Read Japanese with Final Fantasy IX

Level up your Japanese reading, while having fun, with one of the greatest games of all time.

Immerse yourself in the wonderful world of Final Fantasy IX!

Read Japanese with FF9 is an unofficial fansite, dedicated to showcasing the wonderful characters, events and excitement of Final Fantasy IX, a game originally developed and published by Square for the Playstation console in the year 2000.

This site is also targeted towards learners of the Japanese Language, in particular, those around an intermediate skill level looking to improve their Japanese reading ability. Learning a foreign language takes a lot of time and effort, and we believe that the best way to stay focussed is to find content that you enjoy, and we enjoy Final Fantasy IX!

The story of Final Fantasy IX is a complex, inspiring and humourous tale that follows the character Zidane, a thief who sets out to kidnap the princess of Alexandria and ends up getting entangled between warring kingdoms and a deeper threat that threatens their entire homeworld of Gaia. As the story unfolds, he teams up with several unique characters, each trying to find answers or meaning in their own life in some way.

This site presents the main storyline of both the English and Japanese versions that can be read side-by-side. Character avatars, screenshots and tools (such as hiding text, or quick sentence lookup) have also been included to hopefully make the experience more enjoyable!

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Tips for studying!

The English version is not a direct translation of the Japanese version, rather, it has been written by a professional translator to convey the meaning of the messages. When reading the chapters, hovering over each line of dialogue will cause several buttons to appear above the text. These buttons will automatically submit the line of dialogue into either DeepL Translate (A high-quality translation service) or ichi.moe (an online dictionary and Japanese sentence parser). Both these services are a great way to look up words to get the gist of the original Japanese meaning.

If you are reading on a desktop computer, we recommend installing a pop-up dictionary into your browser to allow you to quickly look up words. Yomichan (Chrome), Rikaikun (Chrome) and 10ten Japanese Reader (Rikaichamp) (Firefox) are all popular choices.

Support the original creaters!

Lastly, we are not affiliated with Square Enix in any way. We have purely made this site out of love for the game, and hopefully as a useful tool for the Japanese language learning community.

If you have enjoyed the material on the site, please be sure to check out the actual game (if you haven't already!), and support the developers and publishers. The game is easy to find, and available on several platforms, including: Windows (Steam), Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Mobile (iOs & Android) and Playstation 1.

Alright, let's start reading!

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