Japanese Graded Readers: Level 1, Vol. 1 w/ Audio CD

Great stepping stone for language learners.

Favorite story: vol. 4, Urashima Tarou

Great and interesting fictional books for beginners!

For this graded reader set I've written three reviews on my blog. Out of the 5 fictional stories that are included in this reader set, I've written more indepth about:

• The Tale of Hachi: https://dokushoclub.com/2022/02/15/n5-hachi/
• Urashima Tarō: https://dokushoclub.com/2022/06/06/n5-urashima-taro/
• John-san goes to Japan: https://dokushoclub.com/2022/07/08/n5-john-san/

Great Resource for Beginners

One of my favorite aspects of graded readers is that they use restricted vocabulary and kanji. If you are just starting out in reading Japanese books formatted in a Japanese style, these are a great place to start. Even for more advanced readers, they provide a short but easy to follow story to help hon your skills. They also come with audio CDs which can be used for speaking and listening practice separately. Definitely recommend this series.

A drawback is that they’re a bit expensive if you buy the sets, however they do have a free site with different stories. https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/