Japanese Stories for Language Learners
Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English (MP3 Audio disc included)
A great story can lead a reader down a rabbit hole 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 Japanese and English language versions appearing on facing pages. Taking learners on an exciting cultural and linguistic journey, each story is followed by detailed translator's notes, vocabulary lists, and grammar points along with a set of discussion questions and exercises. The first two are very famous traditional 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), and Serohiki no Goshu (Gauche the Cellist) by Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933). The latter stories are unabridged and unedited except for the addition of furigana pronunciations above the kanji characters. Reading these stories in the original Japanese—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.
Anne McNulty is a senior at Stony Brook University. She is enrolled in the Honors College and majors in Linguistics with a concentration in Asian and Asian American Studies. She has been studying Japanese since 2011, and her research interests include translation theory and Japanese and Korean linguistics.
Eriko Sato is Associate Professor of Japanese and translation studies at the State of University of New York at Stony Brook, where she is also the Director of the Japanese Teacher Education Program. She has authored and co-authored over a dozen books, including Essential Japanese Grammar, and Learning Japanese Kanji.She has also authored or co-authored Contemporary Japanese, Japanese Demystified, Japanese for Dummies, Complete Japanese Grammar, Japanese Phrases for Dummies, Basic Japanese and My First Japanese Kanji Book.
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