When I lived in Sweden for a few years, I discovered a genre of books that were labeled as “Lättlästa böcker” (easy-to-read books); these were something that Sweden had for people who were learning the language. They are basically simplified versions of actual novels, where the sentences are recreated using easier language to understand, but the basic story of the original novel is still there. So for example, there is a famous Swedish author named John Ajvide Lindqvist, who could arguably be seen as like the Stephen King of Sweden (I hope he would forgive me for saying that if he hates being compared to Stephen King). He writes awesome horror books about zombies and vampires and stuff like that! I wasn’t advanced in Swedish enough to read the full-blown original novels of his, but I WAS able to read the easy-to-read version of his books (a much smaller book, lol, but it was still a good read). I wish I had taken some of these lättlästa böcker back to the USA with me.
Is there something like lättlästa böcker in Japanese? Dumbed-down versions of novels? It seems like the author Keigo Higashino might be up the same alley as the above two authors (but more mystery, perhaps?). Are there any easy-to-read versions of his books?
If not, that’s okay, and I’ll still continue reading cute stories of cats and birds on Satori Reader (that is not sarcasm—my “inner child” loves the cute books, too! ) but I do have a deep admiration of Japanese horror and I’m eager to read something like that some day! I plan on getting one of those e-reader things, too (maybe a kindle, idk), which might be a gift to myself when I reach level 40 or so on WaniKani.
good news! higashino keigo has written a few children’s stories in general, but also a version of some of his galileo stories written specifically for children!
I don’t know the answer to your question- sorry!
Just would like to mention a couple of things that might be relevant:
If you want to go that way and find a book you are interested in reading available as an ebook (unfortunately sometimes I can’t find books I want as an ebook, it’s happened to me several times with Keigo Higashino and surprised me a lot as he’s such a reknown author), after going through some hoops it is possible to read the book in your browser and thus make full use of plug-ins with instant dictionary lookup (such as Yomichan). Using this method, I’ve been able to read real books way before I was “able to read books” (though I am also using Satori Reader and still finding value in it!)
I am about to read my first Keigo Higashino and can’t talk all too much about it yet as I’ve only read the first page, but I was really surprised to see that I could understand everything in said first page, maybe have a look and judge by yourself if it’s as hard as you expect:
Akashelia, Ohhhhh my goodness, I enjoyed reading that image of the page! Well, I mean, it took me 30 minutes to read it, and there were some kanji that I didn’t know, and I wasn’t entirely sure what some of the sentences were actually saying, BUT… I had a big smile on my face as I recognized quite a bit of the kanji on that page (some of which I have just learned in the past several days!), and I CAN actually kinda guess at what some of the sentences are saying. That was so exciting for me to read, and it opened my eyes to the idea that maybe I can just go ahead and get the same book that you have, there, instead of trying to look for “easy-to-read” books.
And I really like how it uses a minimal amount of Furigana (just for names; I like that).
Kadokawa has their Tsubasa Bunko (つばさ文庫) imprint, which produces books with full furigana on all kanji, though I don’t think it’s simplified otherwise. I presume other publishers do something similar, though I’ve never actually looked into it.
Amazing! Feel free to pop in in the thread I linked too, it’s a Book Club, we are several people that are going to read that book and that’s a place to discuss it, so any story comments or grammar / kanji questions are welcome there (even if you end up reading at a different pace, no worries!)
I think the books are a mix of original aimed at kids titles, reprints with full furigana and some illustrations, and sometimes simplified versions of the text. But these I think are mostly not what the OP is after since they’re generally stories aimed at younger kids. If they have a “simplified versions of adult literature” section I couldn’t find it.
(The Tsubasa website is currently down and has been for over a month because of what their main website page describes as “a systems failure”. But it may be back eventually.)
The whole Kadokawa network of websites, actually. Which is kind of annoying, because we’re long past due for the next volume of Yotsuba. The PDF linked further down the page explains in more detail that it’s due to a ransomware attack on their servers. Maybe they should have installed CrowdStrike.
It lists all the books that have been previously read by Book Clubs on this forum. I find it a great list for inspiration and usually pick my next read from there. That way if I have questions, I can go back to the threads when people where reading it, sometimes my question was already answered in the discussion, or I just post a new question, usually folk that were reading along get a notification and can answer, even years later
Akashelia, これ見て。(I learned that phrase from one of Japarrot’s videos where an alien visited Earth and the human was like: Look at this poster on the wall! So I think it means something like: “check this out” or “look at this!”)
I’m glad you posted that photo earlier, so I could see how that one name is pronounced. The book I got doesn’t have any side-pronunciations, haha!
This is so exciting! My very first physical book in Japanese! I’m on page two. The only question on my mind so far is whether or not the main character is male or female. I assumed male at first, but then when I looked again at your page, at the hiragana, the name is なおみ, and when I think of Naomi in English, that sounds like a girl’s name for some reason, but I don’t know.
すごい
Interesting, it seems to be a different edition, as mine starts page 5 and yours doesn’t have any furigana.
尚美 definitely sounds like a girl name to me due to the 美 kanji.
So you are all set now! Are you reading it right away or will you try and join us in the club マスカレード・ホテル 🎭 Advanced Book Club 🏨 Starting August 17 ?
You can look up names in eg jisho.org (there’s a dropdown thing you can use to restrict the search to the “names” dictionary), which will tell you whether the name is typically male, female, or both; not foolproof but a handy resource. In this case, yes, 尚美 (and other ways to write なおみ) are typically female today. Back in the 1920s Tanizaki Junichiro wrote a famous novel whose heroine was a なおみ (奈緒美) - he wanted something that could be a Japanese name but was Western sounding. That has apparently increased the popularity of the name and made it more definitely a girl’s name (though having read the novel I have no idea why anybody would name their daughter after the character…)
A few male なおみs lived into the 21st century though. For instance, this guy is 松坂直美 (まつざか なおみ), a lyricist born in 1910, died 2002:
Yeah I wanted to post the link to Jotoba’s name search but in this particular case the results are not super helpful, a lot of different pronunciations, says female several times but then also says male (as both are possible like you mention)…
) but I do have a deep admiration of Japanese horror and I’m eager to read something like that some day! I plan on getting one of those e-reader things, too (maybe a kindle, idk), which might be a gift to myself when I reach level 40 or so on WaniKani.
(even if you end up reading at a different pace, no worries!)
