i know this sounds odd,but what books do japanese parents buy their kids to start reading japanese

11 comments

1. There definitely are similar books in Japanese. I bought some for my friend’s son. They’ll range from just colorful books full of pictures (cat, dog, blue…) to short phrases and sentences (fuzzy cat, sleepy dog, I like blue) and so on

2. you probably don’t need that, you can get free graded readers instead and that’ll kick your ability up high enough so that you can then tackle things you would actually *want* to read

3. Bear in mind it takes kids like a decade to go from illiterate to nearly adult-level reading and writing—and that’s with full-time immersion (fantastic results, though! Lol). If you’re looking for speedy progress, that might not be the way.

4. you should look at the tadoku graded readers.

5. I like the Tales to Read in 10 minutes books! They’re graded by school year and very manageable in length for a learner. They usually have a few books each grade level including normal tales, history, etc.

6. しましまぐるぐる

   はらぺこあおむし

   もいもい

   You won’t learn much reading them, though.

7. This is not a great approach. When Japanese children start to read, they already know Japanese. They only need to learn the hiragana and presto, they already know how to make sense of a stream of hiragana.

   *You*, on the other hand, do not speak Japanese, and making sense of a stream of hiragana is actually considerably more difficult than reading text with mixed kanji and hiragana (assuming you know the kanji, of course, which you should before you bother trying to read books). And books like that appear around the middle-school level.

   If you do want easier material, you’re much better off with books that are designed for foreign learners of Japanese than with books designed for Japanese children.

8. Check out Satori Reader. They have a trial to see if it’s something that you would like. I think it starts at a higher level than absolute zero but it’s a really great resource if you are willing to pay the subscription

9. My friend recently bought his son a potty training book. Not sure that’s what you want to be reading to improve your Japanese?

10. This is not a good way to learn a new language. By the time kids start to learn to read in their native language, they already have a fairly extensive vocabulary and understand complicated grammar patterns. Reading is just a step in their learning process. You need to learn a different way.

11. There are lots of “ehon” (picture books) that little kids read with their parents (source: I have a kid in Japanese preschool), but I can confirm that these are not necessarily good for foreign learners.

    The language is very “little kid” and does not always reflect the vocabulary you’re learning as a foreign learner. And as someone else said, little kids already know tons of Japanese, so they’re just learning the reading part at that point.

    If you want to practice though, my foreign learner husband and preschooler like the flash cards and workbooks from Kumon!