Japanese Stories for Language Learners: Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English

by Anne McNulty, Eriko Sato, Rose Goldberg (Illustrator)

A great story can lead a reader on a journey of discovery—especially if it's presented in two languages! Beautifully illustrated in a traditional style, Japanese Stories for Language Learners offers five compelling stories with English and Japanese language versions appearing on facing pages. Taking learners on an exciting cultural and linguistic journey, each story is followed by detailed translator's notes, Japanese vocabulary lists, and grammar points along with a set of discussion questions and exercises. The first two stories are very famous traditional Japanese Urashima Taro (Tale of a Fisherman) and Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman). These are followed by three short stories by notable 20th century Kumo no Ito (The Spider's Thread) by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927)Oborekaketa Kyodai (The Siblings Who Almost Drowned) by Arishima Takeo (1878-1923)Serohiki no Goshu (Gauche the Cellist) by Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933)Reading these stories in the original Japanese script—and hearing native-speakers read them aloud in the accompanying free audio recording—helps students at every level deepen their comprehension of the beauty and subtlety of the Japanese language. Learn Japanese the fun way#8212;through the country's rich literary history.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Japan, Fiction, Language, Short Stories, Collections, Anthologies

192 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 20, 2018

About the author

Hi everyone! I'm Annie, and I love reading. I’m 29, writing a sci-fi novel now! I studied Linguistics in university and love learning languages, and lived in Japan for 3 years as an English teacher. I am a librarian now.
I have a Booktube and Bookstagram where I talk about all the books I'm reading, what I want to read, new releases I'm excited for, etc. I especially love science fiction books!

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is pretty great.

[Miriam Cihodariu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not studying Japanese but I liked this bilingual book of stories (complete with extra explanations and exercises following each story) a lot. Even if I'm not planning on learning Japanese anytime soon, the linguistic glimpses offered on the side are cute and a great starting point for making further connections between words and concepts and languages and world views. You know how it is when you're faced with the particulars of a new tongue :).

As for the stories themselves, they were really nice (the first ones at least). They are handpicked to represent Japanese culture and presented sort of chronologically. Therefore, the first two ones are folk tales and the later ones are from classic literature, from older to newer. The newest ones are not really my cup of tea since they belong to a period of time when Japanese authors were influenced by a Kafkaesque sense of the absurd.

But the first stories are lovely!

The very first one, about a fisherman and a turtle, is a particular favorite of mine. It resembles a story from my own country's folklore a lot (it's called 'Tinerete fara batranete si viata fara de moarte', aka 'Youth without aging and life without death'). It's about finding a passageway to a fairyland-like place where everything is joyful and you enjoy yourself for a few years, and you are given the option to remain there and live forever. But because you miss your loved ones, you return only to discover that hundreds of years have passed in the 'real' world even if it was only a couple of month's time for you. While grieving and lost, Death or simply Time catches up with you too and you suddenly age and wither in just a glimpse of a moment.

This story (without the sad conclusion) also features in a video game inspired by Japanese lore: Okami. Check it out if you'd like, it's very cute. :)

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Japanese Stories for Language Learners is an excellent resource. Though it's a little advanced for me at present, with the help of the notes and English text, I can slowly read the stories. Meanwhile, the accompanying CD lets you hear them being read, aiding with aural comprehension and pronunciation. I plan to go through this book once now but then return to it again once my studies advance, so I can attempt to read more without help from the English translation and notes.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this book are fascinating and very unusual. I can imagine it was difficult to translate some of the very old stories into English.

I am lucky to have an advance copy of this book, and I enjoyed it very much.

[Sara C · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone studying Japanese, this bilingual reader is great! My only qualms are with some formatting choices. The glossary and questions that come after each story are sort of clunky to read, and I feel like that information could have been presented in a more efficient way.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was helpful even though the stories were not that enthralling

[Izzati · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are 5 stories in this book, with 2 being famous folklores. The Japanese level is not too hard in this one, I would hazard to say that it would be great JLPT N3 level readers.

Urashima Taro – 3 stars
Something like Rip van Winkle meet the castle under the sea.

Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman) – 3 stars
A female yokai spared a man’s life on the condition that he would never ever tell another soul about her.

