Small Stories in Japanese 1 - Short stories for beginners - English

A Beginner Japanese Reading Book with Furigana & N5 Kanji Introduction | 10 Lessons + 2 Review Stories | PDF eBook

You know hiragana and katakana. You can read the kana. But reading real Japanese still feels out of reach — this book changes that.

Small Stories in Japanese is the natural next step after finishing the kana — and the perfect companion or follow-up to Japanese Made Simple. Where that book focuses on building grammar from the ground up, this one focuses on something different: actually reading Japanese. Short, natural stories that build your confidence and your eye for the language, one lesson at a time.

How This Japanese Reading Book Works

Each of the 10 lessons follows a calm, structured rhythm designed to build your reading ability gradually and naturally. First, a small vocabulary list introduces only the new words for that lesson — nothing extra, nothing unnecessary. Then one or two grammar points are explained clearly with simple examples. After that comes the reading: a short, natural story using only words you've already seen.

After each story, four comprehension questions — written in Japanese — help you check what you understood. The answers are always in the story itself. There's no test, no score, no pressure. Just reading, understanding, and building real confidence.

Two Review Lessons — one at the midpoint and one at the end — bring everything together in slightly longer stories using only familiar words. By the final review, you'll be reading a full page of Japanese and understanding it.

Your First Steps into Kanji — With Full Support

This is where Small Stories in Japanese goes one step further than a kana-only reading book.

The stories are written primarily in hiragana and katakana, so you always have a solid foundation to read from. But where kanji appears, it always comes with furigana — the small hiragana reading shown above the character — so you're never left guessing. You see the kanji, you see how it's read, and over time your brain starts to recognize it naturally.

At the back of the book, a complete N5 Kanji Reference lists every kanji used, with its reading and meaning. This means that by the time you finish, you won't just have improved your reading fluency — you'll have had your first real, supported introduction to the kanji you'll need for JLPT N5 and beyond. Characters like 私, 家, 朝, 電車, 友達, and 夢 will start to feel familiar, not foreign.

This gentle, in-context approach to kanji is one of the things that makes this book genuinely different from other beginner reading resources.

What Makes This Book Different From Japanese Made Simple

If you've already used Japanese Made Simple, think of this book as its natural companion — focused on a different skill.

Japanese Made Simple teaches you how Japanese grammar works, building the rules and structures you need to form sentences. Small Stories in Japanese puts you in front of real Japanese text and trains your brain to read it — with the added benefit of introducing N5 kanji in a gentle, supported way. Together they cover the two things every beginner needs most: understanding the language and being able to read it.

If you haven't used Japanese Made Simple, don't worry — this book stands completely on its own. All grammar points are explained clearly as they appear.

What You'll Learn

Lesson by lesson, you'll build a solid foundation in reading Japanese:

• Core sentence patterns using は, が, を, に, で, へ, と, から, and まで
• How to talk about daily routines, locations, and objects
• The difference between あります and います
• How to express movement, direction, and destination
• How to use い-adjectives and な-adjectives naturally in context
• How to say what you want to do with the たい form
• Over 100 high-frequency Japanese words built up gradually across all 10 lessons
• A first introduction to N5 kanji in context, always supported by furigana
• A complete N5 kanji reference at the back of the book

Who This Book Is For

You've finished learning hiragana and katakana. Now what?

This is exactly the book for that moment. Small Stories in Japanese is for the beginner who knows the kana and is ready to start reading real Japanese — but wants something gentle, well-supported, and actually enjoyable. Not a textbook that throws everything at you at once. Not an app that gamifies what should be a calm, focused practice. Just real Japanese reading, with just enough kanji to start feeling like you're moving forward.

Perfect for:

• Self-study Japanese learners who have just finished the kana and want a clear next step
• Learners who have completed Japanese Made Simple and want to keep building
• Anyone who finds traditional Japanese textbooks like Genki or Minna no Nihongo too intense at the very beginning
• Learners who want to start getting comfortable with N5 kanji before tackling them head-on
• Anyone who just wants to sit quietly and read something in Japanese

Format: PDF Digital eBook + Print Ready

Small Stories in Japanese is a PDF digital eBook — download it instantly and read it on your phone, tablet, laptop, or computer. It's also available in a print-ready format, perfect for learners who prefer to work through readings on paper.

10 lessons. 2 review stories, 44 pages. Furigana support. N5 kanji introduction.

You learned the kana. Now start reading Japanese — kanji and all.