Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers 1 free CD included (Paperback)

~ Michael Emmerich (Editor), Reiko Matsunaga (Narrator)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

* 6 short stories in vertical text with translations of all the complex passages
* Japanese-English dictionary for quick lookup, tailored to your needs
* Notes explain subtleties of nuance, usage, grammar, and culture
* Free CD with audio narrations performed by a professional actress
* Profiles of the individual writers place the stories in context

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International; Pap/Com Bl edition (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English, Japanese
• ISBN-10: 4770030584
• ISBN-13: 978-4770030580
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #46,106 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helps you do just what the title says!, July 24, 2008

By	Zarxrax (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

I love this book! It presents you with 6 short stories (each one around 12 pages long or so, but the last one is only about 2 pages). On one page it presents the Japanese text, and on page opposite of it you will find a translation of the phrases. Towards the back of the book, you will find another 50 pages or so of additional notes, which explain things such as words or grammatical patterns and other such things. There is also a japanese-english dictionary containing the words that you find in the stories. I love this format, because everything you need is right here in the book, so you don't have to constantly be looking up phrases on your computer or electronic dictionary. You can just lay back, relax, and read! However, the format of having the notes in the back of the book make it a little annoying, since you have to keep flipping back and forth, but you should be alright if you use two bookmarks to keep your place.
The stories themselves are real Japanese, just as the title says. These aren't watered-down stories designed to be easy for beginners. I've only read the first story so far, and I found it extremely challenging. The translations and notes and everything really helped out a lot. Although it took me over an hour to read the first page, as I continued on, I found that my speed was increasing quite well. I've completed advanced classes in Japanese in college, and I could hardly understand any of the sentences in the first story. However, the notes are all so helpful, I feel like I learned enough from just one page of this book to make the price worth it. If something is difficult to explain in English, the author will sometimes provide you with additional sentences for the purpose of helping you understand how a certain phrase or grammar point is used. There is furigana over the kanji the first time a word appears. I really like this, since it forces you to learn the reading of the words when you encounter them again later in the stories. The included cd is also very helpful, since it lets you hear how to say everything naturally.

This book assumes you have about an intermediate (or higher) level of knowledge with Japanese. For someone who has only completed intermediate classes, you may find the book fairly slow to work through, but as long as you actually study and try to learn from the material, I don't think you will have a problem.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Japanese reader I have seen, October 28, 2008

By	Zack Davisson "All Good Things" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is the Japanese reader I have been hoping for! I can hardly believe that such an excellent book has finally been made available after suffering through sub-par readers for so long. This book is just awesome, and if you are studying Japanese then you are going to want it as soon as possible.

Japanese has always suffered from a dearth of good readers. Some, like A Japanese Reader are so dense and academic as to put off all but the most dedicated student. Some, like Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics, are fun to begin with but don't get you very far. The biggest problem has always been that middle ground, that 2-kyu level where you need some help getting over the hump from constructed text and into the real world.

I had the previous edition of Read Real Japanese, and this release is a vast improvement. The old version relied far to heavily on romaji, which anyone reading at this level should be long past. This new edition eliminates this problem, using only the kanji and hiragana character sets. All kanji are initially presented with furigana, but afterwards appear on their own so you have to work for it. The stories are presented with the right hand being the original text, then the left hand presenting translations on difficult passages. In the back, there are more detailed translation notes and a dictionary of all the words used. The system works excellently, and it is a good challenge to mentally create your own translation then flip to the back and see what the editor translated the passage as. A CD is included as well for pronunciation, and I have found it is helpful to put on the CD and read along to increase your speed.

The selection of authors is also enjoyable, with only the ubiquitous Yoshimoto Banana making a repeat appearance from the previous edition. There are horror stories, magical realism, "slice-of-life"...one of my favorites was a scary tale about a solitary boy late at night and a mysterious sandbox with something lurking underneath. They are graduated in level, with the earlier stories being simpler to read, and then slowly gaining in difficulty. The goal is to eventually wean you off of readers, and the editor gives several suggestions of follow-up stories on each level that you can seek out and try on your own.

I am really happy that "Read Real Japanese" was published, and I hope that more follow suit. There is a companion book, "Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors 1 free CD included", which is of the same high quality, and students of Japanese will be wanting that as well. Highly, highly recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent learning tool but only for hard-wrokers, September 28, 2008

By	Anatoli T "Anatoli T" (Australia) - See all my reviews

The other reviewer have already praised the book enough and I agree wit their assessment. This is a must have book for Japanese learners.

Something that might discourage some buyers: the texts chosen are not simple at all, they are very challenging. The audio recording is natural but very fast, you need to work hard to be able to understand the text by listening. it's a big jump in difficulty from reading/listening to Genki, Japanese for everyone, Minna-no Nihongo and other popular textbooks, which was exactly what I was looking for.