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海のほとり

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

The narrator spends the end of summer by the sea with his friend M.

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Original language: JapaneseLevel: Intermediate3,600 characters · ≈ 14 minSource: 青空文库

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Sample: three-line reading

Each word has its meaning in this sentence underneath, and each sentence has a full translation. Read the original and glance down only when you need to.

一one
One
雨はthe rain (topic)まだstill降りつづけていたkept falling (was continuing to fall)
The rain was still falling.
僕等はwe午飯をすませたfinished lunch後after敷島をShikishima (cigarettes)何本もmany (cigarettes)灰にしながらwhile reducing to ash東京の友だちの噂などthings like rumors about friends in Tokyoしたdid
After we finished lunch, we smoked many Shikishima cigarettes to ash and talked about friends in Tokyo.
僕等のいるのはwhat we were in / the place where we were何もないempty / with nothing庭へover the garden葭簾の日除けをa reed-blind sunshade差しかけたhad put up / stretched out六畳二間の離れa detached two-room, six-mat spaceだったwas
We were in a separate two-room six-mat space with a reed blind sunshade over an empty garden.

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About the book

This passage follows the narrator and his friend M staying at the seaside as the rain keeps falling; after lunch they smoke and chat, then turn to the writing they owe their magazine and the practical worries of life after graduation. It also slips into a dream the narrator has after dozing off, in which a voice calls to him through the shutters beside a moonlit pool, giving the whole piece a quiet, drowsy, faintly dreamlike feel.

Cultural notes (selection)

Background a translation can’t carry: social roles, history and allusions. While reading, tap “Note” at the end of a sentence to see them all.

里見八犬伝を読みはじめた Allusion

Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is a long romance novel by Kyokutei Bakin, telling how eight brave warriors, each bearing a spirit bead, gather at the Satomi family of Awa and win honor. The passage in this text, in which Shinno, Genpachi, Kōnosuke and Tajikaze Terufumi present gold dust, comes from the original book; the classical-style quotation contrasts with the forty-sen manuscript fee.

敷島 Customs

Shikishima has been a best-selling Japanese cigarette brand since the Meiji era. Here it refers to smoking a Shikishima-brand cigarette, not to a place name or an island.

About the author

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1 March 1892 – 24 July 1927), also known by his art name Chōkōdō Shujin, was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period who is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story". He died by suicide at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital, and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him.

How the glosses are made

Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.

FAQ

Is this the original text?

Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from 青空文库.

Do I need to pay or sign up?

Library books are free to read without an account. Other gloss languages and importing your own texts need an account and credits.

What level is it?

This one is marked “Intermediate”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.

Can I use another gloss language?

English and Chinese glosses are prepared in advance; signed-in readers can generate other languages.

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