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Tom Gally, "Reading Japanese with a Smile: Nine Stories from a Japanese Weekly Magazine for Intermediate Learners"

Learning to read Japanese is a little like running a marathon: it is a long, drawn out process, and it can get a little boring along the way. What we learners of Japanese need is a little fun now and then, something that brings a smile to our faces. As luck would have it, this book does just that. This magic trick is accomplished by the book's nine curious stories. Taken from the weekly magazine "Shukan Asahi," these stories, while true to life, verge on the hard to believe, and that's what evokes the magic element of fun.

But that's not all. Each story is accompanied by a translation, faithfully done and easy to follow. Then, sentence by sentence, follows a short gloss of each word and phrase, a reverse derivation of each declined verb and adjective, detailed notes on vocabulary and grammar, and information and commentary on the cultural background. All of these aids can be accessed easily when needed.

"Reading Japanese with a Smile: Nine Stories from a Japanese Weekly Magazine for Intermediate Learners" represents the best of two worlds -- stories that are both fully annotated and enjoyable to read.

Eight of the nine stories were first published under the title "Strange but True" in 1997.

Summary: Very good for intermediate students.

Rating: 5

Reading Japanese With A Smile is a great resource for intermediate students looking to do some light studying. If you have passed JLPT 3 or 4, you will find lots of new grammar constructions and even more new vocabulary. If you have passed JLPT 2, you will most likely understand all of the grammar constructions in the stories, but there will be some new vocabulary. I wouldn't recommend this book to those who have passed JLPT 1 unless you are just interested in reading the stories for entertainment.

All of the stories are only about two pages long, which makes this great for studying on days that you don't have a lot of time. However, the book reaches 182 pages by providing detailed translations and explanations of EVERY sentence. This is extremely useful. I have seen other authors pick and choose which sentences they find difficult enough to provide an explanation for, but that can be troublesome. Not every reader finds the same sentences difficult, so doing them all is very effective.

I think the most important thing about this book is that it takes students away from textbook stories and dialogues. For many students of the language, textbooks are the main source of reading material and conversations. There are good textbooks out there, but the reading material never means to take students out of their "comfort level," so to speak. Written Japanese has all of the flexibility and diversity that we see in English writing, and students must read actual Japanese literature, newspaper, and magazine articles to truly see that. If there is any reason you should buy this book, it is that. Intermediate learners will be taken out of their comfort levels but still have a safety net of thorough explanations attached if they need them.

Summary: A great little reader

Rating: 5

What I really love about this book is it provides a lot of meat in a very small package. The book is both small enough and complete enough, that you can simply grab it on your way out the door, to work on when you're standing in line, or on the bus, etc. Each story is less than two small pages, so you get your sense of accomplishment quicker. :)

On the pages opposing the Japanese stories are the english translations; but I don't find the translations so useful as the sentence-by-sentence destruction (which repeats the Japanese, but with furigana) and commentary that follows after each story. Each sentence is further decomposed almost word-by-word, and includes such things as explanations of common idioms, and even pointing out puns and wordplay.

Since the decompositions provide all the readings for the kanji and explanations of the vocabulary, the book is really all you need to read the passages. You don't need to grab your kanji and wa-ei dictionaries (though I tend to anyway, in case I want to gain a little more insight).

Because of the furigana, I don't think strong knowledge of kanji is necessary to enjoy this book (though of course it will make it easier: you may not need to flip to the commentary as often). A working, intermediate knowledge of Japanese grammar, however, is important, as you're generally assumed to understand various verb forms and sentence patterns.

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Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123