Yonde Miyo-! Volume 1: Short and Fun Japanese Stories in Hiragana and Basic Kanji

By Clay Boutwell and Yumi Boutwell

Have you only recently learned hiragana but need practice? You’ve found the right book. Or perhaps, hiragana is no problem, but you want to build your hiragana and kanji reading comprehension? Ditto.

If you are a beginner to upper beginner of Japanese, this new collection of stories is here to the rescue!

Read real Japanese—beginner level but not boring Japanese! You won't find the Japanese version of Dick and Jane, but you will find stories written for adults. Enjoy reading flash fiction, super short essays, and funny stories of common mistakes made by learners of Japanese.

Best of all, the only requirement is that you can read hiragana and have a very basic understanding of Japanese. Vocabulary and grammar will be defined and explained.

Download free sound files of the stories read both slowly and at normal speed (link found on the last page)

Every beginner-level story is presented in three ways: hiragana only (with spaces), Japanese with furigana, and full Japanese without furigana

On each page, you'll find a complete glossary of the words with grammar and sentence structure explained

For beginners (who have learned or are learning hiragana)

The format is a little different from our other more advanced readers. The idea is for the reader to read the entire story three times. Each page will have a sentence or two in hiragana (with spaces between words for you to see “words” instead of syllables) at the top and that same content in full Japanese (with furigana—small hiragana over kanji) at the bottom. The middle will have the glossary and grammatical explanations. Lastly, the story is presented in Japanese without furigana. See if you can read it after going through the previous two versions and explanations.

If you have just learned hiragana, you may want to listen to the sound file while reading the top hiragana section to practice correct pronunciation. If you have studied Japanese a bit longer, you may want to start with the bottom version and take note of the glossary for understanding.

The glossary will have the word as it appears in the story, but it will also give the “dictionary” form so you can look the word up further.

This volume includes the following stories:

* えき Clay's Search for the Station

* げんかん & CLAY’S SHOES

* あおか、みどりか Is it Blue? Or Is it Green?

* マイターン My Turn

* なっとう Nattou

* にほん の ゆきだるま Japanese Snowman

* じどうはんばいき Japanese Vending Machines

* マイカー My Car

* しまぐに Island Country

* にほん　の　がっこう Japanese Schools

Having fun while learning a language is a great way to increase motivation. With increased motivation, you are less likely to skip a day's study. A skipped day can quickly become a skipped week and then a skipped… forever.

And so, we hope you will have as much fun reading these stories as we had writing them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kotoba Inc
• Release date: Aug 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798594668263

Book preview

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

えき Clay's Search for the Station

げんかん & CLAY’S SHOES

あおか、みどりか Is it Blue? Or Is it Green?

マイターン My Turn

なっとう Nattou

にほん の ゆきだるま Japanese Snowman

じどうはんばいき Japanese Vending Machines

マイカー My Car

しまぐに Island Country

にほん の がっこう Japanese Schools

DOWNLOAD LINK

えき Clay's Search for the Station

As a reminder, the top and bottom Japanese texts are identical in meaning. The top version is only in hiragana and includes spaces between words. The bottom version has no spaces and uses kanji with furigana.

Unless you are just practicing hiragana recognition, try to work through both versions to improve reading speed, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, vocabulary, kanji, and grammar. If you don’t feel confident in your understanding, review the English translation at the end.

The following is a true story. Clay had just arrived in Japan (way back in 1998) and, while exploring the area, he got lost…

あるひ、くれいさん は ほんや を さがす こと に しました。 

ある日 aru hi – one day [this is ある aru (some) and 日(ひ) hi (day). The ある aru is used to show uncertainty: ある人(ひと) aru hito - some person; あるところ aru tokoro – some place]

クレイさん kurei san – Clay [Japanese adds honorific suffixes to names. This is similar to how English prefixes honorifics to names: Mr. Hickens; Dr. Smith; Mrs. Whatshername. However, this is used much more often in Japanese. For more on this, please see Clay & Yumi Boutwell's book, Japanese Honorifics & Pronouns: San, Chan, Sama, Say What?]

は wa – (topic marker) [written with the hiragana "ha but pronounced wa" when used as a particle. Japanese uses particles to give information about the preceding word. In this case, the は wa tells us Clay is the overall topic of the sentence. "As for Clay,