Maddie Learns

So, you've made it to the point where you'd like to branch out and read some novels and children's books in Japanese? Then you've come to the right place! Let's talk about three helpful publishers (Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shueisha) that can make reading native materials less daunting!

The Kodansha Aoitori Bunko Books (青い鳥文庫) were created and published by Kodansha with elementary schoolers in mind, so almost all kanji has furigana on it. The text is larger and there's normally a bit more spacing in between it (like our children's chapter books in English). Just like other children's chapter books, there are occasional photos included. Aoitori Readers include both original series as well as some translations of international literature (i.e., Little Women, Murder on the Orient Express, Sherlock Holmes, etc.). There are also some adaptations of other series はたらく細胞 (Cells at Work) Those books have blue around the cover.

The Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko Readers (角川つばさ文庫) operate on the same concept, except the series are normally on a more advanced level. With this in mind, they may use more advanced grammar than the Aoitori series. There are original series, but sometimes books/series for a higher comprehension levels will be adapted into Tsubasa Bunko Readers. This includes popular Japanese novels and series as well as international classics (i.e., Chronicles of Narnia, Pippi Longstocking, Anne of Green Gables, etc.). For adaptations of Japanese novels and series, there will be the "regular" version of the novel and then the Tsubasa Bunko version bc it's the same kanji, same grammar, same words. It'll also supply the furigana for those kanjis and might give little annotations or some photos here and there. For example, the award-winning novel 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 (The Night is Short, Walk on Girl) by 森見 登美彦 (Morimi Tomihiko) has both the "regular" publication and the Tsubasa Bunko version. Tsubasa Bunko Readers have green around the cover. Click on the links to get a preview of each version to compare and contrast.

The Shueisha Mirai Bunko Books also operates the same. There are adaptations of manga series (like Kaguya-sama: Love is War and Demon Slayer) as well as original series. Mirai Bunko Readers have orange around the cover.

If you're worried about attempting to read any of these on your own, come suggest some of them for us to read together at the Seitokai Bookclub! (And even if it doesn't get selected immediately, someone might be interested in being a reading buddy with you :D).

I repeat, Disney+ has added Japanese dubs to EVERYTHING!

Did YOU know there’s a Japanese dub of Kim Possible?! I didn’t!! But now I know and I’m watching it now!

Umbrella 傘

Appologies for my rough Japanese. I Included English translations below. Hopefully they are correct!

Dib: “It looks like it’ll rain today.”

Zim: “Eh? No way!” *trembling sfx* “Eh? What’s that?”

Dib: “This? Um~ It’s an umbrella…”

Zim: “Umbrella?”

Dib: “Yes. An umbrella.”

北 【きた】 (kita): North

東 【ひがし】 (higashi): East

南 【みなみ】 (minami): South

西 【にし】 (nishi): West

I recently realized that I could not remember well all the kanji about compass directions. And, since they are usually among the basic kanji (asked in jplt n5), I decided to create a simple graphic post to remember them. Hope it can help you, too!

-> for points in time that occur repeatedly

-> e.g. there are many Monday(s), 2 o'clock(s), October(s), New Year(s) etc.

-> time references that change depending on when "now" is

-> e.g. today, next week, last year, tomorrow etc.

Example Sentences:

兄は木曜日に上野で買い物をしました。

My older brother did some shopping in Ueno on Thursday.

今日、私は電車で仕事に行きます。

Today, I will go to work by train