Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text Paperback – June 1, 2012

The only bad thing that can be said about this book is that the translations on the right hand page make it almost too easy to cheat and just read things in English. However, if you have a little self discipline, you'll find that there's a lot here to love. The translations are not literal, and aim to maintain the feeling of the sentences in English. I found it fun to compare my translation to that of the author, and enjoyed those "aha!" moments when I realized "But that's not really what it's saying!".After reading this book it has become clearer than ever that a lot of things get lost/mutated in translation as a means to tailor things to English speaking audiences.As far as the definitions at the bottom go, it is interesting to note that same word is often defined in different ways based on usage. This is a nice touch as it shows the versatility of those words, that would be hard to grasp if we did not see them used multiple ways.And to close, I'll say that the story selections were interesting. The repetition of words and phrases in them made them an intelligent choice by Mr. Murray. Because you will see some of the same words often in the same story, you will naturally pick up on them just so you can avoid the annoyance of looking up their definition everytime you come across them.In summary, this book is a great introduction to Japanese fiction and I've enjoyed my time with it. If you're looking to make the jump into non-educational material, this is a great starting place.皆さん、頑張りましてください！

This book is a very good source of learning the nuances of Japanese people during the time of the authors, which may still be possibly present even until now. Aside from the very helpful in-text kanji and hiragana phrases below the Japanese text, explanations regarding the stories' settings were also given, making the reader even more aware of the cultural background behind each story. This also gives a Japanese "feel" to the stories, adding to their authenticity to many readers.For example, in Souseki's Yume Juuya stories, different periods in ancient Japan were showed, complete with vivid descriptions of each setting. Each story takes the reader into another world, with supernatural, creepy, and bizarre elements added. My personal favorite is the Third Night, which explores reincarnations and realizations, complete with macabre details.Aside from the content, I also recommend this book to upper-beginners of the Japanese language. The book style is not only welcoming to intermediate and advanced Japanese language learners, but to beginners as well, provided that one has knowledge of kana as well as at least grade 1 kanji. This book is a way for beginners to appreciate the basic kanji and words that were learned, either in class or by oneself. It is also a good reading set to test reading comprehension skills, as well as listening skills when the audio files are used in tandem.I gave this book a high-overall rating and a good recommendation not just for its content but also on how it was made. It is a very good book for one to become introduced to Japanese culture and literature, as well as a useful tool in learning the Japanese language.

I bought this a couple of years ago (three years ago, I guess) when I was first learning Japanese. I can't say that I used it to get better at Japanese so much as I used it to gauge my Japanese reading abilities. After a couple of years of study and thinking to myself that maybe I can get through the book now, I can finally say that I can read the stories and get most of the gist of the story without having to constantly look up kanji (or read the companion text). The companion English text is definitely still useful for clearing things up for me, though.I'd say this is a useful exercise, but requires a pretty good knowledge of Japanese already in order for these stories to be useful. A beginner should be warned that this book will be very slow reading.As for the stories and the translations, I thought they were excellent stories and that the translations are very well done. As with (what seems like) everything with learning Japanese, it takes a long time to feel like you "get it".

This is really enjoyable; the translations aren't "learners" translations, so it was really interesting for me to read the Japanese text, then see what I felt was missing from the English translation when I looked down for help or to see if I had the meaning right. The English text is enjoyable prose in its own right since it's not written in an extremely literal style as you might expect, and while normally I prefer very literal translations, in this case the original text is right there for the reader, who is assumed to know Japanese, to compare it with. Vocab words, turns of phrase and unusual grammar are also all defined right there on the same page as the original text.Enjoyable even just as a collection of Japanese stories if your Japanese isn't up to snuff yet, if your Japanese level is second or third year, it's a great learning resource too.You can also download MP3s from the website listed in the boook for listening based study and to get a feel for cadence and word pitch.

I am a learning Japanese between a N4 - N3 level and found this book to be of good quality and helpful for my studies.The short stories sometimes include rarely used/outdated vocab and syntactic variations to add style or illustrate a certain feeling or character, as you'd expect in a piece of fictional writing. This can make some parts hard to read or understand, but also gives you the chance to learn new and interesting phrases or words, and gives you a new understanding of how the language can be used, even if you won't ever use some of it in conversation or the classroom.The audio clips that can be accessed on the website for free are great for listening practice and the vocab list on each page is helpful for fluid reading. All in all a decent book.

An excellent book for people with an interest in Japanese literature and a means of expanding one's knowledge of the language.I find the parallel text format very helpful, especially the integral dictionary section, saves a lot of dictionary page turning.A great idea to have an MP3 download included, iron out those pronunciation wrinkles, I would love more books like this.

This book is great. Bought as a gift for my sister who is learning Japanese and she loves it. As stated in other reviews, the story is in Japanese and english alongside each other, making it easy to learn words and sentences. In addition, there is a little dictionary and synopsis with each story, which is incredibly helpful. Couldn't be better.

Ho appena iniziato a leggere questo libro, che avevo comprato per migliorare le mie competenze di lettura e per memorizzare qualche kanji. Devo dire che è un ottimo testo. Le storie sono abbastanza interessanti e soprattutto c'è un glossario che spiega significato e lettura dei kanji ogni volta che appaiono (dopo un paio di volte che compare lo stesso kanji c'è un teschio che significa che da lì in poi quel kanji non verrà più spiegato).Il formato è piccolo, me lo aspettavo più grande, ma è un vantaggio perchè lo rende più tascabile e la dimensione comunque non inficia la leggibilità (il carattere è abbastanza grande, così come i furigana). Non mi piace molto la traduzione inglese, troppo "artistica", ma l'autore anche nell'introduzione spiega che il suo scopo è di dare un'esperienza estetica a chi non è di madrelingua giapponese e devo dire che in parte ci riesce.Necessaria un'ottima conoscenza dell'inglese per poterlo usare al meglio. Comunque lo consiglio per chi è a livello Intermediate nella conoscenza del giapponese.

Il mio livello di conoscenza del giapponese è basso/intermedio, quello dell'inglese molto buono. Sul foglio sinistro si trovano delle piccole storie scritte in un giapponese (con i furigana) di livello intermedio/alto. Sul foglio destro si trova la traduzione in inglese. La comprensione delle storie e della grammatica è fattibile anche se non facile per un principiante come me. In basso c'è un dizionario con tutti i Kanji usati nella pagina e gli hiragana per leggerli. Non lo ho ancora fatto ma è possibile scaricare il file audio da Internet oppure ascoltarlo in streaming dal sito dell'editore. Per chi vuole imparare la lingua come me è ottimo. Sono soddisfatto dell'acquisto.