hiragana text to practice reading

[mimmomorello]

Someone know where to find hiragana text (like short story or something like that) to practice reading?

Thanks

[sgtkwol]

Yeah, I was looking for the same thing. I put it in the shoutbox last night.

[Txkun]

Cocosan gently gave me this link some time ago: (http://www.portals.co.jp/isopp/)
I traslated with her help ねずみのそうだん (nezumi no soudan) and I'm continuing with the others. It's not bad as an exercise and tales are written in 'easy' japanese (but often I stumble on things I don't know).

Have fun!

[sgtkwol]

At long last http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/ ... index.html. Written with furigana and in traditional up and down style. Children's stories, but hey, how did you learn english (or whatever your first language may be). That other site is awesome, too, just couldn't view it from work . thanks

[lucky419]

Wow, great links sgtwol/Txkun I have been looking for something exactly like this! Much thanks.

[OT86]

You absolute LEGENDS!! I too have been searching for this kinda stuff for ages.

It'll be a great help so thanks a million times over

[danvx6]

I started reading Momotarou from the site above (http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/kikakuten/mukashi/mukashi1/index.html) and I'm having a little trouble with certain things. Some of the words I can't find in my dictionary and some of the grammar doesn't make complete sense to me. I get the gist of most sentences, but some of the grammar elements I can't fully grasp.

In the first sentence, "とんと昔あったと。" the only thing I can recognize is the kanji for むかし. The other words weren't in my dictionary.


これがまたなんともおいしい。
This means something like "This is the most delicious (peach) ever.", right?
I don't know the word(s) またなんとも from that sentence.

[richvh]

あった is the simple past of ある. I asked about this phrase myself on Tae Kim's forum here, and Yokohama said that

As for とんと昔あったと.

This sentence is a sort of set phrases starting tales of old Japan, and the same as 「むかし、むかし、あるところに。」 or 「むかし、むかし、とんとむかし。」. It means as same as "Once upon a time." in English, I think.

The とんと means まったく、すっかり、ぜんぜん in modern Japanese, but the とんと in とんとむかし doesn't have a specific meaning it self.　It seems to mean as about "ずっとむかし: far long time ago", I think.

[danvx6]

Thanks for the info, that とんと　was bugging me. The particle と seems to be excessively used in these stories, but I'm not sure how exactly to connect phrases that use it. Is it simply a form of "and"?

[richvh]

A lot of the places it's used in these stories is right after sound effects, where it's used as a quote. Other places, where it comes after a verb, it's used as a conditional and can be translated as "when".

とんと昔あったと。"When it was a very long time ago." or "It was a long time ago they say."

See Tae Kim's articles here and here.

[ayaito]

wow, these websites are great! ive been looking for things like this forever. thanks!!