Apps for (coffee-time) reading

Basically, I would like more things that I can read over a coffee or while waiting for a train or so on, so basically this is a thread for apps that provide reading material in Japanese of any sort, which you could fire up and actually read something in under fifteen minutes. (No study/dictionary apps please).

If anybody has a nice suggestion for movie/book/game reviews in particular, I would be overjoyed, but I am an omnivorous reader and will give just about anything a go.

All the below have both Android and iPhone versions, although I'm on Android personally. Since I'm in the UK, I don't expect anything here to be region-locked but there may be oddities depending on where you are and what language your phone is set to.

SmartNews
ニュースが快適に読めるスマホアプリ『SmartNews』
(They do have a US version so you may need to change the settings in-app). This is a pretty nice news accumulator. You can pick/exclude categories. Some of it is less news and more clickbait, but that's okay, too. "Smart" mode downloads while you're on wifi so you can still read when you don't have signal.

Simplog
http://simplog.jp/portal
Ameba (blog site) portal for basically posting (as far as I can tell) pictures of what you are wearing/eating today, or what your cat is doing, with a bit of text attached. To get the most out of it you need to sign up (I just used my Yahoo Japan account, pretty quick), so you can follow random people and what their cats are doing.

Warning: you may want to turn push notifications off, this is one of those apps that likes to inform you anytime anything at all happens. I thought I'd turned everything off in-app and it was still buzzing away at me so had to lock it down completely.

Comico
comico（コミコ）
Manga, basically. Various "official" ones which update weekly (each has a set update day), and "challenge" section where hopeful amateurs compete to get promoted to official status. 遠くの日は青く , which is basically a set of short, bizarre/creepy stories is worth a look - if you don't get it, the comments are usually full of theories as to what actually happened.

Side note: kind of interesting in light of the occasional wannabe mangaka who appear around here, one of the official mangaka is a French woman (although seems she's heading back to France soon).

Cookpad
iPhone/Androidのスマートフォンやタブレットアプリでクックパッドを使おう 【クックパッド】 簡単おいしいみんなのレシピが360万品
The site I spend too much time on my laptop, now also available on my phone!
This is the recipe site in Japan. I particularly like loading it up to see what the popular searches of the moment are (right now: Christmas Cake). Some functions require you to be logged in (free), others require you to be a premium member (not free).

Don't forget the Kindle app. There are quite a few free titles available.

Nice thread, I'm really interested in such websites and apps too, though, I might not be able to share much since All I do is read www.asahi.com all day, I'm also using the JDIC as an offline dictionary, it doesnt have sentence examples but it does allow me to search for kanji through radicals and meaning.

Btw, Just recently(right after you helped me in that thread about improving listening) I found a japanese youtuber who plays older games and comments on them, he is called "iwatismforever" , he speaks slowly and never really rushes on anything. link : (http://www.youtube.com/user/iwatismforever) , (I like to download a whole playthrough of his videos and watch/ listen to them whenever I'm idle/having lunch/driving)

Hi nekojitasan,
One that is similar to smart news is nhk news easy. It uses condensed news articles with furigana so might be better for less advanced speakers then yourself, but still a great site.

Hello Kraise さん,

Kraise said:

I found a japanese youtuber who plays older games and comments on them, he is called "iwatismforever" , he speaks slowly and never really rushes on anything. link : (http://www.youtube.com/user/iwatismforever)

Click to expand...

That is absolutely brilliant !, thank you ! (I just watched the "#16 FINAL FANTASY IV" playthrough video.)

Very unhurried and clear pronunciation, and what's more there are very many dialogues displayed in the game (on the blue popup boxes) which he all reads out completely, thus with the written text making it even easier to follow what he's saying. Interesting also that such games apparently use kata/hira-kana only, and no Kanji whatsoever.

With best regards,

Menno ( メンノー )

@Mike Cash Is there much free stuff in Japanese up on the Kindle app that isn't already on Aozora? (I do have an Aozora reader already). I'll have to check it out - I had heard that it's heavily region-locked.

@Kraise: ooh, nice. I am a fan of 実況プレイ

nekojita said:

@Mike Cash Is there much free stuff in Japanese up on the Kindle app that isn't already on Aozora? (I do have an Aozora reader already). I'll have to check it out - I had heard that it's heavily region-locked.

@Kraise: ooh, nice. I am a fan of 実況プレイ

Click to expand...

I get the impression that all of the free Kindle content came from Aozora originally.

MRubingh said:

Hello Kraise さん,



That is absolutely brilliant !, thank you ! (I just watched the "#16 FINAL FANTASY IV" playthrough video.)

Very unhurried and clear pronunciation, and what's more there are very many dialogues displayed in the game (on the blue popup boxes) which he all reads out completely, thus with the written text making it even easier to follow what he's saying. Interesting also that such games apparently use kata/hira-kana only, and no Kanji whatsoever.

With best regards,

Menno ( メンノー )

Click to expand...

You might want to check Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, there are plenty of kanji in those ones.

Anyway, Glad I could be of any help. You're welcome

@letslearn - sorry I didn't respond earlier, but NHK News Easy looks like a good way of getting yourself into the news, and this doesn't have to just be about things I personally want to read, so feel free to contribute anything that you think is interesting or anything you personally use as reading practice.

On the kanji in games thing, my understanding was that older games in particular use all-kana, partly because of resolution/memory/other techical issues. More recent games are really only limited by the abilities of the target audience (I have a Zelda DS game with pop-up furigana which is rather nice).

