It occured to me that I may benefit from reading (or trying to read) basic Japanese books. I’m still fairly new in my Genki/tutoring, so I don’t expect a large percentage of understanding. But I figured the practice couldn’t hurt.
Does anyone have any recommendations? It’s ideal if it’s available on Kindle as most of my books are on my Kindle Oasis anyway.
I’m open to others’ thoughts/insights on the matter.
Thanks!
4 comments
If you are mostly looking for something to practice reading in Japanese with, how about starting with a graded reader for now?
The [Free Tadoku Books](https://tadoku.org/japanese/free-books/) are downloadable as PDF for example. [There are also many other free web resources for simple Japanese stories and articles](https://dokushoclub.com/free-reading-resources/n5-free-reading-resources/).
For Kindle specifically, you could try the short story collections by Lingo Mastery: They published two books titled “Japanese Short Stories for Beginners”. I prefer the second volume over the first.
ミラーさん 小説（しょうせつ）, a graded reader by the publishers of Minna no Nihongo, is also available on Kindle, but if you are using the Genki textbooks it will probably not be of much interest to you.
But speaking of, the Genki textbooks now have their own graded reader series to match their textbooks. They look great, but are not yet available on Kindle and are quite expensive compared to other options.
Are you doing the reading sections in the back of the book for Genki?
Here is a good website that has reading material organized by level. A book may not be the best use of your time at your current level but maybe a very easy manga or a graded reader would be good.
https://learnnatively.com/
The Crystal Hunters manga is intended for language learners and book 1 is free (You can get it on Kindle too)
[https://crystalhuntersmanga.com/](https://crystalhuntersmanga.com/)
Yomu Yomu is super limited but it has some nice and easy stuff to read
[https://yomuyomu.app/lessons](https://yomuyomu.app/lessons)
Satori Reader (pretty sure this has an app)
[https://www.satorireader.com/](https://www.satorireader.com/)
Finally, news articles written in easy (easier) language at NHK or TODAI (They have apps)
[https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/)
[https://easyjapanese.net/](https://easyjapanese.net/)
search this sub for “free graded readers”
you can definitely can already read some of them