For beginners, though, finding Japanese things to read that are at or around your level is a pain. Either you study what’s in your textbook (limited and often times boring) or you don’t get to study reading it much at all. You essentially have to wait until you reach a higher level in order to have something for reading practice which will slow down your reading ability in the long run.

There’s good reason that beginners don’t have as much to study with, though. Basically, it comes down to not knowing enough kanji. If you don’t know the kanji, resources options are limited, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful to read. Reading teaches you grammar and how to use it. It also will help you with your kana and basic kanji fluency (which normally takes too long in my opinion without enough early reading practice). You’ll also learn a lot of useful, common words, which of course is useful.

Since it’s normally pretty hard for beginners to find reading resources (and because I get this email like every day, it seems), I thought it would be good to put together a list of resources for beginners to study with. I’ll list them below and write a little bit about each including some suggestions on how to study with them. If you have any additional suggestions, please post them in the comments, below.

Have fun!

Japanese Children’s Newspapers

You probably know about newspapers for adults, but did you know about newspapers just for children? They tend to talk about slightly more cheerful things and are written in a much more simple fashion (easier kanji, easier words, easier everything), which is good for people who are still beginners of Japanese. There are some problems, though. Furigana is prevalent in a lot of them which kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion. I’ll be sure to note these ones down as well as tell you of a workaround to get rid of the furigana when it’s there.

Kodomo Asahi

Heralding from the adult Asahi Shinbun comes “Kodomo Asahi,” a version of their newspaper made for children. There aren’t a ton of articles here, but definitely plenty enough to keep any beginner busy on a fairly regular basis. There is a “elementary school” section and a “middle school” section.

Both are fairly basic, but of course the elementary school one is going to be a lot simpler. Between the two, there’s probably a new article every couple of days, especially when you consider the other additional sections available.

I think the level of kanji and vocab here is fairly good for a beginner. They also don’t do the furigana thing, which is nicer for your studies. In terms of the newspapers, this is a pretty darn good one. That being said, they don’t update every day, so you’ll want something else if you’re studying very regularly.

Visit: Kodomo Asahi

Kodomo Times

The Kodomo Times is made by Chuunichi Shinbun. It’s similar in a lot of ways to Kodomo Asahi in that it tends to have happier stories and is of course a lot simpler compared to a regular newspaper.

The thing that’s good (and kinda bad) about the Chuunichi Kodomo Times is that it will have the readings for words in parenthesis after the kanji that kids aren’t supposed to know. I’m not sure what the cutoff is, but it seems to be somewhere in elementary school. This means that it tells you the readings of slightly more difficult kanji while making you read the simple ones on your own. For people who are really, really beginner this will work pretty well. If you’re on the higher end of beginner it may feel a little like cheating.

Still, this is another good reading resources for beginners out there. You’ll just have to try it out to see if it’s good for you and your particular level.

Visit: Kodomo Times

NHK News Easy

Last but not least is News Web Easy by NHK. Not only do they provide news using simple kanji and vocab, but they also provide audio too, which means you can read along and do some language shadowing (or something along those lines).

While this is awesome, every single kanji has some furigana above it, which is kind of lame for your practice. There is a (difficult) way around this, though. If you download the browser add-on firebug (for Firefox or Chrome, maybe others as well), you can “inspect” the furigana on the page then add “display: none;” to the “rt” element. This will remove the furigana. Of course, this isn’t the best solution for ordinary folk out there, but it does work and does make this a much better resources, in my opinion. Alternatively, you can also print the pages out and just blot it out with a black marker. Either way, try not to study with the furigana there.

Update: Awesome! No more furigana. This makes Easy News an even better resource… probably the best out of these three, now.

There’s three or four “Easy” articles posted up every day, so you have plenty of opportunity to practice. If you’re feeling particularly good looking, as well, you can also see the original article. Just click “一般のニュース原稿はこちら” and you’ll be taken to the place from which your Easy article was painfully birthed out of.

Visit: NHK News Easy

Japanese Children’s Stories

Although Japanese children’s stories don’t come up with new content every day like the news does they are a nice way to get your beginner reading practice in. Since so many children’s stories are from a million years ago, you can find them for free on the internet as well. Of course, if you want physical copies you could go out and buy them / order them off of Kinokuniya or some other website, but I think the digital version will do just fine, not to mention you can print them out and take notes.

