Reading in Japanese

[Carola]

In the thread for The Woman in the Dunes, June mentioned she is reading the book in Japanese. I was wondering if there are any other members who read books in Japanese?

I used to study Japanese in university and now that I'm working full-time I've continued to study on my own. I've read some books and short stories in Japanese but I definitely want to read more.

I was wondering how many other members can (and do) read in Japanese and would love to exchange recommendations and talk about the experience :)

[June]

I have been studying Japanese for years but I am just now pushing into reading full books. The kindle really changed my life actually, because it allows me to easily look up kanji I am not sure about. It also means I can get books from Japan and other countries' Amazons with ease! The Woman in the Dunes does not have a kindle edition, and for some reason neither Kirino Nastuo nor Murakami have released many titles on kindle, which is disappointing. I'm going to give the paperback a try. It may take me a bit more time to get through.

I HAVE found the Housekeeper and the Professor, the Ring, Kitchen and All You Need Is Kill on Amazon Japan's kindle store - so there are some good titles available :)

[Carola]

I wonder if my Kindle 3G (that I bought back in 2010 I think) would work with Japanese. For now I am using an iOS app, ワカル, that works with Aozora Bunko (blogged a bit about Aozora Bunko a while ago here)

[Levene]

There are a few app that let you convert the books to mobi. I have a old kindle as well and was able to conver the book in english to read on it.

[June]

This may fit here: I was thinking about reading Ruth Ozeki in Japanese. I am pretty sure she writes in English but there are Japanese translations of her work available on kindle. What do you think about reading translated works in Japanese if you can read them in their original language? I thought maybe Ozeki's work would include enough Japanese themes to make it an interesting read in translation.

[Carola]

I think if you want to, you should go for it! Personally I prefer reading works in their original language (only if I know the language of course) but that doesn't mean reading translations isn't interesting. I read The Little Prince in Japanese and that was a fun experience, and I started reading Harry Potter a while ago :) I agree with what you say about Ozeki, that definitely sounds like a good reason to give it a try!

[Akylina]

Reading translated works in Japanese will certainly be interesting! I haven't read any myself yet, is the language very different from original works? Because sometimes translated works tend to mimic the style of the original and it might be a bit unnatural for the target language.

If you do read Ruth Ozeki in Japanese, please tell us how it went :)

[Carola]

I can't say how natural the Japanese sounds - unfortunately my Japanese is not quite that good yet.

I must say I really enjoyed the translation of The Little Prince, it was close to the English and German translations. I haven't read it in French yet although I plan to, but since the style of these translations was the same I assume they stayed close to the original.

As for Harry Potter - I've only read the first chapter so far but it really made me laugh a lot (like the original English book did). The style was unlike anything else I've ever read in Japanese and honestly it was spot on! In a way it was quite different from the English translation, but the tone was perfect and mimicked the original tone. It really worked.

[Christian]

I've read a few novels in Japanese so far, but when available, I keep an English version close to make sure I understand correctly!

[[deleted user]]

I haven't read anything in Japanese yet, but I've got Kenji Miyazawa's Night on the Galactic Railroad in both Japanese and English. I can't read it in Japanese, I know hardly 200 kanji, but I've been thinking about some kind of graded readers. Anyone know about something good? I know I found some once, but it wasn't available anywhere.

[Carola]

Trinity, some graded readers that are recommended at our university are the レベル別日本語多読ライブラリー (Level betsu nihongo tadoku library). You can find more information here: http://www.ask-books.com/tadoku/

I'm at JLPT N2, and I tried a level 4 book (supposedly high N3-N2) and it was too easy for me. However, I think the series is perfect for beginners (anywhere up to N3).

[Sean]

Trinity, I started out reading stories I already knew like Alice in Wonderland and other stories aimed at children. That might help you out...c

[Christian]

Rob wrote: "Love reading in Japanese - reading everyday and picking apart the grammar and vocab in order to learn the language is what got me reinterested in reading in general. So far read about 100 novels an..."

Wow! I've browsed your list and I see so many titles that I either have or have read (or am reading! #東京島 Tōkyōjima ) From my limited experience, I'd also agree that prize lists are hit-or-miss, but we don't really have anything else. Not a huge fan of bookmeter either and there seems to be little Japanese presence on GR. I often use www.booksfromjapan.jp to
get some inspiration or the radio series ブックバー (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaqQ...)