こころ
夏目漱石 · Natsume Soseki · 1914
One of the foundations of modern Japanese fiction. Soseki's prose is more accessible than people remember; the themes are not.
Japanese · 日本語
Read Japanese books with in-context translation.
Open Sōseki, Akutagawa or your own EPUB. Tap any word and get the meaning it has in that sentence - set phrases and Meiji-era Japanese included - with a short note on why.
吾輩は猫である · 一
吾輩は猫である。名前はまだ無い。どこで生れたかとんと見当がつかぬ。何でも薄暗いじめじめした所でニャーニャー泣いていた事だけは記憶している。吾輩はここで始めて人間というものを見た。しかもあとで聞くとそれは書生という人間中で一番獰悪な種族であったそうだ。
書生Save
a live-in student lodger
Not just “student”: a Meiji-era houseboy-student
SentenceWhy?Grammar
Why the original
Why read Japanese books in the original
Japanese has three writing systems running in parallel: hiragana for grammar, katakana for foreign words, and a few thousand kanji for meaning. You need all three to read at all. Most learners get stuck on the kanji.
Tap-to-translate is exactly the tool for this. Read whatever you want, tap the kanji you don't know, and they slowly become familiar. Reading is what gets you fluent; tap-to-translate is what lets you read.
The literature is also one of the most distinctive in the world. Soseki at the start of the modern period, Kawabata's quiet aesthetic, Mishima's intense classicism, Murakami's loose colloquial prose. Each of them sounds completely different in translation than in the original.
Start here
Six Japanese books worth your time
Import any DRM-free EPUB of these, or start with a free classic from the app’s library.
ノルウェイの森
村上春樹 · Haruki Murakami · 1987
Murakami in his most readable mode. Modern Japanese, conversational, full of the kind of sentences that can carry you for pages.
雪国
川端康成 · Yasunari Kawabata · 1937
Kawabata won the Nobel partly for this. Spare, lyrical Japanese, set against the snow country of western Japan. Short, hard to forget.
羅生門
芥川龍之介 · Ryūnosuke Akutagawa · 1915
A short story most people know through Kurosawa's film. Akutagawa's prose is more compact and more controlled than the film suggests.
金閣寺
三島由紀夫 · Yukio Mishima · 1956
Mishima's most read novel. The Japanese is dense, classical in places, and rewards patience. A young monk and the temple he ends up burning down.
コンビニ人間
村田沙耶香 · Sayaka Murata · 2016
Modern Japanese, simple sentences, sharp observation. A 36-year-old convenience store worker who refuses to fit into anything else.
What a dictionary misses
Japanese you’ll meet in books - explained in place.
猫の手も借りたいto be extremely busy
“I’d even borrow a cat’s paws” - so busy that any help would do.
腹が立つto get angry
Literally “the belly stands up” - a dictionary gives you your stomach.
とんと見当がつかぬhave no idea at all
Old-fashioned とんと plus a negative - Sōseki’s cat has no clue where it was born.
By level
How to read Japanese at your level.
A2
Short and familiar
Start with short, modern stories. Tap kanji compounds freely - the meaning comes with the word, not the single character. Save only what you meet twice.
B1
Read for the story
Akutagawa’s short stories like 羅生門 or a modern novel like コンビニ人間. Use “Why?” on set phrases and review five minutes a day.
B2+
Go for the classics
Sōseki, Kawabata, Mishima. Turn to grammar notes for literary forms like ぬ and である and export your deck to Anki.
In the app
How LinguaRead works with Japanese
Drop in any Japanese EPUB. Tap a word and you see the meaning, the reading (furigana / hiragana), the part of speech, the politeness level. Tap again for grammar - which particle is doing what, why this verb form, how the sentence is structured.
The kanji wall is the thing that stops most learners. With tap-to-translate, you can read above your kanji level - meanings appear, you keep reading, and the characters slowly become readable through repetition.
Japanese FAQ
Before you start.
What if I don’t know how to read a kanji?
Tap the word: you get what it means in this sentence and the grammar behind it. Save it, and the review card brings it back with the line you found it in.
Japanese has no spaces - how does tapping work?
Tap a character and you get the whole word it belongs to here, with particles and verb endings explained, not just a single kanji.
Is Sōseki too hard for a learner?
こころ and 吾輩は猫である use older literary Japanese, so they suit B2 and up. Before that, try Akutagawa’s short stories or a modern novel.
Can I import Japanese EPUBs from other stores?
Any DRM-free EPUB works - from Aozora Bunko conversions, your own files or stores that sell without DRM. Books locked to another app’s DRM can’t be opened.
Your first Japanese book, tonight.
Free to try on iPhone and iPad.
