A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) [Paperback]

Roy Andrew Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 1990 | Series: Tuttle Language Library

A compilation of anoted short readings which includes authentic excerpts from works by 20th-century Japanese masters Mishima, Akutagawa, Kawabata, and others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (December 15, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804816476
• ISBN-13: 978-0804816472
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #401,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced and somewhat dated...but ohh so thorough!, August 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) (Paperback)

Although the contents of many of the lessons seem to echo WWII era sensibilities, this petite volume (originally published in 1962) is absolutely overflowing with high quality material for the serious student of Japanese. In a very brief 250 pages, Mr. Miller whisks us from the rudiments of the Japanese writing system (hiragana and katakana) all the way through to dense and highly advanced excerpts from newspapers and classic Japanese novels.

The book is effectively split into two distinct sections. Starting at the "front" of the book are detailed English notes and vocabularies for each lesson; beginning at the "back" of the book and working inward are the original Japanese language texts. The introductory chapters follow Samuel E. Martin's "Essential Japanese" and consist largely of standard grammatical sentence patterns. As the lessons progress in difficulty the texts move to fairy tales, conversations, and eventually to unabridged native texts.

The pace of the book is absolutely blistering and all but the most motivated students will be left gasping for breath. For the serious scholar, however, this is a classic. They truly don't make them like this anymore

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dated and too fast-paced, September 13, 2001

By 

Emily Horner (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) (Paperback)

This book was first printed in 1962, and it really shows, with many examples of old-style orthography and few examples that will be useful to modern students. The book progresses from the fundamentals of the writing system to "Liberalization Plans in Foreign Trade Exchange" and "The Forms of T'ang Poetry" in less than two hundred pages, leaving little room for explanation. As a result, this book might be a useful textbook within the context of an advanced class, but it's not of much use to students studying on their own. It's also worth noting that nearly all of my Japanese books, including everything from novels to popular texts on psychology, are easier than even the 'intermediate' articles in this reader; this book is more liable to scare off students (even relatively advanced ones) than to provide either education or interesting reading materials.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heavy Duty Reader for the Committed, August 14, 2001

By 

Thomas F. Ogara (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) (Paperback)

This is an excellent primer on written Japanese, but it is not for the fainthearted! It is true that it is a bit dated (a lot of stuff from the fifties included) but it covers the field of written Japanese extensively in an extremely small amount of space. If (like me) you took up Japanese after you had already learned to read Chinese, you'll probably find this book a useful way to jump into reading while avoiding going through the basics of the writing system all over again.

The book also covers a lot of details on the writing system (proper names, furigana principals, pre-1945 standard usage) that you can spend a lot of time looking for in other books, often to no avail. If you're really serious about getting into reading Japanese, it's a good book to work with, but be warned - it moves along at a vicious pace.