Some time ago, I asked about how people do their reading. Well, looks like many of you have embraced the digital age- personally, I have my reasons to dislike it more and more every day, but that's a different topic.
Anyways, living in Japan means I have access to TONS of printed material… but paper material means that there's a lot of extra steps involved if you want to look up a word. However, I do find myself enjoying graded readers, particularly more advanced ones. I can understand most of it, but it's good for reading practice either way. However, graded readers have two drawbacks: for an actual COLLECTION… gotta pay an not-insignficant amount of money. And there's one more thing, but I'll get to that later.
The shoutout is to u/Seikou9 for their version of graded readers. Specifically, it's called Shinobi: Read and Learn Japanese. It has a ton of stories that go from I believe introductory (starter) to expert. TECHNICALLY, it's all completely free… by which I mean that you have to wait 12 hours to unlock a new story if you don't actually pay for the app itself. Only reason i haven't thrown money at it is due to my current Not Very Good financial situation.
But here's the kicker, and why I REALLY like and recommend it- you don't just get the stories; after you finish a story, you get several comprehension questions. I think this is a major improvement over the more traditional readers, where you get a story… and that's it. The questions DEFINITELY help to check your understanding of the story, and I feel that's a very, very important part- give me furigana and I can read probably anything; comprehension is a different story.
A couple last things to note: to make progress, you have to read each story and answer the comprehension questions… in order. You can't just skip around between stories. Personally, I like this very linear way; it keeps me from being overwhelmed. And in order to unlock more levels, you first have to finish ALL of the previous levels and stories. Again, this is in the free version, as far as I can tell. If you want to pay for it… I guess it unlocks everything?
Anyways, I want to call attention to this resource. Oh, did I mention each page has very nice drawings? Those also add to its charm. So, if you want a resource that has a lot of built-in things that (so long as you don't mind waiting and going in order) is completely free… again, the app is called Shinobi: Read and Learn Japanese. Dictionary lookups are also included, of course.
by the_card_guy