Here are some Japanese Children’s Book resources that I thought were good.

Traditional Japanese Children’s Stories

This website was made by Tom Ray for his own studies in Japanese. He decided to make it available to the public to help others out as well, which is awesome.

He took a bunch of traditional Japanese children’s stories and typed them out in Japanese. Then, he added in the English translation, line-by-line. Afterwards, he provides vocabulary explanations as well. A lot of the work is done for you, which can be good or bad, though it’s definitely an educational way to go through Japanese stories while practicing reading. You’ll find the sentence-by-sentence format particularly helpful, I think.

The pages are particularly printable, as well, meaning you can study and take notes as needed.

Visit: Traditional Japanese Children’s Stories

Fuku Musume’s Fairy Tale Collection

This Japanese fairy tale website is organized into various categories, from “famous Japanese stories” to “Scary Japanese stories” to “stories from around the world.”

There’s a lot of fairy tales here, plenty to keep any beginner busy for quite a while (and enough to get you much better at reading). A fair number of the stories also have audio to go along with them, meaning you can use the audio to help you to read along (and get the pronunciation right). Although not every story has this, you should take advantage of the ones that do. Reading out loud and mimicking a native speaker is always a good thing to do when you can, especially when you’re first starting out.

There’s probably 400 or 500 stories here, so that’s enough to read one every day for a year plus. If you do that, you’ll surely get better at reading Japanese. Remember, it’s all about consistency if you want to get better!

Visit: Fuku Musume’s Fairy Tail Collection

Fantajikan

Although Fantajikan has a site with stories on it, they’re more about audio than anything else. That’s why the YouTube channel is what makes this website worth adding to this list. The YouTube channel doesn’t have all the stories from the site, but I do think it’s more useful for beginner’s practice.

Included in each video is images showing what’s going on, a narration of the story, and Japanese text showing what the narrator is saying (this is where the reading practice comes in). The nicest part about these is the images in the video, though. They show the context of what’s going on adding another element to your practice. You just get a little more feedback this way.

Visit: Fantajikan, Fantajikan YouTube

Children’s Manga

Manga is another way to get in reading practice. For beginners, of course, children’s manga is what’s going to be good… things like Doraemon, Dragonball Z, and so on. There are also some manga that aren’t necessarily for children but provide furigana for the tough stuff and none for the easy stuff (fine for beginner practice), though you’ll have to poke around to find the perfect level of this for you.

In general, though, I’d recommend only children’s manga for beginners. It will be simple enough to read yet difficult enough to make you struggle (and learn). You’ll also get images to help with context, which will help you to understand more how the words and grammar are working together to form Japanese.

As for finding manga? If you’re lucky, you’ll live near a Japanese bookstore (Kinokuniya, for example). If you’re not so lucky, you can always order off Amazon or some dropshipping service. If you live in Japan or visit Japan, though, children’s manga can be found for super cheap especially if you get something used. It’s not particularly heavy to carry, either. Just get it on the last day of your trip.

What Else Can Beginners Practice With?

While I started by talking about how reading practice is very limited for beginners, I hope you’ve come away with the feeling that there are options out there for you. That being said, there’s probably plenty more to add to this list.

There’s textbooks with a ton of reading practice in them, workbooks that go with the lessons, sites like JapanesePod101 that have text with their audio lessons, Japanese websites for children, Japanese blogs that use simple Japanese, and I’m sure much, much more. The more you look, the more you’ll end up finding. Hard part is actually looking, though, so hopefully I did some of that work for you just now.

Now, if you’re finding that you’re having trouble studying/reading with any of these, it probably comes down to your kana and kanji level. If this is the case, consider checking out Hiragana42 for your hiragana. If it’s kanji you’re having trouble reading, check out our very own WaniKani. It’s still in beta at the moment of writing this, but if you sign up for the invite list on the homepage you’ll get an invite soon.

