Reading novels in Japanese can be a real challenge if your reading flow comes to a stop every time you encounter a kanji you can’t read, so getting a book with 100% furigana can help cutting back on that frustration.
There are several Japanese publishers with a younger target audience, whose books all have furigana on every kanji while still presenting complex and interesting stories about 150 – 300 pages long.
They are my top recommendation for all intermediate readers, who already have experience with graded readers, easy childrens stories or manga, but have yet to read a longer novel aimed at native speakers.
講談社青い鳥文庫 – Kōdansha Aoi Tori Bunko
集英社みらい文庫 – Shūeisha Mirai Bunko
角川つばさ文庫 – Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko
小学館ジュニア文庫 - Shōgakukan Junior Bunko
双葉社ジュニア文庫 – Futabasha Junior Bunko
静山社ペガサス文庫 – Seizansha Pegasus Bunko
TOジュニア文庫 – TO Junior Bunko
You will recognize them easily by their colorful frames around the covers and they include popular anime movies like 君の名は。novelisations of anime series or disney movies, light novels and even the Harry Potter books.
I go into more detail about my recommendations for each publisher on my blog.
Reading novels in Japanese can be a real challenge if your reading flow comes to a stop every time you encounter a kanji you can’t read. The
The Asakusa district in Tokyo houses a well-known temple called Senso-ji and a Shinto shrine called Asakusa-jinja side by side. Two characters are used in the name of the district, the temple, and the shrine, but are read differently in the name of the temple from the name of the district and the shrine.
浅草 あさくさ Asakusa - district in Tokyo
浅草寺 せんそうじ Senso-ji - Buddhist temple in Asakusa (also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple), pictured in the photo
浅草神社 あさくさじんじゃ Asakusa-jinja - Shinto shrine in Asakusa (also known as Sanja-sama)
This is a great example of the different readings that kanji can have in Japanese. Asakusa (浅草) and Senso-ji (浅草寺) both have the same two kanji, but they are read very differently. This is due to differences in the Chinese-derived reading vs. the native Japanese reading assigned to each character.
Let's look at the two characters in question in more detail:
浅
意味 いみ meaning
shallow, superficial
音読み おんよみ Chinese-derived reading
セン sen
訓読み くんよみ native Japanese reading
あさ asa
草
意味 いみ meaning
grass
音読み おんよみ Chinese-derived reading
ソウ sou
訓読み くんよみ native Japanese reading
くさ kusa
You will note that the place name of the district in Tokyo (Asakusa) uses the native Japanese readings of both kanji, while the Buddhist temple uses the Chinese-derived readings. The local Japanese place name of Asakusa was in place long before the Buddhist temple existed. It is possible that the place name was then adapted using the Chinese-derived readings when the temple was built. Although I don't know the particular reason for the names using the same kanji, I do know that Buddhism was adapted to the existing Shinto practices in Japan when it began to spread, and so utilizing existing place names would help to integrate it into daily life.
A Day in the Life of Translation 11: Brochure for Tourism
The past day or two I was working on a brochure for a building that will open soon in Kyoto that features several restaurants/a bakery/massage studio/natural cosmetics store beneath a hotel, all of which are assembled under the concept of being good for both people and nature.
Since the aim is to advertise and promote rather than simply deliver information, it was a lot more creative than the business translation I’ve been doing at work. Of course, that makes it a bit more frustrating because you come across a lot of things that sounds nice in Japanese but silly if you put them very literally into English, like
“Only the things it’s possible to believe, deliciously, fun. Food’s happiness has overflowed ‘market cafeteria’,” or
“Chef-made sauce and seasoning being choosy about the production area and pesticide-free, fine cacao additive-free retort curry etc., to the heart, and to the body, delicious nature’s feast, delivered to your table.” or
“[place name] is, local production local consumption, sustainable economic growth rooted in supporting the producing land, through strictly selected raw ingredients being choosy about sustainability, towards making circular shaped society a reality, through product-making that never existed in the past, a new food, beauty experience we are transmitting from Kyoto.”
For these, I came up with
“Seeing is believing! Delicious and fun. A market-cafeteria overflowing with joy for food.”
and
“Let the delicious bounty of nature feed your body and soul when you allow our chef-created specially-sourced organic sauces and seasonings, or our additive-free fine cacao curry retort, to grace your table.“
and
“At [name], we select our products very carefully against the criteria of sustainability, local production for local consumption, and sustainable economic growth rooted in supporting the producing communities. We intend this to contribute to the establishment of a circular economy, and that through an entirely new means of production, we can announce a new mode of gourmet and salon experiences from our location in Kyoto.
[sometimes Japanese sentences get so long that to make them work in English, you half to cut them in half and make two sentences]
[[looking back now, I think I actually might have left some parts out of that last sentence that should have been in there >o<;]]
There’s always a few parts where, if you can’t exactly tell what the original words were supposed to mean, you kind of just smooth it out so the words in the translation seem to fit the original idea, even in the case that the literally meaning differs a little.
