About

Why Mukashi exists

Mukashi is a small project I built while learning Japanese. The goal is to make it easier to find reading practice that matches the words you've been studying.

Hi, I’m Brendan.

Thanks for checking out Mukashi.

I built this while learning Japanese myself. Tools like WaniKani, Anki decks, and textbooks like Genki are great for learning vocabulary and grammar, but I kept running into the same problem once I had learned new words: it was surprisingly hard to find reading material that actually matched my level.

Most native content was still too difficult, while most beginner material repeated the same simple sentences over and over.

What I really wanted was a way to see the words and kanji I was learning appearing naturally in short stories—something that felt closer to real reading.

Mukashi is my attempt to solve that problem. It generates short Japanese stories based on vocabulary you already know, so you can see familiar words in new contexts.

The goal isn’t perfect literature, only exposure. Often the moment things start to click is simply seeing the same words appear again and again in different situations.

Notes

Independent project Mukashi is a personal side project and is not affiliated with WaniKani or Tofugu.
AI-generated stories Stories are generated using AI and may occasionally contain mistakes.
Privacy If you provide a WaniKani API key, it is used only to fetch your progress so the app can generate stories at roughly the right level. See Privacy Policy.

Feedback

If you try Mukashi and have suggestions or ideas for improvement, feel free to reach out.

Contact: mukashistories@gmail.com

— Brendan

がんばってください！