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Your first stories

This is the part everything else was for. Each story shows the real Japanese, with up to three reading aids layered over it that you switch off one at a time as you stop needing them. That is the peel: same story, less scaffolding, until you are reading it cold.

One thing to expect on your first sentence: Japanese does not put spaces between words. A sentence arrives as one unbroken run of characters, which is why the reader highlights each word separately and lets you tap it. You are not missing a trick; the spaces genuinely are not there.

Tap any word to see its reading and meaning, or save it for practice.

How to work through this section
  1. 1 Open the first story with every reading aid switched on. Read it through once without worrying about what it means.
  2. 2 Read it again and tap the words you do not know. Tap "Save for practice" on the ones worth keeping.
  3. 3 Turn off romaji and read it a third time. You will find you are reading the kana rather than the Latin letters.
  4. 4 Turn off furigana when that stops being hard. Then move to the next story and start again with the aids you still need.

You are done here when you have read a story with furigana off and understood it. That is the whole skill this course exists to build, and it is normal for it to take several stories.

Words used on this page

Furigana:
small kana printed above a kanji telling you how to say it. It is what makes a kanji readable before you have learned it.
Romaji:
Japanese written in Latin letters, like sakura. Useful on the way in, and the first aid you should drop.
Literal English:
the meaning layer here is deliberately word-for-word rather than natural English, so you can see how the Japanese sentence is built. It reads oddly on purpose.
Stories read 0 of 20

Practice your saved words

Drill the words you tapped while reading - free, weakest-first, on this device.

Practice →

Browse by set, gentlest first. The first two are free; the rest are part of the one-time full course.

Gentle warm-up micro-stories using only what you have learned.

    1

    はじめまして

    A first hello.
    2

    わたしのかぞく

    My family.
    3

    あさ

    A morning.
    4

    がっこう

    Going to school.
    5

    かいもの

    At the store.
    6

    てんき

    Nice weather.
    7

    ねこ

    A cat named Tama.
    8

    ばんごはん

    Dinner at home.
    9

    すうじ

    Counting things.
    10

    おやすみ

    Good night.