If you’re fascinated by supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore, then you’ll love this graded reader by the Japan Foundation Kansai. It features simple descriptions of popular Yūrei and Yōkai tales and includes pictures of old woodblock prints to illustrate this eerie world of Japanese ghost stories.
Author: 畠中朋子
Illustrator: 田中哲哉
Publisher: The Japan Foundation Kansai KCよむよむ
Length: 10 pages
I’m so excited to have the KCよむよむ graded readers by The Japan Foundation Kansai available again. Due to their website reconstruction, the layout is still not finalized but the books are now once more accessible and all links seem to work properly again. You can check their site out here. If you’re looking for a fun way to improve your reading skills, these readers are an excellent place to start. They work best for readers who are at the beginner and elementary levels of Japanese.
The Japan Foundation uses the CEFR language levels to determine the difficulty of their texts. This book on Japanese ghosts and monsters, お化け, is ranked at A2, which means it’s ideal for advanced beginners or pre-intermediate readers. Both vocabulary and grammar provide a great reading practice for those who are preparing for the N4. There is furigana on (almost) all kanji and difficult words are always explained.
You can download the PDF file for this text directly from here, and if you visit The Japan Foundation Kansai website, you can even download the audio files as well. The foundation has many other stories available, all of which are designed for beginner and pre-intermediate readers. If you enjoy this book, make sure to check out their other titles too.
dokushoclub.com 