Kumo no Ito by Akutagawa Ryunosuke – 4 stars
My favourite in the book, it is about a Buddha’s observation of those in Hell below trying to clamber up into Heaven.

Oborekaketa Kyoudai (The Siblings Who Almost Drowned) by Arishima Takeo – 2 stars
My least favourite of the bunch, the only one I had a note on: 余計に長い。Which means “Unnecessarily long”. It is basically about kids who almost drowned and how they got themselves out of the situation.

Serohiki no Goshu (Gauche the Cellist) by Miyazawa Kenji – 3 stars
Colourful use of onomatopoeias, as the book claimed Miyazawa was known for. While practicing for a performance, a cellist was visited by a number or animals that asked him to play in certain ways. All of them frustrated him but in the end, he realized that each experience taught him some valuable lessons.

I rated the book an overall 3 star read.

[Jeff Cromwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very interesting with the 5 stories in both Japanese and English. I enjoyed the separation by page with the Japanese for annotations and the section on vocabulary and expressions at the end of each story. I am still working on the exercises and discussion questions with writing in Japanese even though I am finished with reading the stories, vocabulary and expressions. The ability to download the Japanese audio files for the stories was fantastic and provided the opportunity to listen to the stories while enjoying a cup of tea. I would love to teach either English or Japanese with this book or spend time in weekend discussions of the questions posed with a literary group at a cafe. I look forward to reading more in this book format as I continue to learn how to write fiction and fantasy in the Japanese language. Enjoy the day.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so nice. I didn't expect this book to has authentic Japanese stories so it was like a nice surprise. It was hard to get through the last three stories. (Obviously) I think I'll revisit this book a few times in near future to learn the glossary and the grammar systematically.

[Dan Xia · Rating 4 out of 5]

この本は日本の童話や昔話を通じて日本語の読みを練習する素晴らしい方法です。特に「浦島太郎」、「蜘蛛の糸」、「雪女」が大好きでした。

[Jared Pangier · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been about a year since I read something of this length in Japanese, and that time I used my Kindle so that I could touch every other kanji to figure out what it said. It was a painstaking process. Since then, I have been using Wanikani daily to study kanji. When I saw this book Japanese Stories for Language Learners: Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English, it caught my eye. I wanted another challenge and I wanted to see if my kanji study was paying off in helping me read Japanse more fluently.

At first, the going was slow, but fortunately, the book is seemingly arranged in increasing order of text length and complexity. In arranging the book that way, with five short stories in total, I could see my reading fluency and understanding progressively grow throughout the reading, giving me more confidence in my ability.

I also enjoyed the story selection, especially the final story セロ弾きのゴーシュ, which is zany and filled with hope.

The format of the text is also nice, a bit like NoFear Shakespeare, with the English text on the right and the Japanese text on the left. Generally, the content is aligned, though more work could be put into that.

Each story is followed by Japanese-English definitions and explanations, as well as a challenge activity and discussion questions. Occasionally, some of the romaji has been done incorrectly but I still found this section to be useful for learning.

The book also comes with a CD of Japanese, which I plan to listen to later, maybe.

For language learners and those interested in classic Japanese stories, I recommend this book.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The leap in difficulty from the first couple of stories, which were written specifically for learners, to the last three stories, all of which are pieces of classic, early 20th Century Japanese literature, is inexplicable. I do not know what audience this was made for as there is no stage in language learning where this wide a range of difficulty in material is helpful. The stories are fine, and the glossaries are nice and extensive, but most learners who would benefit from the early material would be better off getting a full reader of beginner-friendly stories, and the more advanced learners who would benefit from the rest of the book would be better off just simply engaging with native, contemporary literature

[Alex A · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting selection of Japanese short stories and the translations are pretty good. (Don't agree with 'tanuki' as 'raccoon', though.) I especially enjoyed 'Kumo no Ito' and hadn't heard of 'Oborekaketa Kyoudai' before.

But the layout was clunky - certainly the two column vocab sections and the lumping of each chapters' learning materials at the end of the story.

The story order also seems to be by length, not difficulty; which can make for an uneven reading experience.

The first two stories are N3 level but the rest are mostly N2 (occasionally dipping in N1 level stuff) because of their kanji, grammar, and vocab.

