Nomination post
Originally posted in the ABBC because it is quite short, but probaly a better fit for the BBC because of the Natively level (25)
雪女 Yuki-onna
Summary
Copying this review from LearnNatively:
Nice little horror-y folktale, only a few pages long. It reminds me of a few other Japanese folktales I’ve read involving mysterious magical women.
Being an Aozora book, some of the usual difficulty caveats apply (e.g. some older kanji usage). Being a folktale set in the countryside, it also has some rustic vocabulary that may be unfamiliar if, like me, you mostly read more contemporary works. However, the grammar is not very complicated, and the longer sentences are broken up with punctuation.
Availability
- Digital:
** Free: Amazon JP
** Free: Aozora (Free - Public Domain)
** Not free: Bookwalker
** Vertical version:
-
Physical:
** Print the free version -
Audio:
** On youtube -
Caution, those versions are different than the one in Aozora:
** Not free: AmazonJP, several stories + furigana
** Not free: AmazonUS (The physical copy comes with an audio CD, but the files can also be listened to and/or downloaded for free on their website (which of course is different from the Aozora version, but they can be used for audio practice regardless))
Personal Opinion
I want to read this book because I have never yet read a book in Japanese, only manga.
I went on Natively to try and find a short story and found this one as the most popular one that wasn’t yet read on WK (unless I missed it), level 25.
Reading a whole book and pages of text sounds very scary. But this book is only fifteen pages, so I think we can do it And there is even an audio video of someone reading it!
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- A book and not a manga
- Free
- Audio video
- Selectable text, if you read in a browser, you can use Yomichan and / or easily copy paste sentences
Cons
- A book and not a manga
- It seems that the version in Japanese Stories for Language Learners is not the same as the one in Aozora
- No furigana in the Aozora free version
- Short length, will be read in only one / two weeks by the club according to @Shadowlauch
Pictures
Sample
The first paragraph:
武蔵の国のある村に茂作、巳之吉と云う二人の木こりがいた。この話のあった時分には、茂作は老人であった。そして、彼の年季奉公人であった巳之吉は、十八の少年であった。毎日、彼等は村から約二里離れた森へ一緒に出かけた。その森へ行く道に、越さねばならない大きな河がある。そして、渡し船がある。渡しのある処にたびたび、橋が架けられたが、その橋は洪水のあるたびごとに流された。河の溢れる時には、普通の橋では、その急流を防ぐ事はできない。
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this book?
- 1 - No effort at all
- 2 - Minimal effort
- 3 - Moderate effort
- 4 - Substantial effort
- 5 - So much effort my head might explode
- I don’t know