A while back I shared how to download Japanese-language books from the US and the Japanese Amazon Kindle stores. Now this language-learning/language-enjoying resource has become even more powerful, with the addition of a Japanese-English dictionary! Now, while you are reading, just click on the word you don’t know, and you get a live translation right there on your screen!
Reading in Japanese is a terrific way to learn and enjoy Japanese. The Kindle is a convenient tool that you can use on your computer, smartphone, tablet, or similar device. Many of its books are free or offer free samples. If you want to try it out, here’s out to do it.
First, get a Japanese-language book for your Kindle or Kindle App. It’s a snap from the Amazon store here in the U.S. Here’s a link to the 40,000+ Japanese-language ebooks available.
Many of them are free, or offer free samples.
Plus, with a little determination, you can even buy books from the Amazon Kindle store for Japan, which has hundreds of thousands of ebooks in Japanese. The Amazon store in Japan has the rights to publish many books that it cannot publish in the United States, due to agreements with publishers. I’ve written about how to do it before, but here are some good guides:
and
http://computer-help-please.blogspot.com/2014/09/buy-kindle-books-from-amazon-japan.html
Next, download your book.
Finally - open it up and start reading. If you hit a word that you don’t know, just put your finger on it/select it. You’ll get the default dictionary first - but you’ll see a list of dictionaries to download (for free!) and one of them is Japanese-English. Once you download that dictionary, you are ready to go! Even if you don’t have internet access while you are reading, you can use the dictionary. If you do have internet access, it will even offer you a Wikipedia entry and a Google Translation of the phrase in addition!
Give it a shot - it’s totally free and totally fun!