Since my last book post, I’ve read the following:

まんが日本昔ばなし

This is a series of short books from the 70s featuring Japanese folk tales.  I thought this was going to be more difficult than it was, but I managed to get quite a lot of it.  I think they re-released a lot of these recently (there’s an anime based on them) so I may try to get more.  Japanese folk tales are always entertaining, and this seems to be a good series.

One Piece, Volume 7

We get some of Sanji’s backstory here and the fight with Don Krieg’s boys goes on.

図書館ねこヂューイ

The true story of a cat abandoned in the returns box of an Iowa library – didn’t realise it was translated or non-fiction (ish) when I bought it – via on online book shop.  An entertaining story and my first full length Japanese book – i.e. not short stories.  Slow going, mainly due to lack of time to read, but worth it.

This volume was a bit of a mixed back – a lot of fighting, which is pretty easy to understand, but somewhere in the middle I got a bit muddled about why Sanji was so keen on giving the pirates food.  (I know why, from the anime, but I’m not sure if that was explained here or not.)

I do have this in an English translation, so am semi-tempted to read the English now to check how much I got.  I think they’re fairly literal translations unlike the last book I tried where the translations were so different as to almost be different books!

次の本：まんが日本昔ばなし

As with volume 2, this is pretty straightforward stuff.  Some nice stories in here, including why there’s no year of the cat in the Chinese Zodiac and a story about a horrible old woman who cuts off a sparrow’s tongue – well, it’s really the story of her nice husband who’s friends with the sparrow and not judging a book by it’s cover.

That’s the end of the level 1 books.  I don’t have any of the level 2s yet, but plan to get some when I next order from bk1.

 

The main team is starting to form with the addition of Usopp and Sanji’s first appearance.

Again, this is pretty straight-forward reading, with the only real trouble the pirate cooks at the end who seem to talk in a rougher style than most of the other characters, and one of the servants at the manor whose language is much more elevated.

 

A nice selection of five stories covering folk tales, Japanese traditions as well as some more modern stories.  This set uses a max of 350 different words and is very straightforward for me right now.  There are occasional words I don’t know (one was お地蔵さま who is a Buddhist deity) but the grammar is straightforward.  As this is for adult learners, the stories are simple without being too childish.  There is also an increased use of Kanji compared to the kids’ books, though there were still odd words where I know the kanji but it wasn’t used (the 達 in 友達 for example).

I was going to count this as one whole book, but think I’ll only count it as half.  I’ll read the next volume to make up the book, but back to manga first.

次の本：One Piece, 巻五.

A huge boost to be able to read this so quickly after struggling with my first real book (guess that’s why it counts as 0.2 of a book!).  I’ve seen the anime, with English subs, up to a point past the manga I have, and will keep it that way over the challenge, so know the story.  I don’t catch everything by any means, but I do get a lot of the story.  What’s great here is that the series currently has 66 volumes, and is still going, so there’s a huge amount of material with the same level and that uses at lot of the same words, so it’s really good for learners.  Add to that the anime, which as far as I can tell follows the manga fairly closely, and it’s a fantastic combination.  Well, assuming you like pirates!

I plan to read 4 volumes of One Piece this month, and one volume of a more difficult one, but will read a graded reader for learners next.

My first book of the challenge: 齋藤孝のイッキによめる！名作選 小学1年生.  This is a set of short stories meant for Japanese first graders who are generally 6-7 years old.  A mixed bag for me – of the nine stories, I got seven (including one I understood rather well), struggled with one (うそつきブハイド) and really didn’t understand the last one (くもの糸).

Overall, I found this much harder than manga (which I’ve read a lot of, including manga for older children).  Think the problem is description and verb conjugation.  As this book is for first graders, there’s a limited amount of kanji used – this makes it more difficult to figure out the word boundaries and kanji can be a useful key to meaning.  I liked the way this book was set up though, with the stories followed by questions and summaries/discussions of the stories – that certainly helped with understanding.  There’s also an in-text gloss of some of the more difficult words, though on at least one occasion, I could understand the word but not the description of it!

I’m going to revisit this one at least twice to gauge my  progress, but am going back to manga for my next book!