Customer Reviews

Beginner's Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Characters (Dover Language Guides)

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There was a time, long ago, when our image of Japan was shaped by books by the likes of Lafcadio Hearn and Pierre Loti (look them up!). That was also the time when Rose-Inness was considered indispensable for the study of Japanese, along with Naganuma's readers (remember them?)

Then came World War II. Actually, Rose-Inness survived that war and was still a mainstay of Japanese studies into the 1960's. There have been a lot of changes in the language since then, not to mention a lot of new vocabulary, but Rose-Inness is still useful in a lot of ways. Like the list of kana variations which he gives, which can be useful in reading old literature. Or the character variants, which can save you a great deal of head scratching.

I must admit that I never did understand Rose-Inness' attempt to classify kanji by the "sectors" of the written character, but that didn't hamper me in using the dictionary. Of course, for serious work you need Nelson. But Rose-Inness is a lot smaller and lighter than Nelson, and it's adequate for older literature. There are, of course, various dictionaries on the market produced in Japan, but you may want to compare them with this one and decide what serves your needs best before deciding on what's right for you. Rose-Inness certainly has the virtue of being inexpensive.

book is a little hard to get around in, useful but I can see where it could have been put together a little better for a beginner it is hard , If you already know a bit about what you are looking for it helps. Its better than some I've found but could use improvement. If you are already familiar with the counting of strokes and radicals you should be able to work your way around this book.Does contain lots of usefull info along with the meaning and pronouciation of characters

this is an excellent reference book, long out of print and very informative. the book is in excellent condition for its age.....it contains long forgotten characters and expressions known during that time

I bought this book for $.60 with $3.99 shipping. I must say, that for that price I am extremely satisfied. Sure, this isn't the best Kanji Radical Dictionary out there, unless youre considering value. The usage isn't too hard to understand if you have used a kanji radical dictionary before. The online dictionaries are still much better. But, I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a kanji jisho.