Digest · Part 1 of 3 · Lower-intermediate · JLPT N4–N3 · 15 min

竹取物語

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Part 1

Anonymous (作者不詳) · c. 10th century

An old bamboo cutter finds a tiny, shining girl inside a stalk of bamboo.

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About this story

作品について

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari) was written around the late 9th or early 10th century, and nobody knows who wrote it. It is the oldest surviving work of Japanese fiction. About a hundred years later, The Tale of Genji called it "the ancestor of all tales." Almost everyone in Japan knows the story of Kaguya-hime, the girl found inside a stalk of bamboo, and in 2013 Studio Ghibli retold it in Isao Takahata's film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. The original is written in classical Japanese, which is hard even for Japanese readers today. So this is a digest: our own retelling in easy modern Japanese, in three parts, with furigana on every kanji. The grammar stays around JLPT N4 to N3. Part 1 takes you from the shining bamboo to the five noblemen who refuse to give up.

Digest · Part 1 of 3

Contents

Read · Discover · Enjoy.

📖
Reading

Read the story retold in easy Japanese, with furigana on every kanji. Tap any word to see an easy English meaning without leaving the story.

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Idioms & Expressions

Idioms, sound words, old-style expressions and similes from the story. Filter by type and check each one in its sentence.

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✍️
Grammar Patterns

Grammar patterns used in the story, with examples from the text. Filter by (estimated) JLPT level.

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Blog

Articles about the story's background, its author and its expressions (1 article).

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About this digest

This is our own retelling of 竹取物語, a public-domain classic, in easy modern Japanese. It follows the original story, but the words are ours.

How our digests work