So my question to you, is: What beginner’s Japanese reading resources do you use or recommend? Help the Japanese beginners who read this site and give out some of your recommendations in the comments below. If you’re a Japanese beginner you should read these. People often post much smarter things in the comments than I write in the actual article, har.  v(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)v

But sometimes there’s a little confusion about how to write your name in Japanese. Let’s look at the right and wrong way to write your name in Japanese.

Right: Katakana (カタカナ)

If you don’t know a lot about Japanese, katakana is one of the Japanese alphabets, and is used for writing foreign names in Japanese.

Foreign names are typically spelled out phonetically with katakana, so Chris becomes kurisu (クリス), Sarah becomes sēra (セーラ), and Michael becomes maikeru (マイケル). It’s usually very easy and straightforward.

Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4.

Writing your name in katakana is awesome! The reading is obvious and people automatically know that it’s supposed to be a foreign name. Plus, you’re probably not the first person with your name to transliterate it into Japanese, so chances are there’s a standard way of writing your name in katakana that people are familiar with.

You can even pretty easily look up these standardized names on sites like this.

But for some people, writing their names in katakana isn’t enough. They want to go further and write their names in kanji but, for a number of reasons, this is a bad idea.

Wrong: Kanji (漢字)

Kanji are Chinese characters that are frequently used in Japanese. Each character has its own, sometimes complex meaning.

After learning how to write their name in katakana, some people want to write their names in kanji. I know that we at Tofugu talk a lot about how useful and great kanji is, but when it comes to writing your name, avoid kanji like the plague.

You might think that writing your name in kanji is super cool and extra-Japanesey, but most of the time you’re really just making things harder for yourself and more importantly, other people.

Kanji By Sound

One way people recommend writing your name in kanji is by finding kanji with the same sounds as your name in katakana, but this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons.

If you’re picking kanji based on sound alone, then the meanings of these kanji will probably be really weird and completely unrelated to your name.

For example, if Chris decides to write his name like 躯里子, it will sound like kurisu, but the kanji mean “corpse foster child” which, in case you didn’t notice, is complete gibberish (or just really morbid).

The other problem is that pretty much every kanji has multiple readings, so somebody might look at your name and either have no idea how to pronounce it, or they’ll pronounce it differently than you intended.

In other words, writing your name by constructing kanji by sound will mostly just baffle other people and really not do you any good. And the other way of writing your name in kanji ain’t a whole lot better.

Kanji By Meaning

Another way people try to flip foreign names into kanji is by meaning. Every name, no matter what the language, has some sort of etymology, or story behind it. Some people think that by recreating that meaning or story with kanji, they can distill the essence of their names and transfer it over into Japanese.

This doesn’t work well either. If you’re constructing your kanji name based on meaning, then the reading probably won’t make any damn sense. Sure, you might have conveyed that Chris means “Christian martyr and patron saint of travelers,” but the Japanese probably won’t read all that as an actual name.

But Other People Have Kanji Names!

Some foreigners can have kanji names, but those are special cases. Since the Chinese and Korean both use kanji in their languages in some way or another, some Chinese and Korean names are able to use kanji.

And it is true that foreigners who become Japanese citizens typically have kanji names, but that’s kind of unrelated. They’re not using kanji for their foreign, given names; but rather, they’re adopting a wholly Japanese name and just using the kanji for that.

Be Proud Of Your Name

Writing your name in kanji is trying to make your name into something it isn’t. Instead of spending time trying to find the perfect kanji to create a name that nobody will understand, instead spend some time looking into your own name.

What’s its etymology? Why did your parents pick that particular name? The answers to these questions are a lot more rewarding than writing your name in kanji could ever be.

[Header image sources: 1, 2.]

Facebook isn’t all that popular in Japan (Mixi is currently king there), but it doesn’t meant that people don’t know about it. After all, the movie “The Social Network” came out in Japan, and I’m sure that Facebook hits the news every once in a while. But what about Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg? Apparently in a recent poll, Japanese women just thought he was a hamburger (for good reason, too!).

The Zuckerburger

In Japanese, the word ハンバーグ (hanbaagu) refers to hamburger steak. This shouldn’t be confused with ハンバーガ (hanbaaga), which refers to those things us Americans order three meals a day from McDonalds (fourth meal, of course, is タコス from Taco Bell). The second half of Mark Zuckerberg’s name, when translated to Japanese, is very similar to the word “burger” from the word for hamburger steak, which makes it sound very hamburgerish.

