Learn Japanese with Stories #6: Yukionna


Book Description

READ real Japanese Today! By choosing short stories, the intimidation factor is greatly reduced. Not only that, but we divide the story up into tiny, easy-to-swallow segments with complete explanations to give you confidence as you read real Japanese page by page. Perfect for beginning and upper beginning students of Japanese. This affordable Japanese reader contains two stories just about every Japanese knows and loves. BONUS! Get FREE MP3s of the stories read by a native Japanese voice actress. Listen while reading. The link to the MP3s is found on the last page. EXTRA BONUS! Free Anki flashcard deck of all the vocabulary in the stories. These are short stories that can be tackled by students of any level, but the ideal level is upper beginners to intermediates (around the JLPT N4 - N3 level). * All Japanese have furigana (printed version and Kindle version on supported devices (most new devices)) * Two full traditional Japanese stories presented in three unique ways. * GLOSS: Read the story with a running gloss—understand completely. Every sentence is broken down word-for-word and with English explanation of the grammar. * JAPANESE ONLY: The full story in Japanese only (without the running gloss) is also provided so you can practice reading without interruption. * ENGLISH SUMMARY: Finally, we have included a simple and mostly literal English translation for you to check your understanding (Don’t cheat! Work through the Japanese first!). * Short stories makes reading full Japanese texts possible. This book has four complete stories with total explanation for every level. * Download the FREE MP3s to listen while you study. * Download the free Anki flashcard deck * Print out the Vocabulary PDF to use while reading. YUKI ONNA The Snow Woman Yuki Onna (Snow Woman) is a traditional Japanese folktale of a spirit or yōkai who appears on snowy nights in a white kimono and even whiter skin. She is beautiful, but deadly, leading unsuspecting travellers astray or killing them outright. In our story, she is both deadly and compassionate. Anchin & Kiyohime A young priest learns the danger a lie can invite. While beginners to Japanese can get a lot from this, hiragana knowledge is required. Finally, we invite the reader to contact us with questions or requests for future Japanese readers. You will find our personal email addresses in the book. To your Japanese! What are you waiting for? Ninja up your Japanese. Click “Buy Now” now!




Yuki Onna


Book Description

READ real Japanese Today! By choosing short stories, the intimidation factor is greatly reduced. Not only that, but we divide the story up into tiny, easy-to-swallow segments with complete explanations to give you confidence as you read real Japanese page by page. Perfect for beginning and upper beginning students of Japanese. This affordable Japanese reader contains two stories just about every Japanese knows and loves. BONUS! Get FREE MP3s of the stories read by a native Japanese voice actress. Listen while reading. The link to the MP3s is found on the last page.




Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 9: The Easy Way to Read, Listen, and Learn from Japanese Folklore, Tales, and Stories


Book Description

READ real Japanese Today! By choosing short stories, the intimidation factor is greatly reduced. Not only that, but we divide the story up into tiny, easy-to-swallow segments with complete explanations to give you confidence as you read real Japanese page by page. Perfect for upper beginner level students of Japanese. BONUS! Get FREE MP3s of the story read by a native Japanese voice actress, one read at normal speed and one read slowly. Listen while reading. The link to the MP3s is found on the last page. EXTRA BONUS! Included with the MP3s, are PDFs of all the vocabulary and grammar points. Feel free to print these out to use while reading. Now with Furigana! All our readers now have furigana in both the paperback and Kindle versions. Furigana is the small hiragana over the kanji--most devices support this feature. Have you studied for a year or two but just don't feel like you are progressing? This book is for you too. We suggest reading the Japanese only section first (includes furigana) and then go through the line-by-line running gloss section to cement understanding and learn vocabulary. * All Japanese have furigana (printed version and Kindle version on supported devices (all new devices)) and romaji for those starting out. * Three complete Japanese short stories. Each story is presented in three unique ways. * The Fountain of Youth: A traditional Japanese folk tale * The Hundred Tales Game: With the scariest of all endings* The Wise Child: A child shows his smarts by answering the question, which is farther, Edo or the Sun.* GLOSS: Read the story with a running gloss-understand completely. Every sentence is broken down word-for-word and with English explanation of the grammar. * GRAMMAR: Grammar notes are presented with the running gloss.* JAPANESE ONLY: The full story in Japanese only (without the running gloss) is also provided so you can practice reading without interruption. * ENGLISH SUMMARY: Finally, we have included a simple and mostly literal English translation for you to check your understanding (Don't cheat! Work through the Japanese first!). * Short stories makes reading full Japanese texts possible. * Download the FREE MP3s to listen while you study. Finally, we invite the reader to contact us with questions or requests for future Japanese readers. You will find our personal email addresses in the book. To your Japanese! What are you waiting for? Ninja up your Japanese. Click "Buy Now" now!




Japanese Stories for Language Learners


Book Description

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 folktales: Urashima Taro (Tale of a Fisherman) and Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman). These are followed by three short stories by notable 20th century authors: 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—through the country's rich literary history.




