Hello, I’ve been studying japanese for 3 years and recently got into the idea of japanese literature
My ultimate goal are Osamu Dazai books and such, but of course that’s kinda not doable right now. I wanted to start reading Wagahai wa Neko de aru but on page 1 I realized that starting with archaic japanese might not be the best idea…
Do any of you have any good and not too hard japanese novels/books? It would be great if they were available online but of course buying them is always an option
2 comments
I’m reading 人間失格 and it’s interesting and except for some weird kanji usage and a few weird words it’s pretty easy, and it’s public domain
Aozora Bunko has quite some short stories of Dazai Osamu and other authors, where you can get “in the mood”. My first story with older Japanese was e.g. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000081/files/43041_35096.html There are texts in 新字旧仮名 – new kanji, but old orthography (for starters ;-), and 旧字旧仮名 – old kanji and old orthography for later.
Specialties you will have to get used to: 1) the smaller kana ゃ、ゅ、ょ、っ are written in the same height as the big ones, e.g. 霧がぽしやぽしや降つて -> 霧がぽしゃぽしゃ降って. 2) Old kana will appear, like してゐます -> しています. 3) in some words today’s “o”-sound is written as “a”, like さうだ -> そうだ、大きくなるやう -> 大きくなるよう 4) some words are written with h-row kana that today are written without h, like きのこといふもの -> キノコというもの. Beware: There are also combinations of both, like かういふ -> こういう. 5) some words are written with unusual kanji, but will then have furigana. 1) -4) will make it difficult to use pop-up dictionaries.