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Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers
 
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Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers (Paperback)

by Michael Emmerich (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £15.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers + Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors + Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text
Price For All Three: £28.26

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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Kodansha International; 1st edition (30 April 2008)
  • Language English, Japanese
  • ISBN-10: 4770030584
  • ISBN-13: 978-4770030580
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.2 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 217,554 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #5 in  Books > Languages > By Language > Japanese > Language Readers
    #19 in  Books > Fiction > Short Stories > World > Japanese
    #85 in  Books > Languages > Grammar, dictionaries & phrasebooks > Dictionaries

Product Description

Product Description

Collection of short stories by cutting-edge writers to make reading Japanese easier than ever. Includes profiles of the individual writers - including Hiromi Kawakami, Otsuichi, Banana Yoshimoto and Yoko Tawada, amongst others - placing the stories in context and enriching the reader's understanding of modern Japanese literature. Each double-page spread contains everything a reader needs to enjoy contemporary written Japanese: original text, phrase-level translations and endnotes explaining tricky grammar. Built-in J-E learner s dictionary provides translations of every single word appearing in the book.


About the Author

Michael Emmerich graduated from Princeton and after completing research at Ritsumeikan University in Tokyo, he went to on to earn a PhD in Japanese literature from Columbia University. He is the highly acclaimed translator of Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata s First Snow on Fuji; Banana Yoshimoto s Asleep, Goodbye Tsugumi and Hardboiled & Hard Luck; and Genichiro Takahashi s Sayonara Gangsters amongst many others.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A good stepping stone to reading adult literature, 21 Aug 2008
By P. Giovanni (Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Reading kids books in Japanese is fun for a while (and useful as a study aid). However, after a while you feel the need to read something with a little more depth. Real adult literature, however, lacks furigana and often contains some perplexing phrases.
Reading Real Japanese solves all those problems. I prefer this to the Japanese Literature reader, because it features more contemporary language. (the latter uses out of copyright texts featuring lots of archaic Japanese.)
I recommend this book for intermediate and above level students (JPLT level 2) If you are a lower level student, I recommend importing kids books from Amazon Japans site (it even lets u browse the site in English).
I often read Japanese translations of books that I had read as a child, because it made comprehension much easier.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Upper-intermediate only, 9 Mar 2009
By M. S. (Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews
I have been studying Japanese for a total of three years now, including one year spend at a University in Japan, so I would not judge my Japanese to be too awful. However, this book really had me struggling. There were large amounts of words that were new to me and regularly the translations were quite vague, so I had to hunt for my kanji dictionary despite the word list at the end of each section if I wanted to make a comprehensive list of new vocabulary for later revision.

Some of the grammar and sentence structure were also very challenging and I found a few of the stories so obscure, that it made me doubt my understanding of the text: A good example of this was the bear that happily started chatting away or the fact that side characters were only referenced by a distinctive characteristic mentioned previously, which lead to an "umbrella" commenting on something which "glasses" responded to.

I am sure someone with the appropriate Japanese level might quite enjoy the book, as it is well written and the stories are quite interesting overall. I would only recommend it though if the reader in question can already comprehend Japanese children's books with ease and has a firm grasp of kanji. Sadly that reader was not me.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Nice. , 18 Nov 2008
Easy to use with interesting short stories. As above, recommended for intermediate or higher students of Japanese, but definitely good for a first time foray into story-type text. The along-side translation is comprehensive but is not a word by word translation of the text, and so there is some onus on the reader to pick through the Japanese to fully comprehend. Good price and each story is a comfortable size- you could get through one quite quickly, or use for group work- we're currently covering half a story in a hour. Moreover, it's famous writers work, and many of the stories are fascinating and a good read in themselves. There's even a vocabulary list and grammar review in the back if you're feeling particularly scholarly. Give it a go!
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