Do you read books? Do you listen to books? Let us show you a couple of sites where you can read, listen to, and enjoy literature.
Literary works to read, listen to, and enjoy!
'青空文庫 Aozora Bunko' (Introduction Article)
On this site, you can freely read copyright-free literature and more.
You can also download the files.
First, click 総合インデックス (general index).
Make your selection from the list of available works.
List of authors/collections beginning with letters in the アcolumn.
You can find detailed information about the works.
You can read it in the xhtml file, or
download it as simple text.
If you need yomigana, please read the xhtml file using the 'hirahira hiragana glasses (ひらひらのひらがなめがね)'.
If you find that it's too challenging to read, here's a…！
Literature site to enjoy listening.
'Roudoku Café' (Introduction Article)
This site has a collection of literary works read by all sorts of readers.
Among them are recorded readings of many works from Aozora Bunko, introduced above.
From the menu at the top of the screen, select 青空文庫名作文学の朗読 (Readings of Aozora Bunko Masterpieces).
Click to find the names of the authors.
We selected 夏目漱石 (Natsume Soseki).
You can first listen to the audio, write down the words you don't understand, and look them up before listening again.
Also, if you want to listen to the reading while checking the text, you can search for the author in Aozora Bunko in the first site, open it on the website and look at the text while listening to the audio on Roudoku Cafe to see how it is read.
Roudoku Café 'Sōseki Natsume's Ten Nights of Dreams - The Second Night'
Aozora Bunko 'Sōseki Natsume's Ten Nights of Dreams - The Second Night'
Ah, good trick! Listening to how it's read sounds like good practice!
While it can be fun reading and listening to various works, try reading and fully understanding one short story and use it to practice your listening comprehension, kanji, and vocabulary, too!