Japanese: Short Stories For Beginners - 9 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Japanese & Expand Your Vocabulary While Having Fun

by The Language Academy

10 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Japanese (Including Line by Line Translations to English)(2ND Edition Updated & Expanded) Are you bored of the traditional methods people tell you to use to learn Japanese? Are you bored of all those dusty grammar books that pile up making everything look so hard? What if we told you there’s a better, more enjoyable way to learn Japanese and grow your vocabulary exponentially? Well, guess what? There is! The best way to learn Japanese is by reading short stories The problem? You might feel like you don’t know where to start, or you may feel lost trying to read whatever pops up on the internet. And that’s exactly why we created this book. Short Stories + Foreign Language = Faster Learning We know how difficult it may seem to learn a foreign language from scratch, let alone trying to put all that learning into practice. But what you might not realize is that it's fairly easy to fully incorporate the essentials of a language once you frame that learning into a certain context (for example, a short story). Short stories allow you to put what you’ve learned so far into practice, allowing you to expand your vocabulary quickly, understand new concepts, and overall get a better grasp of the Japanese language. Short stories work because they eliminate the stress of forcing yourself to learn. Instead, when you read the 10 captivating stories we’ve prepared for you, you will learn Japanese without even realizing you’re learning it! Your goal is to simply focus on a single story at a time (they only a take few minutes to read). The stories consist of multiple genres, including adventure, fantasy, mystery, romance, just to name a new. We wanted these stories to be fun, interesting, and appealing, motivating you to keep on reading to find out what happens next. That’s the very best way to learn, don’t you think? Vocabulary Lists, Multiple Choice Exercises & Summaries of Each Story In this book you’ll find a total of 9 short stories in Japanese, including line by line translation to English. Each story is divided into three chapters. You start by reading Chapter one, then you go to the Annex, and you’ll find there a quick summary, a vocabulary list, and multiple choice exercises intended to help you reinforce what you just read. Once you’re done, you move on to Chapter 2, then Chapter 3, and then on to the next story. It’s so easy and fun you won’t believe it. Japanese Short Stories For Beginners - 9 Captivating Short Stories to Learn Japanese & Expand Your Vocabulary While Having Fun "Japanese Short Stories For Beginners" contains a multitude of vocabulary lists including words and phrases you can incorporate to grow your Japanese vocabulary to unprecedented levels. We chose each of those words carefully, aiming to support the beginner and intermediate student alike. We are absolutely sure will love our stories, and we sincerely hope they help you learn Japanese much faster. How Will You Japanese Skills Improve? You will learn new words without even noticing it You will incorporate key phrases of the Japanese languageYou will understand how context affects the meaning of certain wordsYou will get a break from all those dusty Japanese grammar books you ownYou will have fun reading entertaining stories on multiple genresYou will get a

Genres: Japanese Literature

349 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 15, 2016

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of nice nine short stories presenting the difference between the Japanese culture and the American culture.
The book is very nice and helpful in learning Japanese language. The author translated the stories and each followed by a glossary and a checking question in both English and Japanese language.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories in Japanese and English for studying. Useful for learning conversational Japanese, at about N4 Level. At the end of each chapter is a list of words and phrases and their translations.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book opens up with some cultural explanations to clear the air of what to expect when learning about Japanese culture. Especially compared to Westerners and Americans specifically, the differences are vast. For a book aimed at beginners, I think this was a good thing to introduce, to help set expectations and build understanding early on.

In the 'how to use this book' section, further explanations are given about the language itself and what to expect from this book. The target audience is stated to be N5-N4 learners. (More on that later.)

As the cover states, this book contains nine stories to learn from, with each story containing a line-by-line English translation, full furigana (limited kanji), a story summary, glossary, and a mini quiz of three questions.

For the stories themselves, I do have a rather big issue of the English translation being /right after/ the Japanese sentence. It would've been better served to keep the two languages separate, and give readers and opportunity to figure out what the sentences might say, maybe using the glossary first for help if they need it, before seeing the answer. Your eyes jump straight to the English first, and it prevents you from thinking critically. (It took me longer to read this book than it should have because I had to keep forcing myself to ignore the English. I'm ~N2 level, but the English was so distracting.) I think that's a big short-coming of the book, and takes away the point in using it. As someone who has studied Japanese for several years now, I'm rather familiar with methods that help learners, and I think this was a big mistake on the author's part. (The only reason I gave 3/5 stars, where I'd otherwise give 4/5, but it's an important reason. The whole purpose of using this book is severely weakened.)

And a nit-pick, but a couple instances the English translation felt too stiff, literal, missing things, or had minor mistakes, which might trip up beginners.

I will say that the glossary is great. It includes the words (and grammar) written as they are in the context of the story, along with the dictionary form in parenthesis next to it. (It also includes the kanji, so you can see how the words would look in non-beginner level text.) Certain vocabulary or grammar will include a bit more examples too, which was nice. I also liked the summary after the story. It gives learners another chance to interact with the story, but in a slightly different way, and it's good practice to learn how to sum up a conversation or story.

This book itself stated it's intended for N5/N4--I'd say N4 at the minimum. (I did see a handful of higher level grammar. But the glossary should help.) I think it'd be too complex for N5 by itself. But if you wanna push yourself, go for it. I think this book is more for N4 readers. It might still have a bit of a challenge to it, but I think it could be a good challenge. My main gripe is as I said, the English being right there ruins it for me. Which is a shame, I did want to like this book, and the quality otherwise was decent enough, but that one issue really soils this book for me, and makes me not want to recommend it.

[Lorenick88 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how they interconnected the stories. Sam and Hana's story was the best for me. And the doggie's one as well.