Read Real Japanese

This book is wonderful because it uses real Japanese to teach, and it doesn't put the reader to sleep. The explanations are easy to understand, the stories are funny, and it's a good way to refresh your memory or build your vocabulary in Japanese. Highly recommended!

I liked this approach best out of all the books I've seen that try to help you "decode" real Japanese texts. I'm by no means an expert by the way, I've only been studying Japanese for about 1 1/2 years, and I've heard that reading texts before having studied for 3 or 4 years is out of the question. I try anyway:-) Anyway, Janet Ashby doesn't try to give you one continous English text as translation but more or less translates sentences or even just parts of sentences. As far as I've seen this approach enables her to stay closer to the original without having to compromise any subtle points just because you can't connect the sentences as smoothly in English. In addition, there are quite a few notes on usage and background that help you with other texts, too. In all, I think this is a pretty good book for those who want to start reading Japanese texts. I'd be glad to hear from anyone who is also just starting on Japanese texts or who can help me find more material that includes notes (or even without notes - I've found it difficult to find anything in Japanese except newspapers). Tina