abydos wrote:

I hope I am not repeating a question. If so, I hope someone could kindly link to the thread. But can anyone recommended graded readers in Japanese. I have plenty of bilingual books (meant for Japanese interested in English), but they lack furigana and are really too difficult for me at this point. I have heard of "light novels". Do these have furigana? I have read some manga that is fairly easy with furigana, but I am not that interested in most manga, so I was wondering if anyone had other suggestions.

Yes light novels do have furigana. It's on amazon.jp. In the teenager section. I'm planning on buying some light novels and some general novels and some manga for enjoyment.
As for light novels, It's good to get but it might still include vocab you might not know. So heads up.

These are true graded readers (like the Oxford Bookworms, etc. for English learners), i.e. a restricted number of words per level and concerted recycling of words throughout the text.

They come with CDs of the text so you can listen and read as well.


http://www.nihongo-ask.jp/tadoku/

vix86 wrote:

ta12121 wrote:

As for light novels, It's good to get but it might still include vocab you might not know. So heads up.

I thought that was the whole point? O.o
Buy material you like -> Read said material -> Find new words you don't know -> SRS w/ context -> Enjoy!

That's right. But for me I'm just lazy at times. So I usual just get a lot of what I SRS from the native stuff online. News sites,drama's,etc. Much faster then manually entering them from a book.

markal wrote:

These are true graded readers (like the Oxford Bookworms, etc. for English learners), i.e. a restricted number of words per level and concerted recycling of words throughout the text.

They come with CDs of the text so you can listen and read as well.


http://www.nihongo-ask.jp/tadoku/

I bought some of those from The Japan Shop.  The really easy ones were actually halfway interesting, but as they get harder, they get more boring. 

I also bought some books like http://shop.kodansha.jp/bc2_bc/search_v … ?b=1487310 .  The previews on that site help you to get a better idea of what you're getting into.  I'm just -barely- able to understand that book.  I have a feeling I failed to understand something important in the first few chapters, but ...  Well, we'll see.  Most of the words are fairly easy, though.

Jarvik7 wrote:

I think they're decent for what they are. Even level 4 is pretty easy though (JLPT3 maybe) and they are way too short for what they cost. I read volume one of levels 0 through 4 in about an hour at the bookstore without buying them. If I bought them it would be nearly $200 for an hour's reading!

立ち読み最高！

Yeah...  I bought volume 1 of level 1-4.  I haven't read the last 2 levels yet, and I don't think they were worth the money.  It's nice to have text that's being read to you, but there's actually quite a bit of that on the net, if you know where to look.  Like that fantajikan site that has kid's stories as podcasts.  I won't be buying any more of them.

On the subject of Japanese graded readers, does anyone know of any readers that can be opened in a web browser? Being able to copy and paste text is a great time-saver. Copy and pasting makes looking up definitions and creating anki flashcards significantly more efficient and less frustrating as well.

There's the "Stories you can read in 10 minutes..." series. 10分で読めるお話 and 10分で読める名作. I saw both the above-mentioned readers and these while browsing a bookstore, and picked up the 10分 books because they're a lot cheaper. No audio, though. I think they're meant more for actual Japanese children; I found them in the kid's section, whereas the graded readers were in the Japanese-language section.

They're pretty simple. The earlier ones are all kana and kanji with furigana; I believe they get harder as you go up.

Keep in mind some manga， like 4 koma comics in particular that I’ve seen （Azumanga， Lucky Star） don’t bother with furigana．Guess it’s because they’re pitched at an older audience or something.  Go to mangahelpers and check out the raws before you put down money on a comic book.

Last edited by ems573 (2010 April 20, 10:45 am)

wccrawford wrote:

rosenafglenn wrote:

There's the "Stories you can read in 10 minutes..." series. 10分で読めるお話 and 10分で読める名作. I saw both the above-mentioned readers and these while browsing a bookstore, and picked up the 10分 books because they're a lot cheaper. No audio, though. I think they're meant more for actual Japanese children; I found them in the kid's section, whereas the graded readers were in the Japanese-language section.

They're pretty simple. The earlier ones are all kana and kanji with furigana; I believe they get harder as you go up.

haha, I bet they take me longer than 10 minutes. 

Thanks for the info!  I'll be sure to look for them.

Edit:  That was fast.  Kinokuniya seems to have them all in stock individually.  The (cheaper) sets are all out of stock, though.

They appear to be set for grade level as well, which is really nice.  There's a couple more that I -think- are for highschoolers as well.

Yeah, I found them at the Kinokuniya in NYC. I think the highest level is actually 6th grade, but maybe the publisher (I think this is it? http://www.kodomonohon.jp/goods/series/ … 00erw4.php ) makes other books for high school students.

wccrawford wrote:

rosenafglenn wrote:

Yeah, I found them at the Kinokuniya in NYC. I think the highest level is actually 6th grade, but maybe the publisher (I think this is it? http://www.kodomonohon.jp/goods/series/ … 00erw4.php ) makes other books for high school students.

Maybe you can tell me what these are then?  They're the ones that I thought were highschool-level books.

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/c … amp;LANG=J

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/c … amp;LANG=J

Huh. I didn't see those anywhere I looked (I probably didn't notice them, as I was actively looking for the lower-level books), but it does look like they are high school books. Good find!