びじょう美城とやじゅう野獣 Beauty and the Beast by Sasaki Ari
Beauty and the Beast may be most familiar from its multiple Disney movie incarnations, but in fact the original fairy tale was written in the 1700s by a French author - although as with most fairy tales, it was inspired by several older stories, and the Disney movies were based on a later version by an English author ...
Reading fairy tales can be a good way to learn Japanese, because the stories are familiar, well told, and gripping. However, they do tend to use words which may be familiar to a (Japanese) child, but don't necessarily come up in daily adult life. In this story, the term 'beast' is not a common word at all - but once you've got past that, most of the vocabulary in here is not uncommon.
The source of this piece is:
おんなのこのめいさくえほん
株式会社西東社, 東京, 2013
This text has been selected to suit reading level: Intermediate.
However, it includes some vocabulary and phrases that you would not necessarily be expected to know at that level.
We believe knowledge of such vocabulary and phrases is beneficial at any stage of Japanese language learning,
as they are commonly used in everyday language.
Many of the readings in the Reading Corner, such as this one, have additional notes in the introduction.
The notes often provide extra information that will help you get more out of the text, including links to articles in the Grammar library.
Additional notes are included with some of the individual sentences in a reading directly below the text.
