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椰子蟹

by Kōichirō Miyahara

On hot South Sea islands lives the coconut crab that climbs palms.

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Original language: JapaneseLevel: Beginner3,471 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
暑い暑いhot, hotどんな色の白い人でもany white person of whatever color三日もおればif one stays even three days直ぐ黒ん坊になるsoon become a dark-skinned person程暑いso hot that南洋の島々にはin the South Sea islands椰子蟹がおりますthere are coconut crabs
It is hot, hot; in the South Sea islands, where even a white person of any color would soon become dark if they stayed three days, there are coconut crabs.
椰子蟹coconut crabてtopic marker (colloquial variant of って)何what
What is a coconut crab?
椰子の実coconut (palm fruit)をobject marker喰べるto eat蟹crabですis (copula)
It is a crab that eats coconuts.

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About the book

The text begins by introducing the coconut crab of the hot southern islands, explaining how it got its name from eating coconuts, then follows a gentle crab living in a coral rock cave. It reads like a calm, friendly tale told in a question-and-answer storytelling style.

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.

コプラ Customs

Copra is the dried white kernel of the coconut, sun-dried or oven-dried, with a very high oil content. Coconut oil is pressed from it and used to make soap and candles. The line in the text, "私どもはそれで石鹸をつくります" ("We make soap from it"), refers to this.

幾千尋 Allusion

The "尋" (hiro) is a traditional Japanese unit of length: the span of both arms outstretched, about 1.8 metres, originally used to measure water depth. "千尋" and "幾千尋" have long been classical expressions for the deep sea (as in "千尋の谷"), carrying a classical rhetorical flavour rather than indicating an actual measured depth.

土人 History

"土人" (dojin) was a general term used by Japanese in the Meiji and Taishō periods for the indigenous peoples of the South Seas and other regions. Today it is regarded as a discriminatory term, but in literature on South Seas themes it was standard usage at the time.

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 “Beginner”. 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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