Learn Japanese with Yokai - N4 Level [DIGITAL DOWNLOAD BUNDLE]

The Yokai series is providing me with a deeper understanding of Japanese culture, while at the same time introducing new words and phrases. I enjoy reading a transcribing the stories on a day to day basis, as this helps build my vocabulary and writing skills. The Japanese have many interesting folklore that makes these books a great study tool!

I haven't delved too far into this bundle yet, but the books are really well done. Every sentence is walked through so you get an understanding of how sentence structure works as well as learning words etc. It's good fun to learn about a subject while learning Japanese! I genuinely feel a sense of achievement, and like i have actually learned something when i finish a section. The audio is very helpful, to check I'm reading with the right pronunciation, though can be a little awkward on my phone as I have to jump between audio and books, but that's a phone issue, nothing to do with the bundle. Well worth the money.

Good mix of kanji learning and grammar

This model is very interesting for people like me who like the story of yokai. It's still challening for me, but the bundle is good for training reading in japanese and to expand the vocabulary! The explanation in the same page helps to learn in a dynamic process, and I don't have to stop the story to search the kanji and meaning, losing the momentum of the narrative.
Also, the audio helps to understand the japanese pronunciation!

I find this collection very helpful, especially for beginner students, because it helps maintain a course that is easy to get your hands on and is never boring. I recommend this series even though I have not bought it yet, only read a few pages from a friend who has bought it.
Good job on the making of this series and the lifetime updates are a very pleasant gift especially for this low-low price.

Great for beginners as well as more advanced users looking to review! I like that there isn’t an initial “direct translation” of the entire story, but rather kanji meanings, combinational readings, and phrasal explanations! It really makes your brain work to translate it before you go on to check your work!

Muy buenos😱

Love the materials. Most other books/stories are still hard for me to understand, but these are great !

Most other reading material is still too difficult for me. I can read it, but I have to check words I don't know too often. With these stories I only have to check 1-2 words per line, making reading far more fluent while still keeping it productive. And, when I do need to check a word, I have it on the same page with a detailed explanation! It's perfect!

Also, the only reading material for Japanese learners I found that works well on e-readers.

Love the stories!

This book set has very adorable art and easy to understand explanations. They provide an easy medium to get familiar with kanji and improve reading speeds with the added benefit of learning some cool mythology. I printed copies to write the furigana on new kanji introduced and make other notes as I read.

The stories are great! The definitions and grammar explanations are helpful and the audio at two speeds is also nice to have.
I've only made it through the kitsune tales so far, and my only complaint is that, as with the folk tales bundle, there is no consistency with kanji/hiragana within a story, which is frustrating. For example, in the nine-tailed fox story, on page 28 we learn にばけ can mean to shapeshift into. OK, great, just learned a new word. But then on the next page, it's written に化け, forcing me to stop and look up the kanji (because there's no furigana) only to find that it was a word I just learned on the previous page, but in hiragana. Likewise, いう and 言う seem to get used interchangeably - not a big deal, since it's a common kanji, but then...it's a simple, common kanji and the more exposure you get to kanji the more proficient you become, so why would it ever get written in hiragana in these texts? For the less-proficient in Japanese (which is the level this is aimed at) it's jarring to switch back and forth and have to guess/look up if they actually both mean the same thing - otherwise why is one written in kanji and the other in hiragana? I'm entirely willing to admit there might be some sort of subtlety of Japanese I'm missing and there is an actual reason, but in comparison to, for example, my textbooks, yes, a new word might originally be presented in hiragana, but once its kanji gets introduced, there's no more switching back and forth. The lack of consistency makes the whole story feel like it lacked a final editing and as this is an easy fix, I'm hoping it will be fixed in the future. Despite these issues, yes, I'd buy the bundle again, because as an adult independent learner, it's far more fun to learn Japanese by reading about Japanese culture than about メアリーさん's experiences as an exchange student in Genki. :)

Excellent learning materials, lovely company.

This series is a wonderful reading material and complements my Japanese language learning really well. Textbooks and kanji learning materials do not really give you any reading practice, so graded readers like this are good to have. The stories are interesting, so you get to practice reading with something fun instead of reading about Alice and Bob.

I found this series indirectly through a recommended materials list. The series that was actually recommended was the "Learn Japanese with Stories". The main reason I ultimately picked this one is because I read in the reviews below that this Youkai series does not have Romaji while the Stories series does have them. If you feel like Romaji does not help you and you can read hiragana and katakana, this Youkai series is the better pick.

I like folk stories and Japanese folk stories are one of the most intriguing stories I've ever heard and those were two main reasons why I bought these books.
Also, I have a good experience with other books from this author and I knew what to expect. A lot of fun and a lot of study material.
Each book contains a few stories that are presented in 3 forms. First, there is a Japanese text with furigana for easy reading and dictionary below for easy understanding. Second, there is a story fully written in Japanese only and the third form is summary in English.
The great thing about these books is that you get free audio with normal and slow speed.

I love the whole pack I don't understand a lot of it but its helping me with pronunciation. I do i have one thing tho I feel the should be another sound option, it goes FAST, SLOW I feel their should also be a section to accompany the (with definitions) part that way its easier to focus on one sentence at a time instead of trying to figure out where the sentence started at least for the slow ones

I love yokai.
I have both the short story bundle and now the yokai bundle.
Now I may be biased due to loving yokai stories but In my opinion, this series of books is the best one that they have published so far.
The best part about this bundle other than the stories and the audio is the fact that it has no Romanji!

I haven't spent enough time with it to give an in-depth review, but so far this lives up to the high bar of quality I expect from The Japan Shop.

The 'Learn Japanese with Yokai' pack is yet another excellent resource from The Japan Shop. I am using other resources from here and they are, without exception, all of outstanding quality and aimed at my learning level. Like many other learning resources from The Japan Shop, there is a strong emphasis on learning Japanese culture through Japanese language. This pack explores the rich world of Japanese traditional ghost/ghoul stories. I personally really enjoy traditional tales, and so am really enjoying these resources. I can use the sound file and the text also for shadowing practice as they come with a slow file and then a normal speed file. Tremendous quality and value! Thank you! Congratulations and I'm looking forward to future editions in this series.

Just what I was looking for.
Pitched at JLPT N4 Upper Beginner+ / Lower intermediate level, entertaining and interesting stories, each accompanied by 2 Sound files (one read at slow speed, the other at normal conversational speed), plus explanations of relevant grammar points , vocabulary and Kanji for each story, in a very easy to use format. For me, so far (I've only covered the Kappa stories yet), it is excellent. Well done Clay and Yumi!