Elizabeth Plain's Blog

Niwa: Two Tales: Matsuri No Ban and Futari No Yakunin

JAPANESE – ENGLISH EDITION

Two tales (Matsuri no Ban & Futari no Yakunin) from the master storyteller Kenji Miyazawa.

Miyazawa is well known for his tales of fantasy but these stories, although they contain an element of the fantastic, are firmly based in reality.

In both stories the characters very often speak colloquially, using language that is outside the province of most language learning text-books. Because of this extra pains have been taken to highlight and explain idiomatic expressions and contractions in speech and, although it is never possible to make a word for word translation from one language to another, all the speech has been translated, as literally as possible, into English.

This Japanese–English edition features:
- Modern Japanese text
- Kanji with furigana readings
- Detailed notes in English

International Giveaway ends - June 30th 2014

Taketori Monogatari - The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter

JAPANESE – ENGLISH EDITION

The ancient tale of moon-child Kaguyahime and the unsettling effect that she has on the lives of the those around her.

The story is one of the earliest surviving works of Japanese literary fiction and in this edition it has been interpreted for modern readers by a specialist in ancient texts, Dr. Mankichi Wada.

It is written in a straightforward, elegant style and although the premise of the tale is fantastic, the characters and the situations in which they find themselves are described with realism, pathos and humor.

This Japanese–English edition features:
- Modern Japanese text
- Kanji with furigana readings
- Detailed notes in English

International Giveaway ends - March 30th 2014

Kanji-Kan Puzzle Book 4

Read, Write and Remember Kanji

200 Kanji from Japanese school year 4

100 Puzzles (and solutions)

Giveaway ends February 28th 2014