Learn Japanese through Haiku: Natsume Sōseki [eBook + Audio + App]
Most people know Natsume Sōseki for his novels. Few know he wrote haiku his entire life: quiet, funny, deeply human poems. This book pairs 25 of his best with the original Japanese, furigana, translations, vocabulary and grammar notes.
Learn Japanese through Haiku: Yosa Buson [eBook + Audio + App]
Haiku by Yosa Buson, the painter-poet and one of the great masters of classical haiku, with furigana, translations, vocabulary and grammar.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 1: Samurai & Daimyo [eBook + Audio + App]
Essays on the samurai and the daimyō of Japan's warring states.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 2: Ninja, Rōnin, and Daimyō [eBook + Audio + App]
Essays on the history of the ninja, the tale of the 47 rōnin, and Takeda Shingen, the man who almost had it all.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 3: 20th Century Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Essays on Hachikō, instant ramen and the film director Kurosawa Akira.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 4: Essays on Modern Japan [eBook + Audio + App]
Essays on the new Reiwa era, the rainy season in Japan, and Japan's giant hornet.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 5: Ukiyo-e [eBook + Audio + App]
Three essays on ukiyo-e: its history and its influence around the world.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 6: Japanese Tunnels [eBook + Audio + App]
Essays on Japan's tunnels, including the Blue Tunnel and the Seikan Tunnel.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with History & Essays Volume 7: The Shinkansen and the Rails of Japan [eBook + Audio + App]
Three essays on Japan by rail: the first line of 1872 from Shimbashi to Yokohama, the Shinkansen, and the maglev now being built between Shinagawa and Nagoya.
Written for intermediate learners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 10: Urashima Tarou [eBook + Audio + App]
Urashima Tarou, one of Japan's oldest folktales, dating back to the 8th century, with The Young Man Who Slept Three Years and Hanasaki Jiisan, a tale that rewards kindness.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 11: Kachi Kachi Yama [eBook + Audio + App]
Kachi Kachi Yama (Crackling Mountain) is one of Japan's most famous folktales, and one of its darkest: a wicked tanuki, a grieving old man, and a clever rabbit with a long memory and a patient plan.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 12: Celestial Maiden's Feathered Robe [eBook + Audio + App]
Two tales of women taken from where they belong. Princess Uriko is born from a melon and stolen away by an amanojaku, a demon who wears her face. In the second, a fisherman hides a celestial maiden's feathered robe so she cannot return home.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 13: Hikoichi and the Kitsune [eBook + Audio + App]
The kitsune is Japan's great shape-shifter and deceiver, which makes it the natural opponent for Hikoichi. Two stories of trickster against trickster.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 14: Kicchomu-san [eBook + Audio + App]
Kicchomu is the trickster of old Bungo province, and these two stories show his method: he catches a falling star, and he sells crows to people who should know better. The gentlest vocabulary in the whole collection.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 15: Hikoichi Strikes Back [eBook + Audio + App]
Two more from the Kumamoto trickster. In the first, Hikoichi takes a lord's instruction far more literally than intended. In the second, he goes fishing for a kappa.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 16: The Bowl-Wearing Princess [eBook + Audio + App]
Hachikazuki, the girl made to wear a bowl on her head that no one can remove, paired with the judgments of Ōoka Echizen, the Edo magistrate whose rulings became folklore in their own right.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 17: The Mouse Carving [eBook + Audio + App]
Two Kicchomu stories where the trick turns on craft rather than talk: he outwits a ferryman over a fare, and he carves a mouse so convincing that it settles an argument for him.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 18: Kicchomu's Big Rock [eBook + Audio + App]
A village asks Kicchomu to move a rock nobody can shift, and he does it without lifting anything. In the second story he decides which of two men owns a rice cake.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 19: Kicchomu's Horse [eBook + Audio + App]
Two more from the Bungo trickster, both turning on how people behave when they want something: Kicchomu deals with a fire, and with the ownership of a horse.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 1: Hikoichi [eBook + Audio + App]
Japan's best-loved trickster in four short tales: Hikoichi and the Young Lord, Hikoichi and the Hanami, Hikoichi and the Living Umbrella, and Hikoichi and Tengu's Straw Raincoat.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 20: Bunbuku Tea-Kettle [eBook + Audio + App]
