So I’ve wanted to try and read something in Japanese but I don’t have any idea how to read Kanji. So I was wondering if you guys know any books or something fairly easy, like a children’s book or something similar, where there’s only Hiragana or if there’s Kanji, that there’s Hiragana next to it. I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions:)
Edit: thank you all for your suggestions. I’m sure I have plenty to begin with now! 😀
12 comments
For anything electronic you can read in your browser, you can just use Yomichan and it will give you the reading (and meaning) of any word when you click on it. Otherwise search this subreddit for “furigana” and there is a lot of recommendations already, e.g. [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/tcqmih/any_hiragana_or_furigana_reading_resource/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/tcqmih/any_hiragana_or_furigana_reading_resource/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/tzoqzr/looking_for_japanese_ebboks_with_furigana/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/tzoqzr/looking_for_japanese_ebboks_with_furigana/)
… and many more.
How much Japanese have you studied? Even a children’s book will assume you have mastered the basic grammar of the language (remember that even a young child has an enormous passive vocabulary and understands all of the basic, everyday spoken grammar.)
Furigana is an option. Do you know what it is? It’s when they print kana above the kanji.
this publisher’s books have it
https://tsubasabunko.jp/
If you’re just beginning to study Japanese, how about starting with graded readers instead? They are written for learners and use simple sentence structures. You will be able to read them as soon as you memorized hiragana and with just a hand full of vocabulary. They will have furigana on all kanji and on katakana to help you with their readings.
The free ones by [tadoku](https://tadoku.org/japanese/free-books/) are amazing to start with and I collect many more free reading resources for beginners on [dokushoclub.com](https://dokushoclub.com/free-reading-resources/n5-free-reading-resources/).
Some of my favourites for that level are:
* [なにを のみますか？](https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/6447/#bd-look-inside)
* [しろい？ くろい？](https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/4982/#bd-look-inside)
* [いました！](https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/6469/#bd-look-inside)
The beginner manga Crystal Hunters might be the way to go. They even have beginner guides and study guides at their site. Give the first guide a read here:
https://crystalhuntersmanga.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/japanese-guide-1-3-v27.pdf
Then, at the end of the guide is a link to read the first book for free. There is some kanji, but the easy version has furigana (hiragana above the kanji), you should be OK. Even if you’re starting from zero, this manga can help you.
I also recommend the low level reading (N5) at http://www.watanoc.com but, if you’re starting from zero or only Hiragana, Crystal Hunters is probably your best start.
Good luck! ✨🍀✨
Most Shonen Jump if not all Shonen Jump has the sentence written properly and any Kanji has Hiragana next to it to help you along
Crystal hunters! It’s a manga created for learning Japanese, there are Currently 5 books and they are a lot of fun to read!
What you want is Furigana books.
Reading children’s books in Japanese is really difficult. You’d do better with graded readers.
Children’s books:
* All hiragana/katakana, no spaces, so you as a newbie won’t know where one word starts and ends.
* Lots of onomatopoeia, because it’s fun for kids. It will be less fun for you.
* Vocab that Japanese kids know that you don’t.
* Pro: They do have simpler sentence structures. And there’s pictures.
Graded readers:
* The very simple ones put spaces between words. And will have a glossary for vocab.
* A lot of them come with CDs so you can listen to it as well as read it.
* They are ‘graded’. Meaning you can start really simply and work your way up, with each story/book/whatever in the series becoming more difficult in vocab, grammar, and more kanji.
* They use repetition, of vocab, of sentence structure, etc. Some children’s books will do this too, of course. Think “I will not eat it in a box. I will not eat it with a fox.”
Children’s books for language learning have their uses, but in Japanese in particular, it’s just.. they’re not as easy as you’d think.
nobody’s mentioned it yet, but I love [learn natively](https://learnnatively.com/) because its set up to have reading through all levels of JP.
Would you like an online resource? Recently just used [https://hirogaru-nihongo.jp/en/](https://hirogaru-nihongo.jp/en/) to read short entries. You can toggle furigana on or off if you want.
Someday you will appreciate Kanji. Only-hiragana is so hard to read 😆