Books written in Kana only

Hi, I've been learning Japanese for a bit now and I'm up tp the point where I'm getting very familiar with Hiragana and Katakana. It will do wonders for me if I could find a small book with short stories and such written in Hiragana and katakana only, since I don't know a single kanji character. Can you guys offer me some guidance? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

What will be really helpful for you is to read books/ magazines with some kanji, but which also have "furigana" (the reading in kana) written above. There are so many verbs and nouns in Japanese with the same reading that the kanji is very important for meaning, and having the kana written above the kanji will help you to learn them very quickly. If you have pretty much memorised all the kana then this is a good "next step".

I recommend a magazine called "The Hiragana Times" www.hiraganatimes.com
which has furigana above all the kanji, and then an English translation for you to check after trying to read the Japanese.

I believe you can subscribe to an online version as well.

Hope this helps

John,

Just echoing what Sira wrote above, all-kana books are actually incredibly difficult and frustrating to read and are a really bad idea when trying to learn Japanese. As they are usually kids' books, they may contain words that don't even exist in dictionaries, or which are only used by kids. I would second the suggestion to get hold of material intended for learners, such as the Hiragana Times.

Actually I have to disagree. As someone who mostly self taught themselves Japanese, when I reached the point that I mastered Hiragana/katakana, I did read the kids magazines. I think they're a very handy material. For learning simple sentence, seeing more common words, and just taking a break from "Do you think Suzukasan will get married next year" type grammar books. There's a magazine for each grade (kindergarten+) and there seems to be oversight by ministry of education, as you'll only find the kanji appropriate for that grade level. Beforewarned, the other posters are right as there will be slang, and some comics will be about stuff you're probably not interested in. But, there's alot of ones that have basic everyday dialogue, especially the Doraemon parts. I'd get the one for Kindergarteners, Youchien or Youchienjii I believe it's called.

Ganbatte imasu

Material like Hiragana Times, specifically designed for learners of Japanese ("controlled texts"), has its place; in fact it is indispensable. However, I have generally found it to be considerably less motivational than real material. For me, it is work, rather than fun, to read this kind of stuff.

Once you get quite a bit of grammar under your belt, a nice alternative is special versions of real Japanese books that have been supplied with furigana throughout. These are not children's books per se but are special versions intended for Japanese children. All that is done is to supply furigana for all kanji. They are not watered down or edited otherwise.

Kodansha has a series of these called "Aoitori Bunko" ("bluebird paperbacks"). Other publishers surely have them as well. Unlikely you'll find these outside of Japan (unless maybe at a Kinokuniya), but if you're in Japan you can ask for these things at a bookstore, pick some interesting titles, and be well-supplied with motivational reading materials until your next trip. (They are pretty challenging, though.)

As far as controlled texts go, an alternative that I find more appealing than Hiragana Times (but also much more more expensive) is The Nihongo Journal:
http://www.alc.co.jp/nj/index.html

Ultimately, if you are interested in reading Japanese, you have to learn kanji, though. There is simply no way around it!

Thanks so much for the suggestions, I'm finding them very useful. Keep them coming.

Uma, can you recommend other books and/or series like this? I'm going to Tokyo later this month and want to pick up several books. At first, I was thinking of getting children's books, but your idea of books with furigana seems much better than mine.

I'm afraid that I don't know of any other series names, but if you go to a big bookstore like Kinokuniya or Maruzen they should be able to help you. You can also check out Nihongo Journal and Hiragana Times if you're interested; they should have the latest issue and possibly some recent back issues in stock. And I wouldn't rule out children's books altogether. Browse around; you might find something interesting and/or useful. (For example, I bought a puzzle map of Japan in the children's section and found it to be a good way to review where all the prefectures are.)

I'll be checking out Kinokuniya for sure when I visit Shinjuku. Thanks, Uma.

Old thread, but finding furigana/bilingual material is still difficult now so let me share a little my experience.

Hiragana Times is still alive and they have nice articles for a cheap monthly fee.

I also discovered Nippon Talk

http://www.nippontalk.com

All their content is free, texts have furigana (you can turn on or off) and an English transcript.
Hope it helps others.