Free
NHK news rewritten in simpler Japanese with furigana and audio, aimed at learners and children.
Web
Visit ↗10 LearnNatively alternatives
Other reading tools tools, in our recommended order. About LearnNatively →
Free + paid options
Graded Japanese stories and articles with native audio, adjustable furigana and explanations of the grammar used. Some content is free; full access is paid.
WebiOSAndroid
Visit ↗Free
Aozora Bunko: a free online library of Japanese books in the public domain, mostly older literature.
Web
Visit ↗Free
Free graded readers from the Tadoku project: short illustrated books written for learners at different levels. Read them online, download them as PDFs, or watch them read aloud on YouTube.
Web
Visit ↗Free + paid options
Manabi Reader: an app for reading Japanese web pages and books with instant lookups and built-in flashcards that track what you know.
iOSmacOS
Visit ↗Paid
Paid toolkit that adds lookups and one-click card creation to videos and websites such as YouTube and Netflix, with its own flashcard system.
ChromeWebiOSAndroid
Visit ↗Free
Free online e-book reader for Japanese EPUBs, built to work with pop-up dictionaries like Yomitan, with vertical text and reading progress tracking.
Web
Visit ↗Free
Free tool that runs text recognition on manga so you can read it in your browser with selectable Japanese text, which means pop-up dictionaries like Yomitan work on manga.
WindowsmacOSLinux
Visit ↗Free
Free Windows tool that pulls the text out of visual novels and games as you play, so you can look words up with a pop-up dictionary.
Windows
Visit ↗
TheMoeWay (learnjapanese.moe)
Setting up an immersion and sentence-mining routine
BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
Free community guide to learning Japanese through native media. It lays out a study order (kana, Anki decks, grammar, then immersion) and has step-by-step setup guides for Yomitan, Anki mining and text hookers for visual novels. Opinionated: it pushes heavy immersion over textbooks.
Web
Visit ↗