It can be frustrating, but I really enjoy matching up meanings and parts of speech so that they contain the spirit of the original but in words that sound really nice together!
(Did I mention this file was in Powerpoint? Powerpoint has actually become one of my favorite mediums for translating because it has such a rich variety of formatting options.)
Anyway, here is a list of words I looked up that’s probably longer than this kind of tumblr post should really contain. (Under a read more)
ストイック；stoic
古来；こらい；from time immemorial; ancient; time-honoured; time-honored
根付く；ねづく； to take root; to strike
素材；そざい；1. ingredient; (raw) material; resource
追求；ついきゅう；pursuit (of a goal, ideal, etc.); search; chase; seeking after
密着；みっちゃく；1. close adhesion; sticking firmly to; being glued to
選りすぐり；よりすぐり；special selection; finest pick; top pick
地産地消；ちさんちしょう；local production for local consumption (“Local Food”)
循環型；じゅんかんがた；careful selection; careful screening; hand-picking (it was actually about the concept of “circular economy”)
従来；じゅうらい；1. up to now; so far 2. traditional; conventional; usual; existing
低音；ていおん；low tone; bass; low voice
As far as I can tell, this segment was about a Low-temperature Vacuum Extractor, so I think it may supposed to have been 低温? This was the one random technical thing thrown into the rest of the mostly everyday language of the document.
抽出法；ちゅうしゅつほう；sampling (i.e. as a survey method)
酵素；こうそ；enzyme
石油；せきゆ；oil; petroleum; kerosene
無添加；むてんか；additive-free
志向；しこう；intention; aim; preference (for); orientation (towards a goal)
(not to be confused with 思考, thought, or 施行, enforcing)
育む；はぐくむ；1. to raise; to bring up; to rear 2. to cultivate; to foster; to nurture
潮流；ちょうりゅう；1. tide; tidal current 2. tendency; drift; trend
独創的；どくそうてき；creative; original
仮説；かせつ；hypothesis; supposition; fictional
免疫力；めんえきりょく；immune strength; immunity
唯一無二；ゆいいつむに；one and only; unique (lit. ‘only one no two’)
パティシエ；patissier; pastry chef (not to be confused with the pastry shop, the patisserie パティスリー)
Also, one of the sentences said ここは・・・・ペストリーです。Which would mean “This place is a (such and such) pastry”, so I’m assuming they meant “This place is a (such and such) pastry shop/patisserie”?
進出；しんしゅつ；advance (into a new market or stage of progress); launching (a new career or venture); expanding (into a new market); stepping forward; emerging; can also apparently be a name, ...Shinde....?? D:
ジャンル；genre (can be used to describe food in Japanese; English tends to use ‘cuisine’ or simply ‘food’ to describe types of food)
提案；ていあん；proposal; proposition; suggestion
I thought it meant ‘plan’, so this was a good refresher.
I also had to look up the names of a few chefs (who luckily had their names in romaji on the first few pages I looked at!) and a particular massage’s studio’s technique.
I think that’s it for now! I really should do more of these. I keep doing work, but not writing anything about it... feel free to ask questions any time!
Some interesting parts of the Onyomi section of Wikipedia’s article on kanji:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#On'yomi_(Sino-Japanese_reading)
“Generally, on'yomi are classified into four types according to their region and time of origin:
Go-on (呉音, "Wu sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Northern and Southern dynasties of China during the 5th and 6th centuries. Go refers to the Wu region (in the vicinity of modern Shanghai), which still maintains linguistic similarities with modern Sino-Japanese vocabulary.
Kan-on (漢音, "Han sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Tang dynasty of China in the 7th to 9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital, Chang'an (modern Xi'an). Here, Kan refers to Han Chinese or China proper.
Tō-on (唐音, "Tang sound") readings are from the pronunciations of later dynasties of China, such as the Song and Ming. They cover all readings adopted from the Heian era to the Edo period. This is also known as Tōsō-on (唐宋音, Tang and Song sound).
Kan'yō-on (慣用音, "customary sound") readings, which are mistaken or changed readings of the kanji that have become accepted into Japanese language. In some cases, they are the actual readings that accompanied the character's introduction to Japan, but do not match how the character "should" be read according to the rules of character construction and pronunciation.”
明年（みょうねん）；説明（せつめい）；明朝（みんちょう）
行列（ぎょうれつ）；行動（こうどう）；行脚（あんぎゃ）行火（あんか）
(I’m not seeing any for ‘gou’)
極楽（ごくらく）；南極（なんきょく）
珠算（しゅざん）；真珠（しんじゅ）；数珠（じゅず）
温度（おんど）；屹度（きっと）
輸入（ゆにゅう）(Jisho.org has 輸出縮小 listed as ‘shushutsu shukushou), but I can’t find it in Japanese dictionaries like Sanseido and Kotobank.)
