I wondered if they got any harder, so grabbed the latest one that I own… no… this feels… easy O_o
I jumped straight to the story, without the translations, and could read the first page and knew all but one word…
then I noticed;
It on the back of ALL of them! 
So yeah, about lvl 1-2, maybe 3 at best 
But seeing how easy it felt, i will probably be able to read through them quite fast now!
I feel much more motivated to actually reading them now =D
Thank you thank you thank you! There’s such an array of options on the market and I don’t have infinite money 
maybe I’ll sell my Level 1 volumes 
Haha, go go go!
The clay and yumi ones are rather affordable as ebooks I believe (was affordable enough that I bought it despite already having mist of them). But if you need more of a challenge the other books of same kind are much harder =P
I think that’s why I loved the Clay and Yumi books, they where the first parallel texts that was on my level =)
I haven’t tried the others again in years though, so should be ready for some of them now
I was messing around on the tadoku.org website and found these:
It’s a list of suggested books graded by more or less the same level of the graded readers. The site suggests that you should look into these after getting aquainted with the tadoku method. Really usefull if you want to look into other types of books, but still within their grading system.
I was literally just coming here to post about this 
By the way, I would actually recommend using their book search directly and just ticking ‘tadoku-friendly books’. That way you can search by level and not miss any potentially good options by not searching across ‘genres’.
I want to read ‘Thriller Restaurant’ 
what a dapper ghost.
I wonder how the Clay+Yumi version of Momotaro is different to that in the Ask series. I wanted to read it and saw there was a standalone by Clay + Yumi, but it’s included in one of the Ask volumes (Level 2 Vol 1), so I bought that one specifically for it.
Now that you mention that’s even better!
I’ve actually set my eyes on the かんがえるカエルくん.
The fancy ghost looks cool but from the samples it looks a little too advanced for me
I just found this and just added the books that I’ve got that weren’t on the list, hope that’s okay. Wasn’t quite sure how the whole ticking box thing works since some have a lot of boxes (is it per volume/physical book or per short story/essay?)
Also, because I’m super lazy I didn’t actually read through the thread, but has anyone else read the Souseki Natsume short stories in Breaking Into Japanese Literature? If yes, which one was your favourite? And how did you find the difficulty in terms of vocab?
When I read it I found it quite challenging, had to constantly look up words (which, granted, wasn’t all that hard considering they’re right there), which made it hard to follow sentences
The box sets are for owning, [*] for having read some of the stories, and for having completed all the stories in the box.
Ask has three boxes per level, so the three are for volume 1, 2 and 3 of that level =)
I have the book. Last time I tried it (which was before WaniKani) I found the difficulty too high, so didn’t get more than a page in before giving up. I will try it again one day, but still low on my priority list.
Edit; Also, the books I’ve made one checkbox per story. I’d do one per story for the boxes too, but it would just be so long =P
With the books it made it look nice, and easier to see who has many stories and who has few =)
I went to look, to compare the to (visually at least, and see who seems to have more text)
text wise I think they are actually quite equal! But one comes with translations while the other have images to guide.
Noticed it wasn’t in Lvl2 vol 2. It’s in Level 2 Volume 1 (in case you got the wrong one). And I noticed it just happens to be the the one I have gotten too! (it’s the second book in the set, and I have read the first one, and all the boxes before it is complete!)
Which reminds me. I want to go in and document what stories are in what sets (a separate drop down menu with a photo of the books or something)
Yeah, whoops, I meant Volume 1. I too have only read the first book in that set - which was actually the first graded reader I ever read! I think that’s the one about the bloke who carries around a painting of his wife.
Yup! That’s the one! =D
I read it about a year ago, but recognized it when I looked through =)
I want to get back to reading them all, I’m probably better prepared for that level now, and hopefully all of them really =P
If you’re interested in parallel text books, here’s one. The text looks like this:
At first I though "Good for those who are done with lvl 4 maybe, but I don’t like the kanji heavy with no furigana (I have some that show furi only first time, or only in translation notes, that’s OK. But nothing is… well, I do have some books and manga like that, but not this heavy =P )
But took a look:
“This fast-paced yet contemplative thriller…brings up all the best topics and themes in excellent science fiction: artificial intelligence, duty vs. personal inclinations, euthanasia, paranoia, and all kinds of questions regarding human nature itself.”
Now I kinda want it O_o
Is all of it this hard, or are some parts easier?
I really don’t know; I found it while looking for parallel text books, but I haven’t read it. But unknown kanji are not such a big problem in the e-book since you can look them up easily.
Just finished reading the first two volumes of the level 0 ASK graded readers. I loved the ones involving the 良さん the police officer especially with the crocodile in the garden and the one with the granny who needed help getting home.
I was surprised at how much I could read with only having been about halfway through chapter 4 of Tae Kim + level 10 kanji knowledge. Quite a few kanji in the book were ones I had learned here or even if it was written in hiragana it was often a kanji I did learn so I recognized the word. I really only had to use a dictionary to look up more obscure words like in the New Years story. Most of the rest I could piece together unknown words from the pictures and then later use a dictionary to confirm my guess.
Can’t wait to continue on with these. They really make me feel more empowered to continue learning!
Yeah! They make me feel great reading them. Glad to hear you’re enjoying them, too!
I just finished reading 赤ずきんちゃん from Taishukan Vol 1. It’s been a long long time since I’ve read the English version, but… I thought it was really funny at the start when she was bringing wine and sweets to a sick person… like, someone is ill, out of all the nourishing nutritious things to bring to them, and she’s bringing wine and sweets…
Come to think of it, we do the same. If someone is in the hospital we bring the chocolate (not wine though )
Since this is where had gotten too as well, only have the three lvl 2 books left in that box to complete it, I decided to read that story.
It felt easier than I assumed for a lvl 2 book. It just felt longer than the lvl 1, but not noticeably harder.
I was surprised by how few words I didn’t know already (and you could get them from context, like “zukin” is the word for the “hood”)
But the end kind of threw me off… more in context than reading…
The woodsman cut open the wolf, let the girls out and then put rocks in his belly. He couldn’t stand up and died… I don’t remember it being this stupid? I remember there being stones, but I thought the wolf was fooled to think he still had ate. In the versions where he died they just plain killed him…(with an axe or gun?) “killed by putting stones in belly”, without being more specific (like drowning cause too heavy or something?) I can’t recall… Did they take to version and make it one weird miss match? Or did I misunderstand something?
So apparently there’s three versions to this tale, one by Perreault, one by the brothers Grimm and one Italian version.
Perreault has the hunter shoot him, Grimm have the version with the stones as you told it, an the Italian one has her save herself instead. Don’t know how the wolf dies in that one?
