Reddit mentions of Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

> Since you are learning you may also want to check out Read Real Japanese

Also Exploring Japanese Literature and Breaking Into Japanese Literature

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Diversity-Lifestyles-Conversations/dp/030010958X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162331&sr=8-2&keywords=living+japanese

I think that is an amazing recourse. Natural, REAL conversations with people of all ages and topics. Its really good for getting exposure you can learn from easily to native speaking that isn't "dramatized" or too over the top like most anime and Japanese TV acting in general.


LingQ.com (is also a great recourse. and its free if you don't use the in site word marking tools)

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-1&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-2&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-3&keywords=read+real+japanese

the last three are good for written japanese, which is more polished and different than real "spoken" japanese (like any language). But they all 3 come with audio, grammar and vocab explanations and are an amazing recourse IMO.

I wouldn't go for something like Murakami to practice translation because, as atgm points out, the translators wouldn't be translating 1:1.

Why not try one of the "Breaking into Japanese Literature" or "Read Real Japanese" books (any kind of reader really)? They usually come with a direct translation and a more artistic translation. The texts are shorter which should keep your interest up for longer but there's still enough stories for you to have enough to do.

There's plenty of others but a few examples would be:

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Exploring Japanese Literature: Read Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata in the Original

Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors

I think all of those had the "look inside" enabled so you can decide which style of translation you prefer.

If translation is something that interests you, I recommend heading over to /r/translationstudies to get a few tips on good books on translation studies.

I also studied Japanese in college. I had a lacuna of about 10 years before restarting my Japanese studies. After about two or so years of study, I now have my N1. Here are some things I did:

• I did Read the Kanji for a little bit, getting to some N1 sentences.
  
• I read bilingual texts like Breaking into Japanese Literature, though I never got around to finishing it.
  
• I also used readers such as Modern Japanese: A Basic Reader. These have graded reading lessons with a glossary of the words used in English in a separate volume/section. Basically I followed the reading program outlined here.
  
• I kept reading, getting to the point where I read editorials every day. Reading, reading, reading.
  
• I also listened to podcasts all day long at work. I think that’s why my JLPT listening score was relatively higher than the other section scores.
  
  Start with something basic, then try to work your way up any way you can.

In my post about reading strategies I suggested starting with translations of books you are familiar with, particularly those aimed at children and adolescents (primarily for the extensive furigana).

While I agree that good translation requires you to understand all the nuances of the text, translation is a completely different skill from comprehension. I also wonder if too much translation actually hinders the second language acquisition process. Isn't the goal to understand it in the target language, as is, rather than making sure you understand it in a language you already know?

Some suggestions for authors and books:

乙一（おついち）: He writes horror and light novels and was first published at age 16. It's not classic literature my any means but it's easy and most of the stories are short. I particularly liked "Seven Rooms" which was in one of the Zoo collections.

EDIT: Apparently there is a 30min short film adaptation of "Seven Rooms".

奥田英朗（おくたひでお）: His Irabu-sensei series of short stories is fun and fairly accessible. Although they are all connected through the eponymous doctor, the main character(s) of each vignette are different and the language varies accordingly.

夏目漱石（なつめそうせき）: While most of his work is incredibly difficult, 夢十夜 is an excellent collection of short stories made better by the free audio released by the publishers of Breaking into Japanese Literature.

There's three great books out there that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Read Real Japanese: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292)

and

[Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148)

and

[Breaking into Japanese literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156)

PS: if you are "fresh out of Genki 2" level, I'd say these books may be fairly advanced for you, but to each their own. Some people don't mind. There are english translations after all.

You didn't say what level you wanted. I just got Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text and it looks interesting. Short stories by people like Soseki. There is an associated web site where you can get mp3's.

I own a few beginner books like this. If you like folk tales, this is exactly what you're asking for: Treasury of Japanese Folk Tales - the stories are in English on the first half of the page, and on the bottom half in mostly kana with furigana over any kanji. It's a nice hardcover book with color illustrations on each page, so I think it's worth the price.
Clay and Yumi Boutwell have written Japanese readers that are very similar- furigana and kana text with definitions for each kanji/vocabulary on the bottom half of the page, followed by a full English summary afterwards. I own Hikoichi, Momotaro, and Inch High Samurai. I think the Boutwells' readers are good learning material but way overpriced considering how small each reader is. Since the Treasury of Japanese Folk Tales also contains many of the stories covered by each of the Boutwells' readers, it's a better bang for the buck (though missing the 1-1 definitions for each kanji/vocabulary).
I also own the red Giles Murray Breaking into Japanese Literature, but it's a bit above my current skill level since many of the kanji don't have furigana.
I have also looked into Kodansha's bilingual series, but since it's aimed at Japanese readers trying to learn English- manga have speech bubbles in English with no furigana kanji on the sides, but regular Japanese manga + English translated counterpart is more helpful since regular Japanese manga aimed for children have furigana.

I studied for 3 years, then stopped for the last 4...I can happily say that I've started practicing again.

I highly recommend purchasing books like these: Book 1 Book 2

You'll learn history/culture, familiarize yourself with relevant authors, be able to analyze how sentences generally translate, as well as learn words and practice reading! They give you kanji furigana, definitions, everything.

Edit: also, start learning your joyo kanji whenever you want to go above and beyond. It's from the Japanese department of education, the most commonly used/found japanese words. Often japanese newspapers are restricted to these, ~ 2150 kanji

One tactic I'll suggest from my personal experience: comparative reading.

