Welcome to UW Tadoku (extensive reading) page!
Start with stories that are below your fluent reading level (easy books with no more than two or three unknown words per page), and while reading follow these principles:
1. Don’t look up words in the dictionary.
2. Skip over parts you don’t understand.
3. If you aren’t enjoying one book, toss it aside and get another.
(from tadoku.org)
Tadoku Level | JLPT Level | Vocabulary | Length | Grammar Points |
0 | N5 | 350 | ~400 | Present tense, past tense, question words, polite ~ます form, ~たい-form, and so forth. |
1 | N5 | 350 | 400-1,500 | Present tense, past tense, question words, polite ~ます form, ~たい-form, and so forth. |
2 | N4 | 500 | 1,500-3,000 | Dictionary form, て-form, ない-form, ~た-form, attributive, ~と (conditional), ~から (reason), ~のだ, and so forth. |
3 | N3 | 800 | 2,500-6,000 |
Potential form, imperative form, passive form, volitional form, compound verbs, ~とき, から, たら・ば・なら, ~そう (conditional), ~よう, and so forth. |
4 | N3 | 1,300 | 5,000-15,000 |
Causative form, causative passive form,, ~そう (I heard...), ~らしい, ~はず, ~もの, ~ようにする/なる, ことにする/なる, and so forth. |
5 | N2 | 2,000 | 8,000-25,000 | Function words, compound words, idioms, and honorifics such as ~わけにはいかない, ~につれて, 切り開く, 召し上がる, 伺う, and so forth. |
(from tadoku.org)
Special thanks to those organizations and individuals which created those free reading materials and made them available.