英雄（えいゆう）
熊掌 （ゆうしょう） 熊羆 （ゆうひ）
帽子（ぼうし）；椅子（いす）
清潔（せいけつ）；清仏戦争（しんふつせんそう）
(I’m not seeing any for ‘shou’)
京都（きょうと）；京阪（けいはん）；北京（ペキン）
兵庫県（ひょうごけん）；兵士（へいし）
強引（ごういん）；勉強（べんきょう）
(Example words mine; all other text and content taken from Wikipedia)
Other interesting snippets from the article:
“The most common form of readings is the kan-on one, and use of a non-kan-on reading in a word where the kan-on reading is well-known is a common cause of reading mistakes or difficulty, such as in ge-doku(解毒, detoxification, anti-poison) (go-on), where 解 is usually instead read as kai.”
“Many Chinese syllables, especially those with an entering tone, did not fit the largely consonant-vowel (CV) phonotactics of classical Japanese. Thus most on'yomi are composed of two morae (beats), the second of which is either a lengthening of the vowel in the first mora (to ei, ō, or ū), the vowel i, or one of the syllables ku, ki, tsu, chi, fu (historically, later merged into ō), or moraic n, chosen for their approximation to the final consonants of Middle Chinese.”
attitude, posture, preparedness, readiness This word is common, but I forgot.
埋め立て, 埋立て [うめたて (umetate)]
land reclamation I saw this word before but didn’t remember the meaning.
欧州, 欧洲 [おうしゅう (oushuu)]
Europe
欧州委員会 [おうしゅういいんかい (oushuuiinkai)]
European Commission (executive of the EU)
提起 [ていき (teiki)]
raising (a question), bringing up (a problem), instituting (a lawsuit), filing (a claim), submitting (a case) Not to be confused with 定期, periodic.
所以 [ゆえん (yuen)]
reason, way of doing, cause, grounds
由縁 [ゆえん (yuen)]
acquaintance, relation, affinity, reason
所以 means a similar thing in Chinese (though it’s pronounced suo3yi3), so I suspect that 由縁 was an effort to make the kanji readings match the pronunciation.
強いられて [しいられて (shiirarete)]
under compulsion, by pressure of
厳格 [げんかく (genkaku)]
strict, severe, stern, rigid, rigorous, tough
加盟国 [かめいこく (kameikoku)]
member-nation, signatory
閣僚 [かくりょう (kakuryou)]
cabinet ministers
意図 [いと (ito)]
intention, aim, design
痛手, 傷手 [いたで (itade)]
hard blow / serious wound
時論 [じろん (jiron)]
comments on current events, public sentiments of the day, current view, contemporary opinion -A section of the newspaper.
浸透, 滲透 [しんとう (shintou)]
permeation, penetration, soaking
繙く, 紐解く [ひもとく (himotoku)]
to peruse (a book) (in the phrase 歴史をひもとく, lit. ‘to unwind history’)
A list of vocab words found in chapter 3 of the manga Helvetica, by Shizuka Tsukiba and Tsumugi Somei.
A note: If you’re planning to read this manga, it has a lot of violence, gore, and generally uncomfortable scenes.
禁句 [きんく (kinku)] - taboo word
漫研 [まんけん (manken)] - society for the study of manga; manga club
Just look at this word! ‘Manga research’.
発破を掛ける, 発破をかける [はっぱをかける (happawokakeru)]
1) to set off an explosive
2) to start a fire under someone, to motivate someone with rough words
Sweet imagery in this phrase.
ナンパ (nanpa)
1) seducer, smooth talker, ladies' man, playboy, playgirl
2) picking up women (on the street)
This word comes up more frequently than you’d think.
学食 [がくしょく (gakushoku)] - school cafeteria
Short for 学生食堂, ‘student eating hall’
数々, 数数 [かずかず (kazukazu)] - many, numerous, various, large number of
住人 [じゅうにん (juunin)] - dweller, inhabitant, resident
Not ‘sumu hito’
身元, 身許, 身もと [みもと (mimoto)] - person's identity, ID, past, background
身元不明 [みもとふめい (mimotofumei)] - (a person or body being) unidentifiable (unidentified)
瀕死, ひん死, 頻死 [ひんし (hinshi)] - dying, (on the) verge of death
カリカリ (karikari)
1) crisp (e.g. potato chip, fried fish, etc.), crunchy
2) grumpily, touchily, edgily, irritably
Meaning #1 is more common, but the manga featured #2. There are more meanings as well.
黒焦げ, 黒こげ [くろこげ (kurokoge)] - something burnt black
誰何 [すいか (suika)] - challenging (an unknown person), asking a person's identity
This might be my new favorite word. Literally, “WHO WHAT?” And it’s pronounced the same as ‘watermelon’.