[Emma Tibbits · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn’t actually finish fully but I read enough I figured I might as well count it. I wish the text was larger in the kindle version. For the stories themselves I thought the ones they picked were adequate. I’d say this is a book for an advanced reader rather than intermediate to advanced like the book suggests. It has a lot of formal language as well as older kanji usage which can be confusing to someone who hasn’t read much Japanese literature. But fun to be exposed to new stories and test my abilities.

[Ayacchi · Rating 4 out of 5]

久しぶりに読解をしてみた。なんか懐かしい。

I've forgotten how it feels to read loudly in Japanese. It's harder than I thought because of the lack of practice. The book consist of some stories, like Urashima Tarou and Yuki Onna. I never thought I'd encounter the last story, セロ弾きのゴーシュ. I ever watched the short anime adapted by Studio Ghibli and like it. So I was thrilled to read it.

The good thing from this book beside its bilingual approach, is that it puts vocabularies and quizzes at the end of each stories which help us understanding the content of the story (and 語彙 for me).

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learn While Enjoying

This is an excellent language-learning book.

I was able to learn Japanese, while enjoying some Japanese stories.

I love these kind of dual-translation books.

A great way to be better at translating this difficult language!

Check it out if you too are learning Japanese and trying to work it out through books.

4.5/5

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The level jump between the second and third stories was a bit much for me, so I ended up reading the English translations. Good stories though and good set up for reading practice.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

tl;dr Not a bad book for stepping up your graded reader game. I had a few nit-picks, but nothing major. If you're interested in this sort of book, it could be worth checking out :) It's definitely for intermediate level learners though, if you're using this for study!

Not tl;dr:

I enjoyed the folktales more than the semi-modern-ish pieces of literature, they felt more engaging, but I suppose it is nevertheless good practice. Each story is broken into parts with translator notes (when applicable), a vocab list (with a couple example sentences here and there), quiz, and discussion questions.

Each story also has complete audio, read at a somewhat slow-ish speed. I appreciate that the audio is also available online, and not just on the CD. It also includes two different speakers, one for the first three and last stories, and one for the second to last. Just adds some variety, which is nice.

I'd estimate the JLPT level to be N3 at a minimum for the first two stories, and N2 minimum for the next two, and back to N3 min for the last story. The stories get progressively longer and more difficult, and include older vocab, kanji, and the like.

I also liked the addition of translator notes, so we could better understand any reasons for particular translation alterations and localizations. That process is one I've had a growing interest in, so it was nice to see a bit of things explained here.

As for nit-picks:

I wish the English translation lined up with the Japanese page they're opposite of. Instead, they don't line up perfectly, and for lower level learners, not being able to see the translations side-by-side could be annoying, constantly having to flip pages back and forth and dig around to find what you're looking for. The spacing could've been adjusted to make things line up more cleanly.

It also would be nice if the part were broken up by section, so the vocab, quiz, and discussion questions were after each part, and not collected all at the end of the story.

I love that there is included a few sentence examples and explanations of certain grammar or vocab in the vocab list. Though there are some repeats with each story, and I feel like it was a missed opportunity to not have different example sentences each time. I understand repeating the grammar/vocab, in fact, I appreciate it, in case someone jumps around stories and doesn't read them in order, or to help drill in the words, but I think having different example sentences could've been a big help for grasping the meaning and usage.

And last super nit-pick, but I wish the recording quality of the audio was higher. Very often you could hear the breath on the mic as certain phonemes were spoken (like "p" or "f"), which was distracting. And there were a few stumbles in some of the recordings that were kept in, I'm guessing due to them not wanting or being able to rerecord. It was fast, but I heard them, which made me lose focus momentarily.

Not a bad book all-in-all. Some stories were more engaging with me than others, and at this point, I more so prefer book-books than graded readers, but since I had this one, might as well give it a go. Plus it can be good to shake things up now and again ;)

[Esopion · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book at the library in one afternoon, the stories are very depressing and dark/eerie.

I've never actually read the original story of "Yuki Onna" and it was quite sad. I did like the final story which was "Gauche the Cellist". Learning Japanese with this book and the free audio online was interesting! I liked how there was a moral after each story as well as vocabulary and discussion questions.