Yurei


Book Description

"I lived in a haunted apartment." Zack Davisson opens this definitive work on Japan's ghosts, or yurei, with a personal tale about the spirit world. Eerie red marks on the apartment's ceiling kept Zack and his wife on edge. The landlord warned them not to open a door in the apartment that led to nowhere. "Our Japanese visitors had no problem putting a name to it . . . they would sense the vibes of the place, look around a bit and inevitably say 'Ahhh . . . yurei ga deteru.' There is a yurei here." Combining his lifelong interest in Japanese tradition and his personal experiences with these vengeful spirits, Davisson launches an investigation into the origin, popularization, and continued existence of yurei in Japan. Juxtaposing historical documents and legends against contemporary yurei-based horror films such as The Ring, Davisson explores the persistence of this paranormal phenomenon in modern day Japan and its continued spread throughout the West. Zack Davisson is a translator, writer, and scholar of Japanese folklore and ghosts. He is the translator of Mizuki Shigeru's Showa 1926–1939: A History of Japan and a translator and contributor to Kitaro. He also worked as a researcher and on-screen talent for National Geographic's TV special Japan: Lost Souls of Okinawa. He writes extensively about Japanese ghost stories at his website, hyakumonogatari.com.




Mastering Japanese Kanji


Book Description

This is a comprehensive, self-study workbook for learning Japanese characters. Mastering Japanese Kanji can help you greatly reduce the time and effort involved in learning to read Japanese and write Japanese. It does so by introducing a method that is both effective and easy to use in memorizing the meanings and pronunciations of Kanji--the array of characters that are used in the Japanese language to symbolize everything from abstract ideas to concrete nouns. Learning any of the kanji is a two-step process, requiring that you remember both the visual aspect of a character (so you can recognize it when you see it) and the aural aspect (so you will know how to say and, thus, read it). The method employed by Mastering Japanese Kanji will show you how to tackle both of these aspects from the outset, and by so doing enable you to immediately get down to the practical (and fun!) business of recognizing and reading kanji on everything from street signs to newspapers. By the time you finish this book, in fact, you will be able to boast of a Japanese vocabulary numbering in the thousands of words. Key features: Downloadable audio helps to reinforce the written material Teaches the 200 most common kanji and the hundreds of compounds that use include them. Unique, specially-designed drawings and entertaining stories help you learn more quickly. Sample sentences, along with common words and compounds, expand your vocabulary by showing each kanji used in context. Stroke-order diagrams show the correct way to write each chapter. Chapter and cumulative review exercises help ensure master of what you've learned. Complete indexes show Japanese readings and English meanings for all Kanji. Contents of the downloadable audio: Stroke order animations for all 200 kanji characters. Native speaker audio recordings of all: Kanji characters. Common words and compounds. Sample sentences.




The Book of Yokai


Book Description

Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity. Ê




Japanese Short Stories for Beginners


Book Description

Do you know what the hardest thing for a Japanese learner is? Finding PROPER reading material that they can handle...which is precisely the reason we've written this book! You may have found the best teacher in town or the most incredible learning app around, but if you don't put all of that knowledge to practice, you'll soon forget everything you've obtained. This is why being engaged with interesting reading material can be so essential for somebody wishing to learn a new language. Therefore, in this book we have compiled 20 easy-to-read, compelling and fun stories that will allow you to expand your vocabulary and give you the tools to improve your grasp of the wonderful Japanese language. How Japanese Short Stories for Beginners works: - Each chapter possesses a funny, interesting and/or thought-provoking story based on real-life situations, allowing you to learn a bit more about the Japanese culture. - Having trouble understanding Japanese characters? No problem - we provide you with the English translation below each paragraph, allowing you to fully grasp what you're reading! - The summaries follow a synopsis in Japanese and in English of what you just read, both to review the lesson and for you to see if you understood what the tale was about. Use them if you're having trouble. - At the end of those summaries, you will be provided with a list of the most relevant vocabulary from that chapter, as well as slang and sayings that you may not have understood at first glance! Do not get lost trying to understand or pronounce it all, either, as all of the vocabulary words are Romanized for your ease of learning! - Finally, you'll be provided with a set of tricky questions in Japanese, allowing you the chance to prove that you learned something in the story. Whether it's true or false, or if you're doing the single answer questions, don't worry if you don't know the answer to any - we will provide them immediately after, but no cheating! We want you to feel comfortable while learning Japanese; after all, no language should be a barrier for you to travel around the world and expand your social circles! So look no further! Pick up your copy of Japanese Short Stories for Beginners and level up your Japanese language skills right now!




Takeshita Demons


Book Description

Miku Takeshita and her family have moved from Japan to live in the UK, but unfortunately the family's enemy demons have followed them… Miku knows she's in trouble when her new supply teacher turns out to be a Nukekubi - a bloodthirsty demon who can turn into a flying head and whose favourite snack is children. That night, in a raging snowstorm, Miku's little brother Kazu is kidnapped by the demons, and then it's up to Miku and her friend Cait to get him back. The girls break into their snow-locked school, confronting the dragon-like Woman of the Wet, and outwitting the faceless Nopera-bo. At last they come face to face with the Nukekubi itself - but will they be in time to save Kazu? The winner of the first Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award, this is the first of a new trilogy, Takeshita Demons, with the second, Takeshita Demons: The Filth-Licker due to be published in 2011 and Takeshita Demons: Monster Matsuri in 2012. To read more about the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award, click here This title is also available as an ebook, in either Kindle, ePub or Adobe ebook editions




Minokichi


Book Description

In his latest trip to the Alterworld to search for his father, Alex encounters the Snow Demon, Yuki-onna.