audio of japanese folk tales
September 5th, 2005 by heatherむかしむかし、mukashi, mukashi (long long ago)… i began my never-ending quest for free audio resources to learn japanese…
thanks to toothinglummox (from the japanese wikibook) who gave me some titles of japanese folktales: Momo taro, Urashima taro, Kintaro and The Moon Princess.
this lead me to find:
they are written in kanji, no translation. and the speed is fast. if you’re creative you can slow down the speed (and keep the same pitch) using audacity or other audio editing tool. i think i’ll do this for my own use. (i wish the audio was public domain, then i could share).
Listen and read in Japanese:
- Urashima, a romantic fisherman. Urashima translated in English (not word-for-word)
- Momo-taro, Peachboy. Peach boy in English again, not word-for-word.
i’m *hoping* to find public domain versions of japanese folktales written down, then get my lovely tutor to record them for me. also get the kana written out, then i can share them. got any links?
(thanks to sushi-king for links to english translation)
September 5th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Hi there,
I just found an interesting homepage you may like. (Did know this site already?) You’ll find over 100 Japanese stories there, though they are written in English.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/7211/
I’ll keep looking for japanese folk stories written in both Japanese and English and let you know if I find them.
September 5th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
cool! the peices of the puzzle are clicking together.
now i have the translation for “Momo-Taro” peachboy,
http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/7211/momo.html
and Urashima, romantic fisherman.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/7211/urashima.html
thanks very much.
though it’s not a word-for-word translation, at least now i have a clue what they are talking about.
September 14th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
If you use an iPod, one way of slowing the tracks down is to use this method:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041114214939859&query=audiobook+ipod
The instructions are for Mac, but i’m sure a PC method is available
September 16th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
hey that’s brilliant.
those steps are a little complex,but at least it’s a soluition. it’d be great if iTunes just let you drop files into the audio books section and it would automatically make the files bookmarkable.
you know, i got the iPod i have as a gift, so i don’t want to be ungrateful… but i’m not very impressed with it! i like alll the bells and whistles of my little iRiver with only 512MB.
thanks for the advice though!
September 16th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
I’ve been looking at folktales myself, and there’s a really cute (but, er, flash-o-rific) site here:
http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/nihonbunka/minwa/
There are a lot of stories, all written out, with glosses for the kanji. There are also helpful illustrations for most of the stories and regional groupings for where the tales come from. It’s neat.
In particular, Momo-Taro is here:
http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/kikakuten/mukashi/mukashi1/momo.html
And Urashima is here:
http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/kikakuten/mukashi/mukashi1/urashima.html
I’d love listen-to-able audio of these if you can get it.
Btw, おんがく is ‘music’ and やめる is stop, きく is listen. These are in the lower right corner of each book page.
つぎへ (lower left corner of each book page) mean “to the next” and it’s to turn the page.
Hope that this helps.
September 17th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
thanks for stopping by!
funny, i had come across those just the other day on kenkyuukai:
http://www.kenkyuukai.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=101&forum=1
there, he points out that some of the later ones have audio with them. just to push it further, i wish it would highlight the words when they are spoken. for example:
http://www.digital-lib.nttdocomo.co.jp/kikakuten/mukashi/mukashi7/monogusa.html
(note on page two the guy picking his nose while watching the lady to all the work. v funny)
November 11th, 2005 at 7:07 am
Check out the Aozora Bunko site. http://www.aozora.gr.jp
Here’s one “author” page from that site. If you look at the list of works near the bottom of the page, you find a few tales. Aozora also have Urashima Taro and two different versions of Momotaro. If you live in Japan, there are (or at least used to be) small books of mukashi banashi in hiragana in the 100 yen shops.
(I also recently started posting my own translations of Japanese folk stories at http://japanesefolktales.blogspot.com/ I intend to post as many stories as I can find and have time to translate.)
November 11th, 2005 at 7:08 am
Oops, forgot the “author” page I mentioned
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/index_pages/person329.html
November 13th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
cool! i’m looking forward to reading translations.
i’m curious about the creative commons license you have… it would be great to be able to ‘add’ audio to them… if i can find someone to record for me, that is. heh.
does your license mean i could not distribute the resulting audio copyright-free?
November 13th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
I think adding audio would come under the part of the license which says “Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.”
Pretty close to copyright free. I hope it doesn’t get it in your way. If it does, let me know (maybe leave a comment on my site).
My reason for using the Creative Commons license was purely “philosophical”. I’ve really benefited over the last few years from various books and software — especially software — released under open source licenses, so I wanted to support that sort of work. I’m hardly expect anyone will read my translations, let alone use them, so the license isn’t really about protection.
On another note, I spend most of my time editing and writing technical papers, so I think my translations might be a bit stiff. If you use them and rewrite them at all, I’d love to see your text. Hopefully I can learn something.