Product Review

Can you imagine what it is like to live in a flowerpot and confuse one animal with another? Our chatty little plants Basil, Rosemary and the sisters know all too well the problems and fun it causes. This is for bilingual children and others wanting to read a dual language text in English and Japanese with illustrations.

The bilingual story is presented twice. In the first part, the parallel Japanese text contains just hiragana and katakana characters. In the second part, simple Kanji characters are included which would typically be recognised by Japanese children in their third and fourth year of full time education. For ease of understanding, the languages are displayed together mostly one or two sentences at a time. The aim was to make the translation as direct as possible but always using everyday language of native speakers. Reading this fun bilingual story will help you learn Japanese.
Excerpt from the story:
The sisters agreed that Pig had very long legs for a pig.
姉妹はブタはぶたにしては長い足をしていると思いました。
None of the plants knew “Pig’s” real name but it must be Pig because he was greedy, smelly, and dirty.
植物たちのだれもブタの本当の名前を知りませんでした。でもブタにちがいありません。なぜならブタはよくばりで、くさくて、きたなかったからです。
A long way above the plants, at the top of Pig’s legs, there was a long tail.
植物たちのずっと上のほう、ブタの足のてっぺんには長いしっぽがありました。