Graded Readers and Parallel Texts "Book Club"

Hehe yes, can never get enough! <3

I still need to add my newest additions :thinking:
Including all 8 of Nihongo Tadoku
I still have some left to ad to the list, but if you have some not yet mentioned feel free to ad them =)

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The Let’s Read Japanese Series by Oxford Brooke series is there as well.
Level 1 of that corresponds to level 2 in Tadoku’s scale, so they ommit what it would be level 0 and 1 for Tadoku.

No audio with them though… but if you’re in Europe most likely they are somewhat cheaper that the ones published in Japan.

The 10分で読める series, I wouldn’t thow into the mix, since it’s aimed at japanese kids and no consideration regards grammar (as JLPT grading) or vocab it’s put into it, more than trying to use simple language in order for kids to be ok with it. Anyway I consider those to be great transition series to jump into something aimed at more mature audiences (中学 level and above) … of course there’re others… but It was hard for me to find something not too childish comming in a book format … so once I manage to locate these… and just went the whole way … :sweat_smile:

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I read them without the audio to begin with (mostly because listening to the audio added a lot more faff).

If I was being good, I would then listen to the audio and read along at the same time, then listen without reading to see how much I could understand without the text. I would then shadow the audio.

Not necessarily all at once; experiencing the same story four times in a row is a bit much :sweat_smile: and often I wouldn’t manage this for all the stories. I intend to go back to them for listening/shadowing practice though - I’ve moved on from reading graded readers, but I think they remain useful resources for me.

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I have the first Oxford book. I wasn’t aware of that! But I did notice it was harder (I was still reading 0 and 1 of Ask at the time i tried it) I need to complete that collection! :rofl:

The 10分で読める series; Yeah, I agree, I want to focus more on Graded Readers and Japanese Readers, as they where made for foreign students rather than primary students in Japan (a 4 year old is better at grammar than me! Heck, probably MUCH better vocabulary too. Probably 3 year olds too… ^^; )

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I never heard something about the Oxford Brooke series, I will have to look into them. Another option ^^

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@Ncastaneda @Abstormal @Radish8

Thanks for your replies! I’ll try using Anki for the unknown words, as well as reading → listening → shadowing.

I have Level 0, Vol. 1 of the Ask Graded Readers and I’ve read through the stories. And I just found out my uni’s library has the Level 2-4 books in the learning Japanese section of the library so at least I don’t have to spend more :stuck_out_tongue: I’m just worried about skipping from Level 0 to Level 2 without going through the rest of the Level 0 and Level 1 books. Probably I could get through the Level 2 books, but the completionist in me demands that I do everything.

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You could always do the ones in the app to bridge the gap :wink:
There’s only 1 lvl 0 and 3 lvl 1, but all worth a read =)

They are different stories, but made by the same people =^_^=

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There’s a movie? That for sure would make me cry, omg. Also I don’t think I’ve read the elephant one yet, so guess I need to emotionally prepare for that xD.

Also, I’ve put all the audio for the Ask series in a playlist on my phone, so I can listen to it on shuffle as I head to work. That’s been a nice way to get some listening practice from the readings. I’m currently working on Level 3 Vol 3. I just looove all of them!

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Oh nice! They’re expensive, so that’s really good to have so many of them available in a library.

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Thanks, I might pick it up given the good reviews here!

I’ve just bought my first graded readers recently. Ask Level 2 and the first Taishukan book, and have the first Oxford Brookes one on the way. I didn’t realise that Oxford Brookes level 1 was around Level 2 of the other ones, which is good as the first book I read was a Level 2 entry, which I really enjoyed the experience of reading through. Having read a level 2 book, I was surprised that when reading the first Taishukan Level 0 book, there were still some things I had to look up. So I’m happy I went for a variety of levels.

Speaking of the audio, does anyone know an up-to-date website for the Taishukan series audio downloads? The page linked at the back of the books doesn’t seem to work anymore and the link on the Taishukan website also links to that broken page…

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Is this what you’re looking for?
https://tadoku.org/japanese/audio-downloads#ad-02
(The page is a bit slow loading and some downloads require a password.)

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That page never loaded the audio download section for me… :frowning:

I also found this page: にほんご多読ブックス ホーム which seems to have the MP3s for levels 7 and 8, but as @Saruko says, you need a password (which apparently can be found at the back of each book). The MP3 links for the other volumes just go to a 404 page. I think they should go to the page Saruko linked, but again, for me at least, the audio download never loaded :sob:

Correction: that page didn’t load for me in Safari, but did in Firefox. Strange!

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I’d recommend the ask series, but not level 0. I’ve only seen the first volume of that level, and I find it extremely overpriced for the amount of text included.

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I’m using Chrome and had to disable my adblocker.

Here's what I see

But with the adblocker on it looks like this

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Thanks! After trying all my browsers on my laptop which wouldn’t load it, and resorting to my phone where it actually seems to work, it seems disabling my ad blocker worked! But perhaps having them on my phone is a better way to listen to it anyway. Thanks again.

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I also read a lot of Graded Readers. I have a Japanese Foundation Library in my city, and I borrow them from there. I just borrowed two lvl 4 ones today. I have a nice excel sheet where I write what I read when, and according to that I already read 61 (lvl 0: 2, lvl 1:16, lvl 2: 25, lvl 3: 13, lvl 4: 5). :slight_smile:
We have most of the Ask series and the Nihongo Tadoku ones, and some of the Oxfords as well, though I haven’t read any of those yet.
But I only read them, I never used the audio.

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Ah yeah, once I disabled my ad blocker, it showed up just fine. I think it has something to do with how the ad blocker I’m using determines if something is an ad. Might be keying off the fact that each section has a class of ad-table (though the enclosing HTML element also has an id with “ad” in it and that still shows up, so who knows).

Either way, issue solved! Thanks!

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Mmm I’d love to create a spreadsheet to track my reading… this is a great idea!

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Yeah, i can confirm this Xd i irdered lvl 0 vol 1. it‘s not really much content for the money. I would recommend to start with lvl 1 vol 1

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I added the german Aya Puster Verlag to the second post.

Readers from the Aya Puster Verlag
The Aya Puster Verlag has 8 readers right now. I would say, they are at around JLPT N4-N3. The Readers always have a german translation from all the stories in the second half of the books and they are quit cheap. Each reader costs around 10€. They have readers which are specialised on different prefectures, like " Kyushu Daisuki I" and readers with folktales and such stuff, for example " Minwa - Alte Volksmärchen aus Japan in sehr einfachem Japanisch".
Here’s a link to there page: Aya Puster Verlag - Leichte Lektüre

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