ザッカー (zakkaa) バーグ (baagu). That’s how you pronounce his last name in Japanese. The バーグ (baagu) is the same バーグ from the word ハンバーグ (hamburger steak). That’s where the confusion sets in.

When asked what “Zuckerberg” is in Japan, 35.6% of women polled thought he was a hamburger. Here’s what else they came up with:

35.6% said “Zuckerberg” is a hamburger.

19.6% thought “Zuckerberg” had something to do with soccer, because the first part of his name, ザッカー (zakkaa) is very similar to the word for soccer, サッカー(sakkaa).

14.4% got the correct answer or something close to the correct answer.

11% chose something miscellaneous.

7.6% thought it was some kind of abbreviation.

The really fun part, though, is when you start breaking down the answers. For example, one person thought that “The Zuckerburger” was a new menu item at McDonalds. My favorite is the person who thought it was a soccer ball shaped hamburger steak. That combines #1 and #2.

P.S. If you don’t know katakana, and want to understand why Zuckerberg is like Hamburger in Japanese, I’m going to (secretly, just for people reading this article) make the Katakana lessons on TextFugu free for a while, because it’ll help you enjoy this article more effectively. If you don’t know hiragana yet, though, you should learn that first (and to do that, you should start here)… anyways, carry on.

Facebook In Japan

One thing that also stood out a bit to me was the answers from the people who got the question right (and kind of knew who The Zuck is). There were only six examples, but two of them had to do with Mixi. One was “He made America’s version of Mixi” and the other was “a person at the Mixi America Branch” (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually exist). My favorite in this category, however, was “(Zuckerberg) is the name of the person who made the Internet” (c’mon, that’s Al Gore).

The examples on Mixi, though, are pretty interesting. I’ve written about Mixi, as well as some of the differences (though I’ve mostly just written about how to join and get in via various loopholes… which don’t really work anymore, so don’t ask). Mixi is the big SNS in Japan (though Gree has overtaken them recently… but it’s a bit different), and it’s really tailor made especially for Japanese people.

• People rarely show pictures of themselves for their profile picture on Mixi (compare that to Facebook, where nearly everyone does).
• People rarely upload pictures of themselves for albums (try doing that on Facebook… Where’s your face!?).
• Real names are hidden and nicknames are king (Facebook has a use-your-real-name-or-get-out policy).
• People on Mixi are generally worried about people knowing who they are (Facebook, it’s really easy to find out a lot of info about anybody).

It’s mainly a cultural thing, but Facebook’s openness is basically making it hard to grab a big foothold in Japan (though I think that will change in the next 5 years), though one article I read thinks Facebook is in its own little “professional networking” niche (which I can confirm through what I’ve seen too… pretty sure all my Japanese friends are CEO’s of startups). If you want to know more about Facebook in Japan, this is a great NYT article.

Other “Zuckerberg Meanings”

To close things up, though, here were some other fun explanations people had:

“Something young people say when they’ve seen something unbelievable” (everyone should start yelling “ZUCKERBERG” when you see something awesome).

One person thought it had to do with a lot of bugs because of the バーグ (baagu) sounding like バグ (bagu), which sounds like the English word for “bug.”

“Something you say when you when you want to express the feelings of ‘You idiot!’ or ‘Quit Screwin’ Around’”

“A store like H&M that came from Europe”

“A term for when you have a lot of small things / accessories in your car, and it is becoming dirty.”

P.S. Thanks to @HirokoTabuchi for tweeting about this survey. You should Follow Her On Twitter if you’re interested in smart Japanese things.

Although the hiragana and katakana charts were designed to use with TextFugu, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t use it with any other Japanese learning resource out there. Share it with friends, family, teachers, students, colleagues, classmates, online communities, torrent sites, whatever. You can take these charts and do what you will with them, as long as it doesn’t get weird (I know you love how curvaceous the hiragana is, Gakuranman). Anyways, just click on the images to go to the download page.

