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日本語 · English

Learn Japanese with short stories

Read Japanese books with English alongside, or English books with Japanese alongside: the original and the translation side by side, paragraph by paragraph.

Free Japanese–English stories and ebooks

Stories to read in Japanese, with the English beside each paragraph. They open in the browser, with no account needed, and each one is also a free Japanese–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).

By level:

Free graded readers in Japanese

Every story here carries its level on the Common European Framework, from A1 for beginners to C1 and beyond, so the library works as a set of free Japanese graded readers: start at the level where you understand most of a page, and move up when the English beside it is something you check only now and then.

Want a book that isn’t here? Make your own Japanese–English parallel text from any EPUB or PDF: free preview, and 50 free pages when you sign up.

Reading Japanese with English alongside

Japanese asks more of a reader than most languages. Three scripts share the page, hiragana, katakana and kanji, and words run on without spaces, so even a simple sentence can take a while to take apart.

Once the scripts are familiar, the grammar is the next hurdle: the verb comes at the end of the sentence, small particles mark the roles that word order carries in English, and subjects are often left out entirely. With the English next to each paragraph, you can check who did what without stopping to parse every line twice.

Reading English books with Japanese alongside

For Japanese speakers, a parallel text is a way into books in English without reaching for a dictionary every few lines. Read the English and look across to the Japanese when an idiom, a phrasal verb or a long sentence doesn’t land.

It works for bilingual families too: one book, two languages on the same page, so a parent and a child can each follow in the language they read best.

Where a parallel text helps most in Japanese

Three scripts at once

A single sentence can mix kanji, hiragana and katakana, and the same kanji can be read in more than one way. With the English beside the paragraph, you know what a sentence says before you have worked out every character.

Verbs at the end

Japanese keeps the verb, and with it any negation, for the end of the sentence, so the meaning can turn at the very last word. Pairing by paragraph keeps the whole thought on screen while you read to the end.

Missing subjects

Japanese leaves out whoever is obvious from context, and politeness levels hint at who is speaking to whom. The translation beside each paragraph names the people the original leaves unsaid.

Japanese classics to read in parallel

Long out of copyright and easy to find as EPUBs. Any of them makes a good first Japanese–English parallel text:

  • 坊っちゃん, Natsume Sōseki
  • 羅生門, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke
  • 銀河鉄道の夜, Miyazawa Kenji
  • 舞姫, Mori Ōgai

Or use a book you already own: the method works best with something you actually want to read. See how to read a parallel text to get the most from it.