Easy reader for japanese ?

[pgomp]

Hello !

I am new to this forum, and I am hoping for you help.

I do not know how you feel, but I do make progress in a foreign language whenI read some stories, interesting novels, etc in that language. Then automatically my abilities in this language improve rapidly. For that reason I am looking for some books like the easy reader series where I can read japanese but I do not have to look all the time in the dictionary (I dont have any) because the key worlds , etc are all explained in english.

My Japanese level is about JPT 4 but I do not know so many Kanji symbols. Important is that these stories are somewhow interesting. I have already tried with simple books for children. My girlfriend had translated in advance the key words. But this did not work so well, since the stories were quite boring. I will be happy if you have any ideas and if you recommend me some books.

Greedings from Germany

Pgomp

[aKuMu]

i just know this one with english translation on it to ->Klick<-

[richvh]

Japanese folk tales

[pgomp]

Hi again!

Thank you for the answers.

@Richard, ywithout any explanations. ou link with the folk tails is only in japanese.

What akumu proposed is closer to what i look for. But I hope that this is not the only thing that exists. I hope that there are some more ideas and proposals.

Br.
Pgomp

[aKuMu]

online theres this one

[pgomp]

akumu!

This is great thank you very much.
This is exactly what I look for. It would be better of course for studying reasons if the language used in the stories was less poetic and more everyday language.
For example a bilingual manga, where unknown world like in the link you send me are explained in english.

Best Regards

[richvh]

pgomp wrote:
Hi again!

Thank you for the answers.

@Richard, ywithout any explanations. ou link with the folk tails is only in japanese.

What akumu proposed is closer to what i look for. But I hope that this is not the only thing that exists. I hope that there are some more ideas and proposals.

Br.
Pgomp

Oh, sorry, I missed that you didn't have a dictionary. But really, there are dictionaries available online, like Jim Breen's WWWJDIC. There is also "An Introduction to Japanese Literature" edited by Giles Murray (a print book, not something you can read online), which has side-by-side Japanese and English text, with a glossary of all words used on each page (except for a number of basic words and particles) for 7 classic short stories.
There are also audio files for the stories in the book available from the author's website.

[chchan45]

pgomp,

I hope you are still reading this and that I am not too late.

If the book you are getting comes with kanji, make sure that you have one with furigana (i.e. their pronunications in small hiragana characters on the side).

Nothing is more demoralising that having to look up the meaning of a word AND having to check out the pronunciation of the kanji. I would have given up on my first book had it not come with the furigana.

[aoisatomi]

hey...here is a site with a lot of japanese stories.
They are folktales, but i think they are very interesting. My favorites
are Momotarou and Kaguyahime.
All the important stuff is explained in English at the bottom of each passage w/kanji. (The stories themselves are pure kana.)

http://www.his.atr.jp/~ray/stories/