Reading Japanese Is Easier Than English

"Japanese is easier to read," says my five-year-old daughter reading her Nontan ノンタン library book. And it is!

English has crazy spelling rules that can be broken (ex: sight, site, cite, psyte, seit ... ok, i made up the last two), hundreds of sight words to memorize, and lots of frustration for beginning readers before they can read a book on their own. The Japanese language has a hiragana alphabet chart to memorize. Once you do that, you can read a children's book. By yourself! Yes, it gets more complicated than that afterwards, but for beginners learning to read in Japanese is straightfoward. If you take the letter "su" す and add the letter "shi" し, you get sushi すし. The names of the letters are the same as their sounds. Spelling is a breeze. None of this "H says hhhhh. T says tttt. S says sss" nonsense. In fact, there are no such things as spelling bees in Japan because it would sound like this: Spell the word "sushi." "Hmm, SU, SHI ... sushi." Boring.

If you don't yet have a hiragana chart, here are some cute ones from hiragana mama's blog. Start memorizing!

Do Your Friends Have Piano Teeth?

My daughter checked out one of the Dekoboko Friends (でこぼこフレンズ) books from her preschool's library. It's one of my favorite series(es?), and it's easy to read for a beginner. They have the craziest 12 characters, like the guy with piano teeth, an egg that gets really mad and cooks himself with the heat from his anger, and a chestnut who can't jump rope without tangling it on his huge nose.

If you don't happen to have a Japanese school to send your child to, try finding easy Japanese-language books such as this for reading with your child to expose them to more Japanese. Besides Dekoboko Friends, my suggestions include Anpanman (あんぱんまん is a character made out of pastry) and Nontan (ノンタン) is a selfish cat who reluctantly learns to share, etc).

Apple Orchard and Library day

Tuesday (かようび), my daughter's Japanese preschool is going to an apple orchard for apple picking (りんごがり), cider (アップルサイダー), donuts (ドーナツ), to go on a hay ride (トラクターにのります), and to pet little farm animals (しょうどうぶつ). Japanese preschools are very into seasonal things and do field trips, crafts, songs, and origami related to whatever the current season is. Last week they gathered acorns (どんぐり) outside and made spinning tops (こま) out of them with toothpicks.

Library day twice a week at the school has motivated me to once again read her Japanese books on a daily basis, usually at bedtime. I have a ton of Japanese toddler-age books. Last night, after I read a particularly long book, my daughter said, "Mommy, you read really good Japanese." :) That made me laugh. Even though my daughter is 3 and can neither read Japanese nor English, making her have no idea how well or terribly I read, I still like that she has a positive view of being able to read Japanese. If you have access to any Japanese kids' books, especially toddler books, I highly recommend them for some fun, stress-free enrichment reading.