I should probably add the Aozora reader I use (Android only): 青空文庫ビューア
This one I like because you can see a list by length (find short things) and also rankings.

Hello Kraise さん、 Nekojita さん,

Kraise said:

You might want to check Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, there are plenty of kanji in those ones.

Click to expand...

Got it ( クロノクロス、 クロノトリガー ).

もう一度 、 ありがとう ございます。

I get the impression that "クロ" is used in many places (games, anime) as a play on words with "黒" kuro = black, or am I mistaken? The character "クロエ" (Chloe) in the anime "Noir", for example.

nekojita said:

On the kanji in games thing, my understanding was that older games in particular use all-kana, partly because of resolution/memory/other techical issues.

Click to expand...

As a programmer, it is obvious to me that kana are easier to program than kanji, because a smaller character set (needing fewer bitmaps), and because the bitmaps can be smaller (i.e. small bitmaps still readable at the low screen resolution used in many older games). Simpler in every way. For example, I would imagine that even in the most modern microprocessor applications, kana would be used for simple output (such as e.g. for debugging purposes or for technicians doing configuration), when not using ASCII.

---
私 の digressions を 許す ください ,
With best regards,

Menno ( メンノー )

There are often puns/plays on words in fiction, also theme naming, and a large part of Japanese puns play on sound-alikes (particularly with kanji), so I wouldn't be surprised.

許す ください → 許してください

And don't worry - I count text-heavy games as "reading" anyway, so it's still within spec.

nekojita said:

許す ください → 許してください

Click to expand...

Yes, after I sent it I saw that this obviously needs the て form. I was just in the process of editing my reply when the 15 minutes editing period expired. Then I started sending a brief posting to correct myself, but you beat me to it ...

With best regards, Menno ( メンノー )

Sorry if its going to look like I'm bumping an older thread:

I just wanted to recommend this one to Nekojita and/or anyone else who appreciates japanese cooking.

this youtuber, Kazumeshi, just found him and I'm having much fun watching his videos all day, https://www.youtube.com/user/kazumeshi

Ooh, he has a GOPAN video? Those were super popular on Cookpad a while back, never seen one in action.

yeah, his kitchen seems to be well equipped too, oh gosh how I fancy this huge variety of kitchen 電器(Sorry I forgot the english word for this ) , I'm having a blast watching his channel

Kraise said:

yeah, his kitchen seems to be well equipped too, oh gosh how I fancy this huge variety of kitchen 電器(Sorry I forgot the english word for this ) , I'm having a blast watching his channel

Click to expand...

Appliances perhaps.

調理家電満載、おい

Since we're turning this into a cooking stuff thread (yay), a great place to start picking up the lingo is to look for 料理の基本 sites/videos (a lot of these are sponsored by various companies but still useful):
料理の基本・初心者向け情報｜レシピ大百科（レシピ・料理）｜【味の素パーク】たべる楽しさを、もっと。
http://www.kikkoman.co.jp/homecook/basic
下ごしらえや基本：白ごはん.com

nekojita said:

調理家電満載、おい

Since we're turning this into a cooking stuff thread (yay), a great place to start picking up the lingo is to look for 料理の基本 sites/videos (a lot of these are sponsored by various companies but still useful):
料理の基本・初心者向け情報｜レシピ大百科（レシピ・料理）｜【味の素パーク】たべる楽しさを、もっと。
http://www.kikkoman.co.jp/homecook/basic
下ごしらえや基本：白ごはん.com

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Nekojitasan,
I noticed one of the recipes uses だしの取り方 why is 取る used in this instance. Why not 作り方？

That is pretty common, I guess it's because you "take" the flavour for dashi out of ingredients like kombu or katsuobushi (which is then normally strained out).

It's probably this 取る
材料・原料からとり出したり、作り出したりする。製する。「豆から油を―・る」

However, I think you can use 作る too.

nekojita said:

That is pretty common, I guess it's because you "take" the flavour for dashi out of ingredients like kombu or katsuobushi (which is then normally strained out).

It's probably this 取る
材料・原料からとり出したり、作り出したりする。製する。「豆から油を―・る」

However, I think you can use 作る too.

Click to expand...

I see, I wonder if it is used with other things like Tea. お茶の取る方

お茶を淹れる (コーヒーも)
I think 取る would be taken as 飲む with tea.

btw, with "method" 方 it needs to use masu stem, so not 取る方 but 取り方 (the whole thing makes a noun, like 飲む → 飲み物).

Good ones for beginners like me are a bunch of handy very small pocket sized books like:
Barrons Grammar book,
All about particles,
Pict-o-grpahic mini kana guide
etc.

Yes, I'm old fashioned and prefer books to apps (despite working in IT).
I generally have Barrons in my pocket at all times as it very compact, and I can pull it out and read up on a bit of grammar E.g. all about Verbs or Particles on a long journey, or maybe just 'ni' or 'past tense' etc. if I've only got a short wait or journey.

(Reminder: this thread is for stuff to read in Japanese, not stuff in English that's about Japanese. There are learning resources/study app threads for that)

Today's theme: グルメ旅行!
全国ご当地B級グルメ特集 | 国内旅行・国内ツアーは日本旅行
＜47都道府県＞ご当地グルメ｜旅情報を知り尽くした【旅色】が紹介

The latter page has a bunch of glossy "電子雑誌" which might be interesting if you're planning a trip, or just like reading the travel section of newspapers:
無料で読める200冊以上の旅行電子雑誌｜旅色
They're actually quite readable on mobile - tap on the text boxes and a bigger version pops up.

Word learnt today from one of the above: アンテナショップ