Japanese · 日本語

Read your first book in Japanese.

Short stories in Japanese that stay inside the words you know, with the meaning of any word a tap away and audio to read along to.

A1–C1
Five reading levels
5 min
Chapters
N5–N1
JLPT levels shown
Why Japanese, why reading

The shortest path to reading Japanese.

Vocabulary drills only take you so far. To learn to read Japanese you have to read Japanese, and that's where most learners stall. Native books are a wall. Children's books are written for children. Graded readers are dull.

ReadBilingual gives you short Japanesestories pitched at your level, set from the words you've learned or from a one-minute placement quiz. Tap any word to see what it means in that sentence. Press play to hear the story read aloud.

A reading level for every Japanese learner

A1

Just startingN5

About 250 core words. One or two characters, a single place, simple actions.

A2

ComfortableN4

About 800 core words. Multi-chapter stories with a small cast.

B1

ConversationalN3

About 2,000 core words. Dialogue and subplots. Full short stories.

B2

IndependentN2

About 4,000 core words. Idiom and regional voice. Novellas of 8 to 12 chapters.

C1

AdvancedN1

Fiction at native level, curated.

The classics

At C1 the rest of Japanese literature opens up. We'll point you at where to start.

Start reading Japanese today.

Coming soon to iOS and Android. Your first story will be five minutes away.

Coming soon
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