Japanese Collection

Japanese culture has fascinated the West ever since the country’s doors opened up in the 1800s. In many ways, Japan has remained elusive, and people have travelled from all around the world to see for themselves how unique this nation remains. Another way of exploring this enigmatic culture is through its literature. The English language succeeds surprisingly well in revealing the Japanese sense of life.

Discover fascinating ancient Japanese fairy tales as well as the folk tales of the Ainu/Aino. The first book in this collection, titled Japanese Fairy Tales, was written by Iwaya Sazanami and translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki, a 20th-century translator of Japanese short stories and fairy tales. The second book in this collection is a rare one that is not usually available in audio format: Aino Folk-Tales by Basil Chamberlain, one of the most prominent British Japanologists active in Japan during the latter half of the 19th century.

Together, these three volumes form an essential collection for anyone fascinated by mythology, folklore, and the cultural heritage of Japan. Each story in this anthology is not just a tale. It's a window into the ancient soul of Japan, its people, and its enduring legacy.

Journey across cultures and centuries through the myths, legends, and folklore of five remarkable traditions. World Mythology Collection Vol. 1: Complete Edition brings together five works exploring the legendary traditions of Europe, North America, and Japan. From ancient gods and heroic warriors to witches, serpents, spirits, fairies, and supernatural beings, this collection offers a wide-ranging introduction to the stories that shaped cultures around the world.

Meet Chiyo-ni. A morning glory has wound itself around her well bucket overnight. Rather than tear it off, she goes next door to borrow water. That single act, and the seventeen sounds she wrote about it, made her one of the most loved poets Japan has ever produced. Fukuda Chiyo-ni was born in 1703, widowed young, and became a Buddhist nun in her fifties. She wrote right up to her death poem at seventy-three. Her haiku are small, kind, and often funny, and they are written in the real Japanese of three hundred years ago. This audiobook teaches you twenty-five of them, whole.

Journey to the Dawn of Japan: Long before samurai, shoguns, and emperors, there were gods who shaped the heavens, created the islands of Japan, and gave rise to a nation whose stories have endured for more than a thousand years. Compiled in 712 CE by Ō no Yasumaro, The Kojiki, or Records of...

Two of Japan's most beloved folktales—and more than two hours of guided listening built to make real Japanese finally click. An old man keeps a pet sparrow he loves like a child. His sharp-tongued wife has other feelings—and one afternoon, over a bowl of spilled starch, she does something cruel. What happens when the old man goes looking for his little friend, and what he chooses to carry home, has been teaching Japanese children about kindness and greed for centuries.

This complete Audiobook is designed to not require the e-book or paperback. Improve your Japanese listening comprehension while walking the dog, driving in your car, or while cooking dinner.

Discover the mystical creation of Takamagahara, where gods and goddesses shaped the sacred mythology that defines Japan. Dive into empowering tales of extraordinary heroes who straddle the realms of gods and mortals. From benevolent spirits to awe-inspiring creatures, explore a world where the extraordinary mingles with everyday life.

For beginning to intermediate students of Japanese. Listen and learn Japanese with two well-known Japanese folktales: "Inch-high Samurai" and "Kaguya-hime", the Moon Princess. The first is about a tiny, yet brave samurai who ends up saving a princess and seeing his wish come true. The second story is the famous moon-princess Kaguya, who was found in a bamboo stalk. "Kaguya-hime" is one of the oldest Japanese tales and perhaps the world’s first science-fiction story.

Each story reveals a piece of the Japanese spirit and shows how these old tales still matter today. Download this audiobook to start your journey into the world of Japanese folktales and legends!

Learn Japanese vocabulary while listening to the stories of Momotaro and Usagi to Kame (Tortoise and the Hare). For upper beginners of Japanese and higher.

Teacher Patrick Healy traveled around the world, talked with people in different places, and collected around half a thousand myths, legends, and folktales and their several alternative versions. His opinion and comments (directly or indirectly) are inevitable. This audiobook is the eighth volume of his work, 21 Japanese Tales, in his words. He retold the stories with his own opinion and approach to them.

Learn Japanese with Stories 6: Yuki-Onna, Anchin and Kiyohime turns both classics into a complete listening course for upper-beginner learners. Every story is taught in seven passes, so your understanding builds one layer at a time.

Learn Japanese with Stories 4: The Mouse Bride and Ikkyū-san turns these two classic tales—stories every Japanese child grows up hearing—into a complete listening course for upper-beginner Japanese learners.

Hikoichi is back. If you listened to Volume One, you already know him: the clever young man whose quick thinking always leaves somebody else standing there scratching their head. This volume brings three more tales, and in the last of them Hikoichi steps aside for a story of a very different kind. First, a shattered vase and a village chieftain who cannot find the culprit, until Hikoichi proposes a strange little test. Then a shape-shifting tanuki who has been tormenting the whole village and makes the mistake of trying his tricks on Hikoichi.

Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" is not a Japanese folktale. It is Danish, first published in 1845. But Japan took it in well over a century ago, and generations of Japanese children have grown up with it. That makes it unusually good material for study: you probably already know how the story goes, so your attention is free for the Japanese.

É sobre esse povo fascinante que se debruça a historiadora e antropóloga Célia Sakurai neste audiolivro surpreendente e revelador.

The classical poetry of Japan focuses on direct experience of fleeting moments, in total contrast with its Occidental counterpart. These seminal poems were passed down orally, before great collections assembled works of art spanning several centuries in written form as early as the 8th century, from the Kojiki to the Kokinshu.