White Bear Black Bear: Only Japanese hiragana

by Morino Taro, J.M. Jameson (Illustrator)

しろくまと、くろくま、それぞれの日常。超短編絵本の予告版。

Genres: Japanese Literature, Childrens, Japan

23 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 20, 2013

Reviews

[Terry Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chou Berri kawaii

If you are four years old or if like me your Japanese is that of a four month old this is the book for you.

[🌸 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute book aimed at young Japanese learners or beginning Japanese learners.

There are a few words I think that might be hard for beginning learners, and while there are translations at the end of the book, the translations are a little spotty.

I really really REALLY enjoyed the illustrations though! Beyond cute!

Also I felt like black bear’s story was shorter than white bear’s story but maybe I’m mistaken.

[Nathaniel Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. Good hiragana practice and although they say it’s all hiragana, there’s some katakana in there too. Very basic but conversational and contains some tricky grammar.

[Kiren Balakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

素敵本!!

[Emerson Toronto · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic opportunity to learn some Japanese words you may not have come across before. Cute story too!

[estrawberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The layout was a bit weird…

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too short and not useful at all. Wouldn't recommend, even if you just learned hiragana a few days ago and you want to practice reading it.
(Now time for the long explanation amazon doesn't want to publish)

I thought this was like a manga (usually 100-120 pages long), but it's only like 15 pages, with one really short line per page. Also, the Japanese used there is a bit weird because most particles are ignored (which would be super informal Japanese) but then formal and not very common honorifics are used. To sum up, it all was shorter than 15 lines and there's not much you can learn with such few words.

What really bothered me is that at the end of the book, there's a translation to English and the romanji for the 15 lines, but there are mistakes! Some of the romanji is not right (I don't know if it has to do with the language the romanji is for), when it should say "tsu" it said "tu". I know there's no such sound as "tu" in Japanese, but "tsu", but I think that if they include the romanji is for people who still don't really understand Japanese. So, if you are a real beginner, this book is going to confuse you. There were also some words missing in the translations, some sentences in English didn't even make sense.

I wouldn't recommend it at all.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only 15 pages and there were still words I didn’t know. Good warm up for someone like me who doesn’t get to read a lot of Japanese. I laughed at the part with the seal friend too. I was not expecting that! I didn’t get too stressed out trying to figure out the exact meaning of each sentence since there were pictures, which is helpful for a language learner who focuses too much on being perfect. And there’s help at the end for the basic meaning of each sentence, although it’s not exactly the same.

[Rebo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good simple book to start off practicing Japanese reading (or to read to a child you want to learn Japanese). There’s no kanji, and the words are mostly separated so it’s easier to understand.

At the end, there’s a somewhat literal translation of each page into English, along with romanji for those who are still struggling to remember their kana. That’s the biggest issue I have with this book.

I didn’t look at that part until after I had read and understood the pages myself, and I think having a less literal translation would have been a nice addition. (Like one page is translated as “He is ringed seal of the good friend” instead of “This is my good friend, a ringed seal” or something like that.)

That wouldn’t have been enough for me to drop a star necessarily, but I also noticed that at least one page’s listing in the back was incorrect, as it was missing a line from the sentence.

Not a big deal especially since I think I either got this free or for only $1, but something to keep in mind for those who may find these issues will affect their learning progress.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were numerous errors in the translation section (in romaji, in hiragana... in English.... in page number), but it was only 15 sentences, so if you have Kindle Unlimited, why not? There was also this part (おともだらのおうちの) that when plugged in to Deep L (I didn't recognize ともだら and うち because they had honorific おs, which I've never encountered before...) translates to: "The house of the motherf***er" which was pretty ironic.

Actually, because of that, I'll add a star.

P.S. if someone is curious about the mistakes hmu

[Dyane Forde · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone looking for adorable and short books or readers to improve my Japanese reading skills, this was a sweet read. Simple enough to build confidence while challenging enough (for a beginner) to make me think, I really enjoyed this book. The art was also pleasant. I image children would like it too.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute, Brief, and Simple

It's great for any English speaker learning Japanese who's practicing or proficient in hiragana and katakana.
It excludes kanji.
The translations are on the last page. The translations are certainly written by a non English speaker, but the meaning is clear.

[Ariz]

lol this was so short I dunno why I'm marking it as read.

It was cute, super short, and had no kanji. On second thought, it wouldn't be that helpful if you're learning Japanese. There are better materials that are longer and more helpful.

[Brandy Ackerley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of words I had to look up and memorize, but a fun read. I am a bit confused by the slightly disturbing trend of saying "my friends are delicious", but they are bears playing with seals and bees. What else are they going to say?

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Includes English Translation

There are two short beginner stories in kana. The main pages are all images. After the story, there are English translations which include both kana and romaji.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for kids

Took about three minutes to read. Cute illustrations. It would be better as a board book than a Kindle book though.

[Cintia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Encontré la edición en japonés para Kindle y lo compré. Está en puro hiragana y eso ayudó a que lo entendiera xD

[Andres Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a cute kids book that I read to my daughter. Nothing more to say.

[Katie Feliciano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kawaii!

Tsukidesu! Easy to read and super cute. 95% hiragana and one name in katakana. Watashi ha nihongo yoru tsuki desu.

[Jean-michael Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was cute

Cute story good for beginners I enjoyed it with my basic Japanese skills. I would recommend this for the kids

[Suwitcha Chandhorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

หนังสือน่ารักดี เนื้อหาไม่มาก อยากให้มีเรื่องราวสั้น ๆ หลายตอนกว่านี้

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

この本はあまり好きません

[Yurika]

Uma leitura em japonês fácil e rápido para quem já aprendeu hiragana e katakana :)

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first book ever I read in Japanese. Granted, it was super short and easy and no kanji, but still. I think I can try something harder now.

[Carlos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Translation seems robotic

The translation seems like it was pasted from google translate. They don’t make a lot of sense. But the book is good for beginners.

[Halim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super short and easy-to-read Japanese children’s book that will benefit people who are just starting to learn Japanese.

[Susan Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start, love the English translation at the end. Nice learninng format and a cute little story.

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

kuma!

A good book for learning and a fun small story. A great book for bilingual children at learning Japanese and wanting to stretch their ability to read hiragana.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for learners

This book is very simple and cute! I like how the book was written only in Japanese hiragana and a translation was included at the end.

[Mabisu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could read all the characters so it made me happy