One of the most well known stories from this book is “All God’s Children Can Dance,” which focuses on a young man named Yoshiya who follows a man he thinks may be his father to a baseball field. The man disappears, but Yoshiya still manages to have a joyous epiphany. However—the book tells the story of Makoto’s aunt who experienced a mysteriously similar phenomenon when she was in high school. Part Sci-Fi (or “SF,” as Japanese speakers say), part love story, part slice-of-life…you’ll just love this. In addition to the two free amazing online libraries we've introduced so far, I'd like to cover a couple of the most popular paid options. And one of them (as you might've guessed from the title) is a mobile app!

This book is by Atsushi Matsuhisa. Inexplicably, a boy finds himself employed at a bookstore in…ahem… Heaven. If you’re coming to me with a rich mosaic of anime-watching under your belt, I’m thinking you might know “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” from the anime movie of the same name. While its most notable addition is Yukio Mishima’s “Patriotism,” the book also contains Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s “The Secret” and an excerpt of Yasunari Kawabata’s novel and masterwork, “Snow Country,” all major not-to-be-missed Japanese works of literature.Our goal is to reach Japanese fluency as directly as possible. Unlike a teacher or a textbook, we have the freedom to be ruthless in the path we take to get there. Children’s fables, fairytales and old folktales (昔話, むかしばなし) provide great insight into Japanese culture, as many social lessons are taught through these texts. Popular fables include Momotaro (桃太郎, ももたろ), Shitakiri Suzume (舌きり雀, したきりすずめ) and Tsuru no Ongaeshi (鶴の恩返し, つるのおんがえし).

Now that you can read and pronounce hiragana (remember, slowly is okay!) it's time to learn how to type it on your computer or smartphone.

Being a beginner of anything is great. Everything is new, everything feels like real, tangible progress, and even if you're bad at something, you can't really tell because you don't know enough yet anyway. 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. Illustrated by Yoshiyuki Momose (you’ll recognize his work in the Ghibli movie “Princess Mononoke”), “Stories You Can Read Smoothly” are exactly as the title reads. Keeping all this in mind can help you understand what makes a graded reader set good. It should have a wide range of books, across a number of different skill levels, so that you can find something that's not only suitable for your abilities, but pertains to your interests as well. And remember, your aim should not be to translate a book into English as you read, but rather to comprehend the story as it is in Japanese. This might be a little difficult to grasp for absolute beginners, but as you learn more of the language you'll encounter concepts that you can understand or express better in Japanese than in English, and you'll find your thoughts moving straight from the Japanese text to understanding, without having to make a detour into English.