It is quite easy to find Japanese texts on the Internet. However finding texts with both furigana and translation is extremely difficult.
Books for children hardly use any kanji, language textbooks can be boring and tend to focus on practicing certain grammar patterns rather than presenting the “natural” Japanese used by native speakers.
Nippon Talk provides a fun and efficient way to make progress in Japanese: with articles treating about various topics you will finally find some material you actually enjoy reading and do want to understand.
All of our texts come with English transcripts as well as furigana for each kanji pronunciation.
They are written by a native speaker, the Japanese used is exactly the same as the one you could hear in the streets of Tokyo.
The website is also compatible with “mouse-hover translation” plugins like Rikaichan or Rikaikun in case you want to check the meaning of particular words.
Donations
We provide all of our content for free, however there are hosting costs we have to pay to keep the website running.
If you appreciate our work and want to keep this project alive, you can support us by making a donation. Even a small amount is appreciated!
(by Paypal)
You can also donate bitcoins:
BTC 1BT9CykZ3LpJo9nv1V66onR2wgPhtYscsS LTC LPo5r4AyvmP4iqcfjuKNZPyYma3a36YgXr PPC PXazj9n4ZLMpzpjH7BRvh2bJ4g8JBgxFdi DOGE D5CX6cYWru2HWBLV2NhfvDbmtNmhCaEkfD
Contact
If you have any question, inquiry or comment, we’ll be happy to hear it!
You can contact us by email:
contact [ at ] nippontalk.com
Copyright
You can read the articles for free and you can print them or copy them for your personal use. However the articles remain the property of Nippon Talk, if you wish to redistribute, publish or sell them, you first need to get an authorization from us.
All the images, pictures and illustrations present on this website are, unless stated otherwise in their caption, property of Nippon Talk.
English
Français
The idea behind this blog is awesome! For a beginner Japanese learner like me, this is a goldmine, since most texts I find on the internet are either too simple, or too hard.
Please continue the great work
Best Regards,
Cristina.
Thank you! We appreciate your support.
I have studied Hiragana and on my way to finish katakana, and from time to time I jump to learn Kanji. However I am eager to read Japanese and understand it as soon as possible. Is it advisable to go on with your Nippon Talk or I have to wait until finishing Katakana? Please advise. Thank you
If you know hiragana then you should be able to read aloud 95% of the content of this website, because all kanji have furigana. But you might be lacking vocabulary since you’re a beginner, so if you really want to enjoy Nippon Talk we advise you install a plugin in your browser, like Rikaichan. This way you can get individual word meanings (including katakana-only words) in addition to the whole sentence translation.
Owh what an amazing website ! Thank you ! I was juste looking for this kind of place as I’m learning japanese but I don’t have en enough things to improve my comprehension, skill and reading. This will definitely help me a lot. Ganbatte everyone & please, Japan Talk team, do your best~
Thank you for the parallel texts! I have enjoyed reading your articles and can’t wait for more! Thanks!
こんにちは。Awesome idea!! I love you already just for this. I’m looking forward to learning from you. ありがとうございます。
Because of my limited Japanese vocabulary as a beginner, I don’t recognize words, I don’t know where they end, I almost never know when は and へ are particles and when they are part of words. I wish those two had furigana on top ^^ or some distinctive marks. I’m not sure what “they” in “They are written by a native speaker” refers to so I wonder if you are adding the furigana manually. Are you?
Thank you for your comment!
Yes furigana are added manually – by the same Japanese person writing the article.
It is quite time-consuming but this is the only way to guarantee a 100% correct transcript.
A program would not be reliable enough to produce perfect results: it might fail to extract the words correctly from the sentence, it might sometimes choose the wrong reading when a word can be read in several ways…
So we take care of this for you: the furigana you see are as correct as they can be.
Yay!
D
Thank you for your answer.
よろしくお願いします。
Ref furigana and time consuming.
Would it be easier for you if the text would be recorded audio and someone else add the furigana? I usually get the reading from http://nihongo.j-talk.com/ and then correct it with the add of the native audio. The mp3 would also be useful as a listening practice and speaking practice (shadowing).
Great site! It really helped me to improve my reading skill. Can you release more stories in the future ? I can’t wait to read it.
Thank you! Sure, more articles are on the way.
Hey,
This is a great idea!
I just read your post on learning French, have you tried the free app DuoLingo? It’s fantastic and a much better, faster and freer way to learn than memorisation.
I am eagerly awaiting the Japanese for English speakers version to be available!
して見てください！
This is an AMAZING website! Thank you very much for your priceless effort. As a Japanese learner (I just got my JLPT N5!), it was very important finding new materials to improve vocabulary and reading. This website is definitely what I was looking for. Guys, your work is sooooo great. Thank you, thank you very much!
Greeting from Italy!
Hi, thanks for your blog. It does help my Japanese a lot. Can’t thank you enough for all the efforts.
I wonder if your blog is still on or else, as I would be pleased to make a small donation to support your endeavour. Anyway, please do keep up with your good work from time to time. Always look forward to your new articles!
Thanks so much for these stories: they are exactly what I was looking, to practice reading hiragana and katakana. Arigatou gozaimasu
Great stories – but it looks like I am coming late – just discovered this page end of 2017 and it began in 2013 — and no new entries in 2017 – fortunately there are enough stories to practise my Japanese – and hopefully some new stories will come in 2018
thanks a lot !!
Excellent website. Having a recording of the story read aloud by both a male and female native Japanese speaker would be the luxurious icing on the cake. What I like about the stories is that most of them are written in first person, something that in other sites completely lack. I’ll be opening a paypal account very soon.
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Hello, I love your website, and I personally think Joaquim’s suggestion is a great one, I wish you could make some more content soon, thanks a lot and wish you all the best!
Thank you for your work ! I love discovering that kind of website, where passions, devotions and humbleness can be felt through what is shared. Hope you are all fine.