Baye from Loco in Yokohama has finished his book! His blog is extremely popular so I’m sure his book will be enjoyed by many.

His book is called “Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist” and it’s available on the Kindle! Check it out.

Loco's Book! Read it on your Kindle.

A company called Rye Studio makes a series of picture book apps for iPhone and iPad that read you a story while showing you the text in Chinese. Listening to target language text being read at native speed while reading along is a great way to pick up new vocabulary if you ask me.

What’s that you say? You’re not studying Chinese, you’re learning Japanese! Of course! Well, the kicker is that you can watch the story while reading and listening to it in a variety of languages… including Japanese in most cases! (Not that I’m spending all my time in China looking for Japanese language sources… no not at all… I just happened to notice this and decided to tell you about it… yeah that’s it…)

Mulan in Chinese!

Mulan in Japanese!

And rest assured, the Japanese seems to be being read by a native speaker as far as I and my Japanese wife can tell. So yeah, it’s high quality stuff.

The following Rye Studio stories are available in Japanese:
The Little Snail かたつむり
Mulan ムーラン
The Magic Brush and Maliang 魔法の筆と馬良
The Monkeys Who Tried to Catch the Mooon 猿とお月さん

There are lots more as well!

Also, these apps all run on your iPhone or iPod Touch as well. The screen shots in this post are all from the iPhone and iPod Touch screens. Note, it’s a universal app, so you only have to buy it once and you can run it on both of your devices.

Well worth a look!

I haven’t performed very well in the Tadoku competitions. I do read a lot of Japanese daily, because it’s my life, but I have trouble sticking to whatever novel it was that I picked for the contest. Also, I’m too lazy to record pages of games or random webpages that I read. So, I only record the books. Anyway, excuses over. I’m going to pick up where I left off in Kafka By the Shore 海辺のカフカ and join Tadoku again this time!

I think I need to learn to abide by this Tadoku philosophy from Professor Sakai of tadoku.org. (Saw this from Lingosteve’s blog, props!)

1) do not look words up in the dictionary
2) if you are stuck, move on, don’t ask questions
3) if you do not like what you are reading, get something else to read.

I have an OCD habit of writting down any unknown Japanese that I encounter, looking it up, and adding it to my Anki deck. This slows me down. I love it though… but I guess Tadoku is not the time for that. I’ll try to kick the OCD habit for one month and just read more (or die)!

Are you going to Tadoku? What are you going to read?

If you haven’t decided on anything yet here are some ideas…

Anything on Aozora Bunko.

Use Japanese Literature at Bedtime to get MP3s of famous Japanese stories available on Aozora Bunko, and read while listening. Awesome.

Get some of the readers from TheJapanShop.com. Full disclosure, I’m friends with TheJapanShop.com owner, but seriously, the stuff is legit. They are traditional Japanese stories, read by a native Japanese speaker, and you get the Kanji readings and English translation as well. The audio files are all separated so if you like you can listen to the straight-up no-help Japanese. Good stuff. For example, 注文の多い料理店 by Miyazawa Kenji.

Liana has also posted links to tons of great stuff. Check out her list of extensive reading material online.

Anyone have other ideas for stuff to read?? Do tell!

Related Posts:
How I use my Kindle
Podcast Recommendation – Audio for Ningen Shikkaku

If you like studying Japanese and have an interest in Japanese literature, then I’m sure you will find Aozora Bunko to be invaluable.

The interface for Aozora Bunko is completely in Japanese, so it can be a little intimidating if you’re not yet completely comfortable with the language. So, in this post I’m going to teach you how to use Aozora Bunko to get what you need.

The title of this blog post says Japanese books, but actually Aozora Bunko contains mostly short stories and, well, not so short stories. The famous Botchan 坊ちゃん by Natsume Soseki is an example of a book-length piece that you can find on Aozora Bunko. I once bought Botchan in a used Japanese book store for 50 yen, but now I can read it again on my Kindle for free! Yippie!

Ougai Mori, October 22, 1911

Okay, so let’s get into how to use Aozora Bunko.

Think of a story or author that you want to read.

This might be easier said than done if you are not familiar with Japanese literature. Not only do you need to know the title of the piece or name of the author, but you also need to know how to find it in Japanese. Moreover, Aozora Bunko only has works for which the copyright has expired, so you’re going to be looking at older Japanese literature here. Luckily there is a lot of really interesting older Japanese literature!

