. thank you for starting his up.
Thhis site is one thing thats needed onn tthe internet, someone with some
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My blolg freedomcarewarriors.org (Alejandro)
REPLY
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October 3 1 , 201 6 at 4:3 1 pm
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8/9
1/10/2017
robe femme t 40 says:

Nov em ber 1 5, 201 6 at 1 1 :43 pm
I do accept as true with all the concepts you have introduced in your post. They
are really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very brief for
newbies. Could you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time? Thanks
for the post.
REPLY
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Liana's Extensive
Reading Journal
P AG E S
T H E L AT E S T
MO R E
About Liana
Tadoku Is For Everyone!
Thank you for reading my
Classification System
One thing I worry about, as

the tadoku c ontest bec omes
more popular, []
blog! I'm currently doing
What Is Extensive
Reading?
2011 Liana Kerr
extensive reading in
Japanese, and I'm always
happy to hear from other
extensive readers and
language learners. Feel free
to leave a comment, and if
you'd like, subscribe to the
RSS feed.
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1/10/2017

Extensive Reading Material Online

Liana's Extensive Reading Journal

Buy ing books online, part 1 (of, undoubtedly , m any )

Extensive reading is known as , or tadoku

Extensive Reading Material Online

in EXTENSIV E REA DING MA TERIA LS ONLINE

Free Japanese Childrens Stories and Fairytales

unknown words per page), and follow these

Hundreds of free books and stories online

sorting them by word count. The lower

read this interview with him.

the word count, the easier the book. Ive

Finally, for more than you ever wanted to know

mostly focused on adding the very easy

about why I believe extensive reading is worth

ones so far, so that even beginners can

your time, read my tadoku manifesto.

You can only read a book once, and if

Books read: 303

Word count (since starting the blog): 380,500

Extensive Reading Material Online

(Hukumusumes Fairy Tale Collection)

Detailed Reviews of Graded Readers

Detailed Reviews of Level 2 Books

make a habit of reading (What Day Is It Today?)

Detailed Reviews of Level 3 Books

Extensive Reading Basics

Extensive Reading Materials Online

(Digital Picture Book Site).

Extensive Reading Paper Summaries and

Extensive Reading Resources

Illustrated Reference Books

The Great Chokochoko Library

Mini Reviews of Level 1 Books

Mini Reviews of Level 5 Books

Mini-Reviews of Level 6 Books

Nikkei Bunko Library Books

two sites, so it may be worth a look.

Gakken Books for Supporting Reconstruction

Seattle Library Books

Society and Culture

Tacoma Library Books

Extensive Reading Material Online

have lovely illustrations and text to go along with the audio.

(Aoitori Bunko: Trial Reading!)

Extensive Reading group

Goodreads Tadoku Group

Overview of the "Start with Simple Stories"

theyd be at your level and fun for you.

(Various Situations / 4-Panel Manga)

Read More or Die

Reading in a Foreign Language

Tadoku Livejournal Community

tadoku.org (in Japanese)

(Japanese Graded Readers

My profile on lang-8 (feel free to add me as a

(Digital Library from the Meiji Era)

Informal Language: a language learning

announcement of the merging of the (Juvenile Literature

Lan'dorien's Mysterious Journey

something like this is available to the world.

News Sites for Kids

NHK NewsWeb Easy