Japanese Tadoku Books by Students
Smith College Tadoku Project
I am a first year Japanese student!
この本はとてもおもしろくて、かわいいです。大好きです！
The book consists of two stories. The first one is why the shrimp’s body is not straight, and the second one is why there is no cat year. It’s so fun to know some Japanese traditional stories! There are some unknown words in the book, but I can figure out their meanings when I see pictures.
おじいさんとおばあさんはおかねがありません。おじいさんはまちにかさをうりにいきます。でも、だれもかさをかいません。それから、おじいさんはじぞうのあたまに、かさおかぶせます。すぎのあさ、おじいさんとおばあさんはたべものおみつけます。
An old man and old woman are poor. The old man goes into the market to try and sell his umbrellas, but no one buys any. When he is walking home he sees the じぞう (Jizo statues) have snow on them so he puts the umbrellas on them and goes home. In the morning the old man and woman discover food outside their home. The じぞう must have left it as thanks.
I think this is a really interesting folk story within a graded reader. It gives good insight into Japanese culture. However, it is a rather difficult read for a first year first semester student. I would recommend this book if you are in your first year of Japanese and looking for a challenge. It would also be a good read for someone starting their second year of Japanese.
This story gave me an at-home feeling. I felt like I wanted to curl up under the covers with a cup of hot chocolate by the fire. Sweet and straightforward, it wasn’t terribly difficult, and the illustrations blew me away.
I would definitely recommend this story to everyone taking Japanese. Because the plot is so cozy and soft, it won’t be frustrating to read. It felt special and made me grateful I was learning this language.
一番好きな日本語の本です。漢字と文法はちょっとやさしかったです。でも、電車はとても面白いです。この本の会話は小さいですが、とてもか
わいいですね。
I was also drawn to the bright colours and the drawing-real life mix style in the book. It was also really interesting to see the train maps, and the little activities and interactions within the train were really lovely. I recommend this book to other JPN 110 students! We’ve learnt most of the kanji in the book by Chapter 6 and it is really interesting and easy to follow!
この話は面白いです。良さんはとても優しいおまわりさんです。良さんは荷物を持って、おばあさんを家まで送りました。でも、交番に帰った時、良さんは道に迷いました。
Yes, I recommend this book to JPN110 students. The story is interesting and also helps students review the grammars learnt in class. There are some difficult kanji, but readers can still guess the meaning from illustrations.
桜が咲く時期と日本の春を教えます。この本は本当に優しいです。そして絵がきれいです。
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is about the cherry blossom in Japan and teaches us when and where it blooms. Since cherry blossom blooms in spring, the book also introduces what kind of events there are during the spring in Japan. I recommend this book to other JPN110 students because it is easy to read and there are many kanjis that we learned in the class.
私わこの本が大好きです！面白いですから。I really like this book, because it is interesting. The warm story is about this small family celebrating the mother’s birthday. The other members in the family prepared a surprise for the mother.
I recommend it to other 1st year Japanese students. There were vocabularies I didn’t recognize, but it was not difficult to guess the meaning of them based on the context and the pictures. It did help me to learn some new words and gave me a sense of how conversation is presented in Japanese written text.
この本は面白いです。でもちょっと怖いです。I think this book is interesting but it is also a little bit horrible. This book is about a story happening among an old man, an old women and a bird. At the end of the story, the old women received a box of monsters from the bird because of her greed. The picture of the monsters was terrifying. The story is warning the readers to not be greedy by using the horrible picture of monsters to terrify readers, which I think is smart.
I recommend this book to all Japanese students who like to read stories. This book might be easier for students who know more kanji to read, because there are many vocabularies and kanjis that first year Japanese students haven’t learned. However, students, without knowing many kanjis and vocabularies, still can get the idea of the story through the pictures.
大豆はかわい本です。ちさい本です。でも、おもしろかたですよ。This book explains the importance and functionality of the soybean in Japan. It contains colorful pictures that compliment the information nicely so if one doesn’t understand the reading, they’ll still be able to grasp the main idea by use of the illustrations.
I would recommend this book to my classmates. It’s not only a great exercise in practicing your Japanese skills, but also quite informative! The only qualm I have with this book is the lack of text to make sense of. Each page consists of only 1-2 sentences. However, the Japanese skills needed to understand this book are very fitting of the Japanese 1 class. Enjoy!
なおみ
この本は おもしろいです！かわいいです。ちょっと むずかしいです。この本が すきです。
Don’t be scared of the kanji in the title—this is a fun book to read! There are a lot of characters that fellow first-years probably won’t recognize, but there’s furigana, so, it’s not a problem. Additionally, there’s some phrases that are used that will seem a little odd / unfamiliar, but I think that’s just the difference from the kind of Japanese you’d read regularly to the sort you’d read in a textbook. Altogether, though, even if you don’t know every word, you’ll still get a good sense of what’s going on in the story and find it funny and cute. It’s definitely an enjoyable read. Give it a try!