Hiragana Chart

Katakana Chart

Enjoy these charts – put them on your wall, write on them, lick them… whatever needs to be done. And, of course, if you have no idea what any of these wild and crazy symbols mean, you should check out TextFugu. In fact, the hiragana chapters are in the free zone, which means no excuses!

]]> http://www.tofugu.com/2010/01/07/hiragana-chart-katakana-chart-ready-for-download/feed/ 41 http://www.tofugu.com/2009/11/10/phonetikana-for-the-lazy-typography-snob-in-all-of-us/ http://www.tofugu.com/2009/11/10/phonetikana-for-the-lazy-typography-snob-in-all-of-us/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:00:10 +0000 http://www.tofugu.com/?p=1991 Johnson Banks recently put up a post about “phonetikana” which has to either be the most genius discovery of all time, or the laziest. Either way, there’s no denying that it’s beautiful, regardless, but you know me, I hate romaji with a passion (and you should too).

Here’s the concept behind phonetikana: 1. Katakana is irritating to learn / you don’t have the time to learn it / you’re lazy. 2. Katakana often spells out words that English speakers can kind-of-sort-of understand. 3. If you add the English phonetic pronunciation to the katakana, you’ll be able to read it and possibly decipher it. 4. Integrate it into the actual katakana to get that “aww, that’s boootiful effect.”

Let’s put it more simply (and visually). Here’s how you’d write “Uniqlo” in Japanese (Uniqlo is a big ol’ Japanese clothes company).

Now, let’s phonetikana it!

Now you can read it phonetically! Yoo-Nee-Koo-Roh. Doesn’t get you perfect pronunciation, but close enough for someone who doesn’t really want to learn Japanese in the first place.

What does a Cow say? Good job!

Who’s the top Banana here? Profess your Top-banana-ness in the comments below!

There are a ton more examples over on Johnson Bank‘s post about phonetikana. If you haven’t gotten all the Top Bananas you can handle, be sure to go take a look. It’s pretty fascinating. I’ve always been into typography, but am totally incapable of making anything look nice (Anyone want to teach me about typography on eduFire? I’ll pay you).

Please start a flame war in the comments arguing about who’s the top banana, please, please, please. Use logic to prove your perspectives.

Why, it was just yesterday that I teamed up with Koichi to kick some Katakana butt on edufire. A rather special class, it was – none of your usual vocabulary fluff. We’re talking real, useful katakana and it’s guaranteed to knock the Christmas socks off any native Japanese speaker when they hear you, or Tofugu isn’t a wonky bean-curd fishman! So, let’s get stuck right in to this 2-part blog post – Gakuranman x Tofugu – Fluency through Katakana Special!

I went for a vintage look with the slides – what do you reckon? Is the ‘Fugu a classic fish yet or still wet around the gills?

So, there are four Japanese alphabets, but you already knew that, right? For those of you just starting out, let me explain:

Romaji – Simply Japanese written with the English alphabet. Steer well clear of this lest you want to end just floundering around in Japan. You’ll need to be able to read the signs, so at a bear minimum you should learn the hiragana and katakana alphabets.

Hiragana – The Sexy Alphabet. For Sexy People. Why? Because it’s curvaceous, dynamic and feminine. Well, not really feminine, but I like to think of it as so ;). So soft and curly.

Katakana – Hard, angular and rough. The natural masculine alphabet, right? You’ll notice that the strokes are generally straighter and the letters more rigid.

Kanji – And kanji, everyone’s favourite, originating from China. Be thankful that it’s Japanese you’re studying – the Chinese need to learn about 10,000 kanji in contrast to Japan’s 3000 basic kanji!

And here is above, just for your reference. The amazing katakana alphabet!

Now we’re getting to the meat of it! There are so many uses for katakana, you can’t even count them on one hand! You probably know that it’s generally used for writing foreign words, but what else? Perhaps you know it’s for emphasising words too? Good! But there are more uses, oh yes! It’s used to write onomatopoeia, those lovely buzz-words that sound just like they’re written, as well as scientific and medical terms that have kanji that are simply to difficult to waste time remembering. You’ll also find that katakana is used to write people’s names, joins two words together and generally compresses everything down into one tiny little word. The most popular type are the 4-syllable words!