1. Read the Japanese line.
   
2. Roughly translate it yourself (in your head or on paper; use a dictionary for any terms you don't know).
   
3. Compare to a competent translation.
   
4. Profit.
   
   It's no replacement or shortcut for the tried-and-true method of studying grammar and basic alphabet, but it accelerated my learning by leaps and bounds. Grab one volume of a manga you like (English and Japanese) and that'll be a good start. Alternatively, a Kodansha bilingual comic (which exists for Chihayafuru, for instance) or parallel text volumes for classic Japanese short stories (example) are also great resources.

Iam not manga fan, so i try this book https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156 and iam happy with it :)

I found this some time ago and it looked like a great idea so I bought it (or actually, I bought this one, not really sure what's different). I haven't actually looked closer at it since I bought it though, so I can't say how good it actually is.

It has short Japanese stories with the Japanese text on the left and English translation on the right, with vocabulary at the bottom. I'm not sure the content is as simple as you want though, it seems like there's only furigana for harder words, but they seem to have translation and reading at the bottom for all words.
Also, I don't think they have translation for the same word more than once - so if a word appears with translation on the first page, there won't be a translation for the word if it appears on later pages (though you still have the full English translation that includes the word).

The amazon link for the red book lets you look at the first few pages so you can see what it looks like.

Not like this, no. Still, you can put in the work, build your own, and share it with others if you're feeling generous.

The closest example would be to get some of the Japanese readers out there like "Read Real Japanese", "Breaking Into Japanese Literature", and "Exploring Japanese Literature". These are aimed at people still learning so they're chosen to be notable, but still easy to read. More relevantly they typically have vocabulary at the bottom of each page to help you. Admittedly, there are other features present (full parallel text in English, Japanese audio for each, etc.), but that's why they're specifically sold as teaching tools.

I bought this book and really found it readable, but be warned that the stories are incredibly dark.

This little book has side by side translations of classic Japanese literature. It orders them easiest to hardest.

On the internet no one knows I'm a bird.

I made a new post if you're interested. I already gave up here. You with 3 - 4 other people are getting the wrong idea.

edit: THIS is what I wanted thanks to someone on /r/japaneseresources .

Discipline is a tough thing, indeed.

Kanji/vocab are something you learn over time, not at once. If I were you, given the problems you mention with "sticking to it", I'd do the following.

1. Kanji Damage is a deck that (a) focuses only on Japanese>>English, (b) removes 1200 kanji from the standard RTK deck to focus only on ones you would reasonable expect to see (basically meaning ones that don't appear only in names, aren't the names of plants/trees/etc). You won't learn to write the kanji, but you will learn to recognize them -- all you need to do to read. Learn 5 per day and pay special attention to the vocabulary under each card. Do 5 per day and in 1 year you'll recognize the vast majority of kanji you see, unless you're into some really niche/technical stuff.
   
2. Do 12 cards of Genki I+II per day, and in about a years time you'll have all the vocab and grammar in Genki down. This will give you the foundation that you can make sense of most things you see with a grammar dictionary and patience, and you can also begin following simple/slice-of-life animes with Japanese transcripts on animelon.
   
3. In 6 months or so after you finish Genki one and are through around about half the kanji, I'd begin with The Core 2k -- to be able to read big things you need to first be able to read small things. You should have built up the vocab/grammar/kanji you need to begin working out these sentences by that time. You don't need to finish all 10 of the decks by any means; just keep trucking along until it becomes not-so-difficult to figure out each sentence.
   
   Once you get confident with working your way through sentences, find yourself a copy of Read Real Japanese: Contemporary Fiction and [Read Real Japanese: Comtemporary Writings). The book is natural Japanese -- as would appear in a normal Japanese rendition -- on the right side, then the left side is a gloss translation into English. In the back is a running grammar dictionary that gives good quality of literally every grammar point that doesn't appear until towards the end of Genki II or isn't in Genki (around that difficulty). This is gold to me because (a) you're reading real Japanese, and (b) 100% of what you learn while reading these books is in context and will be directly useful for understanding the story you're reading, and the slightly more difficult ones that come in succession. Expect to need to read these more than once; I read the fiction one 3 times before I read a normal book, and I want to read them again even though I've now read several books in Japanese .
   
   Once you get confident with these books, you have two options.
   
4. Breaking into Japanese Literature is a more difficult graded reader; it basically leaves you alone, but there is a running dictionary on each page so that you can read the book without referring to your phone or jisho.com to look up every other word. The downsides are (a) it does not explain grammar, and (b) the stories (I don't remember for sure) from the Meiji period, meaning that they will use more difficult words and have some unique grammar forms you definitely own't have encountered yet, and might not be the most useful for reading modern day stuff. That being said, if you struggle with Meiji stuff for awhile and then suddenly change to a contemporary book, the contemporary book will suddenly seem easier in comparison.
   
5. Look into reading some contemporary stuff if you have access to Japanese books. I think that Otsuichi is a very accessible first author, but he is a horror writer and the writing makes some people uneasy. I recently read Kino no Tabi; they're adventure stories and make you think critically about life and your values in a light-hearted way. I found it to be very easy, also -- but I had also read several books after finishing Otsuichi's collection, so maybe it was because I was just more experienced.
   
   Good luck!