Some famous authors, their notable works, and the corresponding Japanese to get you started are…

• 夏目漱石 (なつめそうせき Natsume Souseki)
• 坊ちゃん Botchan
• それから Sorekara
• 手紙 tegami

我が輩は猫である (I am a cat), another famous Natsume Soseki piece, is not available on Aozora Bunko as of posting.

• 芥川龍之介 (あくたがわりゅうのすけ Akutagawa Ryuunosuke)
• トロッコ torokko
• 桃太郎 momotarou
• 羅生門 rashoumon

• 森鴎外 (もりおうがい Mori Ougai)
• 舞姫 maihime
• うたかたの記 utakatanoki
• 文づかひ

• 与謝野晶子 (よさのあきこ Yosano Akiko)
• Yosano Akiko’s modern (at the time) Japanese translation of The Tale of Genji is there.

That ought to be enough to hold you for a while.

Now, if you want something else and you know the name of the author or name of the story you’re trying to find, proceed to the next step.

(NOTE: CLICK ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SCREENSHOTS TO ENLARGE THEM)

Access Aozora Bunko at http://www.aozora.gr.jp/
(Duh, but I want to be complete.)

Search by Author or Title

First, let’s see how to search by author.

Say you want to search for Natsume Souseki. You have to search by last name on Aozora Bunko, so know that his last name is Natsume. Last name’s are usually listed first in Japanese.

Then, you need to understand the order of Hiragana. If you want to find any name that starts with NA NI NU NE or NO, you need to click on what is labeled as the 「な行」under the 「公開中　作家別：」section.「な行」means, “the NA row.” Similarly, a name like Miyazaki would be listed under the MA line, so you would want to look at ま行。公開中　作家別 on the left there means “items that are currently available, arranged by author.”


Click the NA-line link in the author section to find Natsume Souseki.

Searching by Title

To side track for a minute, if you want to search by the title of the story you are looking for, you’ll click the character that is the first character in the title of the work. For example, if you want to find 鼻 (はな) by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, you would click on 「は」 in the 公開中　作品別 section.

公開中　作品別 on the left there means “items that are currently available, arranged by title.”


Use this area to search for a story by title

Then, you have to flip through the result pages until you find what you are looking for.

Having said that, it’s really easier just to use the Google-powered search box at the top of the main page if you know the exact title of what you’re looking for.


Search by author or title directly if you know what you need

Now, back to the author search.

If you clicked on the な行 in the 公開中　作家別 section, you will arrive at a listing of all the authors that have a last name that start with な (NA). Find 夏目漱石 (Natsume Souseki) here, and click on his name.


All available authors with last name ending in NA

This will bring you to a listing of all the works by Natsume Souseki that are available on Aozora Bunko.


Works by Natsume Souseki

Let’s click the first title listed, イズムの功過.

This will bring you to another page called the 図書カード (Library card) for that item. The download links for the text are at the bottom of this page.


Scroll down to get the files

If you scroll down to the bottom of that page you will see links to the story in various formats. The formats usually include a ZIPed Ruby thing, an eBook (ebk), and plain ol’ HTML. If you want to read it immediately on your computer just click the HTML link. Here’s the HTML link for イズムの功過 for example.


The HTML link for the story

That’s basically it. I hope that helps you find what you need on Aozora Bunko!

Happy reading!

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions and I’ll get right back to ya.

Harvey

]]> http://www.japannewbie.com/2011/02/13/how-to-use-aozora-bunko-to-get-free-japanese-books/feed/ 3 http://www.japannewbie.com/2011/02/10/break-into-manga-translation-with-manga-digital-guild/ http://www.japannewbie.com/2011/02/10/break-into-manga-translation-with-manga-digital-guild/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:06:33 +0000 harvey http://www.japannewbie.com/?p=4323 Lot’s of people who study Japanese hope to get into translation some day. And when it comes to translation, many people hope to do manga or game translation, why? Cause the content is freaking fun! But how to break into the field? A friend recently introduced me to Digital Manga Guild, and it seems to be a legit way to get some experience, and to get paid as well.

If you’re serious about giving this a shot your first step will be to take one of their tests.

You can test in many aspects of the translation process, including translation, editing, and lettering. You can even form a group and plan to work together on projects.


The workflow, click to enlarge

I have never tried Digital Manga Guild myself, but it does look like a legit opportunity. They even have a profit sharing scheme going, so if you stick with it you should eventually make some change.

Translation is always great because it forces you to figure out language that you may not be familiar with, and it’s a real skill that can serve you well in the future. I encourage peeps out there to give it a shot! And if you do, let us know how it goes!

がんばれ！

- Harvey

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