I’m gradually gaining a vocabulary and understanding of grammar, but as was the case for learning English when I was young, I’d like to read basic books and slowly work my way up to more complicated ones.
Does anyone have a list or few examples of classic kid’s books from Japan?
Think ‘The Gruffalo’, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ or for US readers, ‘The Giving Tree’, ‘Corduroy’ or ‘Where the Wild Things Are’.
Any suggestions would be a godsend, thanks!
5 comments
I have a copy of おやすみなさい おつきさま (Goodnight Moon). It’s pretty good, and it’s not a difficult read.
As for actual Japanese books, I can suggest:
じゃじゃあびりびり
しろくまちゃんのほっとけえき
さる るるる
もうねんね
にゃんにゃん
Finally, there’s a series of books by benesse that have ひよちゃん that I like for babies/toddlers. Some of my first books were:
ひよちゃんのいちにち and どうぶつなあにかな？
ももたろ Momotaro
[There is an iOS app called PIBO – Japanese Picture Books](https://pibo.jp/). It used to be on Android, but I don’t see it there anymore. It has quite a few (a little over 300) children’s books that are really good. Also has audio. The app is entirely in Japanese, but back when I first started using it, Google Translate worked well for helping me to set it up.
Have you also tried graded readers? [Tadoku has some free ones](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/) that are decent.
I also have all the graded readers by ASK and they are fantastic. Spendy, but great.
I bought a few of the Eric Carle books. Several are translated in Japanese.
Colors, shapes and size vocabulary is used a lot.
I’d actually advise against kids books as a Japanese second language learner. These books are written for kids who already know how to listen and speak but have yet to learn how to read. As such, there’s typically a complete lack of Kanji. Kids would be able to pick up which words are what, but an adult learner would struggle picking things apart, since Kanji is pretty important for separating words from particles/stems.
I recommend looking up “Japanese graded readers”, books specifically designed for new language learners. The Tadoku books are popular. I personally like the ones on this site: https://jgrpg-sakura.com/