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Yumi Boutwell
Premium Audiobooks
Akutagawa's The Trolley Cart
The surest way to grow your Japanese is to read, and to listen to, something real. The Trolley Cart is Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's short story, written in 1922: a boy, a work trolley on a half-built railway, and a ride that goes farther than he meant it to....
Chiyo-ni
Twenty-five poems by Fukuda Chiyo-ni, one of the most loved haiku poets Japan has produced. She was born in 1703, was widowed young, became a Buddhist nun in her fifties, and wrote right up to her death poem at seventy-three. Her poems are small,...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 1: Hikoichi
Some characters in Japanese folklore are famous around the world, like Momotaro, the Peach Boy. But few people outside Japan know Hikoichi, and that is exactly why we love starting with him. His stories are still told across Kyushu, and they are pure...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 2: Momotaro, the Peach Boy
Momotaro, the Peach Boy, is perhaps the most famous of all Japanese folktales: a boy born from a giant peach, raised by a loving old couple, who sets off to face the terrible oni with three brave companions, a dog, a monkey and a pheasant.This...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 3: Inch-High Samurai
This audiobook brings you two of Japan's most beloved tales. The first is the story of a samurai no taller than your pinky finger: a tiny hero with a sewing needle for a sword, who sets out to make something of himself, saves a princess, and sees his...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 4: The Mouse Bride
This audiobook brings you two of Japan's most beloved folktales. The first is The Mouse Bride: a proud mouse couple are determined to marry their beautiful daughter to the greatest one in all the world. Their search takes them to the sun, the clouds,...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 5: The Cut-Tongue Sparrow and Kobutori-jiisan
This audiobook brings you two of Japan's most beloved folktales. The first is The Cut-Tongue Sparrow: a gentle story of a kind old man, the little sparrow he loves, and a cruel act that sends him searching deep into the mountains, where kindness and...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 6: Yuki Onna
Two of the most haunting tales in Japan. First, Yuki-Onna, the Snow Woman. A father and son, woodcutters both, are caught far from home by a blizzard and shelter for the night in a small hut. What comes through the door of that hut has been...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 7: The Little Match Girl
This volume is a little different from the rest of the series. Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl is not a Japanese folktale at all. It is Danish, first published in 1845, but it has been loved in Japan for well over a century, and...
Learn Japanese with Stories Volume 8: Hikoichi Revisited
Hikoichi is back. If you listened to Volume One, you already know him: the clever young man whose quick thinking always leaves somebody else scratching their head. This volume brings three more tales, and in the last of them Hikoichi steps aside for a...
Learn Japanese with Yokai Volume 1: The Kappa
Japan is full of strange creatures, and this series is a way to meet them in their own language.This first volume is about the kappa, the river creature almost every Japanese child can draw: green, about the size of a small child, a shell on its back,...
Learn Japanese with Yokai! Volume 2: The Tengu
Japan is full of strange creatures, and this series is a way to meet them in their own language.This second volume is about the tengu, the long-nosed mountain spirit dressed as a wandering monk. He turns up on festival masks, in the phrase for someone...
Learn Japanese with Yokai! Volume 3: The Oni
Japan is full of strange creatures, and this series is a way to meet them in their own language.This third volume is about the oni: horns on his head, a huge body, an iron club in his hand, and a great fondness for sake. Japanese children know him...