The examples on the intro slide are nice and basic:

ズボン – Trousers (or for you Americans who can seem to distinguish between underwear and trousers, I guess you’d call them pants).
ピンポン – Ping-Pong! The sound of a doorbell.
チョウ – Very/Super/Extra – an emphatic word.
ホモ・サピエンス – Homo Sapiens. Us, basically.
ワンピース – A one-piece dress. Two words combined.
パソコン – A PC (personal computer). Two words combined and shortened into a classic 4-syllable marvel.

So what’s first? Foreign Barbarians of course! All of the following words come from various countries. Bonus points and Tofugu-shaped cookies to those readers who can identify which word comes form which country in the comment below!

ピエロ – Clown. Like em or loath em?
アルバイト – Part time work. This word is used a lot in Japan.
クレーム – A claim or complaint about something.
サイン – A sign. No, no. Not that kind of sign… The signature, autograph kind!
ジョッキ – A beer-mug. Perplexing.
チャック – A zip. Ever forget to do yours up?
スナック – A…snack?? Nope, this is a Snack Bar in Japan. Usually a place where men go to drink and chat to the owners and often women who work there.
キャスター – A newscaster. Need good vocals for this job.
コンセント – You’ll never get my consent to marry my daughter! Not quite…this consent is a mains plug that you stick in the wall.
シール – Stickers! I must get some Gakuranman ones made…
ウイルス – A virus. Used a lot in the media recently with all the chatter of flu.
ドライバー – A screwdriver! Who would have thought…

Here’s some more. Just so many to choose from!

トランプ – Cards (Trump cards). Anyone ever played trumps?
バイキング – Oh-ho. Those dastardly Vikings. But no, this means an ‘all-you-can-eat’ restaurant.
マント – A cloak or a cape. Interesting, I could have sworn it was Tofugu’s arch nemesis, Manta-ray!
マンション – An upper-market apartment. Not a mansion.
アンケート – A questionnaire!
ホッチキス – A…hot kiss? Hah, you wouldn’t want to kiss this. It means a stapler.
ノルマ – A quota (business term, I think).
パンク – Not a punk rocker unfortunately, but a puncture.
フロント – The front of a hotel. A.k.a reception desk.
メイク – Koichi’s personal favourite. Makeup.
レンジ – A range of..? Nope, microwave I’m afraid.
レントゲン – An x-ray. Woo.

Okay, so let’s check out some hot little onomatopoeia. Ka-ching!

ペチャクチャ – A rabble of chattering grannies.
ピカピカ – Shiny and sparkly. Most likely where the yellow poke-rat got his name.
パンパン – A bloated full stomach. Go figure.
コグコグ – To drink in gulps and gulps.
ニコニコ – *Grin*
ペラペラ – (Italian Voice) I’m-a so pera-pera. Means fluent!
フワフワ – Floaty-light or airy. Also used to describe sickness when you feel faint or drunk.
プンプン – Ever seen those cute Japanese girls that fail trying to look angry by puffing their cheeks out? Yup, that’s pun-pun. Anger.
ブツブツ – Mumble-mumble-mumble. Sources say Koichi does this a lot.
ドンドン – Rapidly. We’ve gotta get going! Up the pace!
ゲロゲロ – Ribbit-ribbit. I love frogs. Anyone know if there are any frogs that are bioluminescent?
パクパク – Chomp-chomp. Munch-much.

Well, how are you doing back there? There are some pretty tricky words here, but don’t let them faze you if you are having trouble keeping up! When you’re ready for more, head on over to Gakuranman.com for the continuation and find out splendid words like ‘a flash of pants’, ‘handsome middle-aged man’, ‘close physical contact’ and the euphemism for being fired!

But that’s not all! The second part to this Katakana Special can be found here on Gakuranman.com: Unusual Katakana Words

Michael is the author of a fantastic blog called Gakuranman (schoolboy coat man), who writes about Japan, bioluminescence, and how to learn Japanese. Of course, when he isn’t looking at colorful sea creatures, you can even find him on hanging out with neon birds on Twitter. If you missed our fantastic live class, be sure to catch us next time by signing up at eduFire!