Bunbuku Chagama is one of Japan's best-known tanuki tales: a tanuki turns into a tea kettle to repay a kindness, and finds that holding the shape over a fire is harder than it looks.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 2: Momotaro, the Peach Boy [eBook + Audio + App]
The Peach Boy in full, then the pieces around it: the Momotaro song and where it came from, kibidango and their link to Okayama, what an oni is, and the Japanese telling of The Tortoise and the Hare.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 3: The Inch-High Samurai [eBook + Audio + App]
Issun-boshi, the Inch-High Samurai who rows to the capital in a rice bowl, paired with Kaguya Hime, the bamboo cutter's daughter who came from the moon. Both are among the oldest stories in Japanese.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 4: The Mouse Bride [eBook + Audio + App]
A mouse father looks for the most powerful husband in the world for his daughter, asking the sun, the cloud, the wind and the wall in turn. Paired with tales of Ikkyu-san, the boy monk whose clever answers made him a household name.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 5: Shitakiri Suzume [eBook + Audio + App]
Two classic folktales: Shitakiri Suzume, the tongue-cut sparrow, and Kobutori Jiisan, the old man with a lump on his cheek.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 6: Yuki Onna [eBook + Audio + App]
The Yuki Onna, the snow woman, is a yōkai who appears to travelers on snowy nights: a beautiful, pale woman who floats and never leaves footprints.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 7: The Little Match Girl [eBook + Audio + App]
Hans Christian Andersen's story is a well-known tale in Japan: a little girl's dreams on a cold New Year's Eve, told in Japanese.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 8: Hikoichi Revisited [eBook + Audio + App]
More stories of Hikoichi, the smart, sassy trickster whose tales were the favorites of our first volume.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 9: The Fountain of Youth [eBook + Audio + App]
A mixed collection of classic tales led by The Fountain of Youth, with two stories about children.
Every story is glossed line by line, printed again without furigana, and translated into English, with native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 1: The Kappa [eBook + Audio + App]
The kappa, the river creature every Japanese child knows, in a folklore reader for upper beginners who want to improve their reading, listening and cultural understanding, one strange creature at a time.
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 2: The Tengu [eBook + Audio + App]
Three essays on the tengu: what it is and what it can do, the theories of where it came from, and three legends (Yoshitsune on Mount Kurama, a boy returned by a tall stranger, and the octopus cedar of Mount Takao).
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 3: The Oni [eBook + Audio + App]
Three essays on the oni: the games and idioms it lives in plus the legend of Shuten-dōji, the real families said to descend from converted oni, and the Namahage of Akita, a terrifying New Year visit that is really a blessing.
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 4: The Fox and the Tanuki [eBook + Audio + App]
Why foxes and tanuki are said to deceive, from a nine-tailed fox in a Chinese classic to the court beauty Tamamo-no-Mae, and the Killing Stone of Nasu, which you can still visit.
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 5: Mermaids of Japan [eBook + Audio + App]
Japan's mermaid, three ways: its first sighting in the Nihon Shoki and the temple mummies that survive today, the 800-year-old nun who ate mermaid flesh, and Amabie, the Edo-era plague-warding yōkai that all of Japan drew again in 2020.
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 6: Yamanba, the Mountain Witch [eBook + Audio + App]
Two full folktales of the mountain crone: the ox-driver who feeds her his whole cargo, and the beloved Three Magic Charms, about a chestnut-hungry temple boy.
Written for upper beginners: full furigana, line-by-line vocabulary, the text again without furigana, an English translation, and native audio.
Yonde Miyo~! Volume 1: Short and Fun Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Ten short, fun stories (stories 1-10) written in hiragana and basic kanji, with furigana on every kanji and native audio. An easy first step for learners who have just finished hiragana.
Yonde Miyo~! Volume 2: Short and Fun Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Ten more short, fun stories (stories 11-20) written in hiragana and basic kanji, with furigana on every kanji and native audio.
Yonde Miyo~! Volume 3: Short and Fun Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Ten more short, fun stories (stories 21-30) written in hiragana and basic kanji, with furigana on every kanji and native audio.
Yonde Miyo~! Volume 4: Short and Fun Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Ten more short, fun stories (stories 31-40) written in hiragana and basic kanji, with furigana on every kanji and native audio.
Yonde Miyo~! Volume 5: Short and Fun Japanese Stories [eBook + Audio + App]
Ten more short, fun stories (stories 41-50) written in hiragana and basic kanji, with furigana on every kanji and native audio.
