Customer Reviews

Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese (H)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For what it is, this is a good kanji book. The compact size makes it easy to carry around, and a whole lot of kanji are packed inside. The strokes are easily defined, and the unusual use of pen rather than calligraphy is appreciated.

However, the book has some serious faults. First it is definitely not a "kanji learner." There is no workbook-style layout to trace the kanji stroke by stroke before writing alone. The strokes are outlined, but there is no room for practice. Second, aside from kanji, the book is almost entirely written in romaji, which is no help to learning Japanese and makes for more difficult searching of individual kanji. Third, there is no insight into kanji, no presentation of radicals, or anything to help a learner understand kanji. It presents each kanji as an individual character to be memorized.

I would never recommend this as a sole kanji book, but it serves its purpose for reference and is a good tool overall.

As a North American professional who lives and works in Japan, my progressing Japanese studies have recently included kanji. While learning these Chinese characters seemed daunting and complex at first, I found this guide incredibly helpful.

The book contains the 881 "essential" kanji designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education, along with the 1,850 characters designated as "standard" for everyday use in the publishing world (this includes the 881 essential kanji). Phonetic writings, definitions and everyday vocabulary are also supplied.

One of the book's most valuable features is that kanji are clearly presented as handwritten, stroke-by-stroke models. This fosters a grasp of kanji construction, while making it easier to identify characters found in books, magazines, newspapers and on printed signs. An added benefit of the handwritten models is that reading personal letters or other correspondence becomes easier.

My only small complaint is with the "romanized" (romaji) readings provided for each kanji. Since I began my studies by learning the two Japanese syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), I always find that reading romaji is distracting and like taking a big step backwards, since it merely serves as a guide to pronunciation.

Overall, I'd enthusiastically recommend this book as an essential reference guide for students of Japanese at any level. Also, if available, consider the paperback version--it's lighter, more compact and easier to flip through quickly.

I've studied Japanese for about 10 years, with 5 years spent in Japan. This book motivated me to focus on kanji from the beginning so that now I can read Japanese books and newspapers.

This was the first book I ever used for Kanji. Thinking back now to those days in the library poring over it evokes much nostalgia.

Every kanji is written with an ordinary pen, not a brush. Brushstrokes are useless for most of us who write with pens. This one excels in that you can copy the strokes precisely with a pen and with practice have your kanji looking as good as those in the book.

My Japanese professor used to marvel at how beautifully I wrote for every assignment I handed in. I had used this book as a model for every kanji! By copying the beautiful characters in this book over and over, you will form good writing habits.

It is essential that you follow a text such as this one from the beginning so that you know how important stroke order is for memorizing the more complex kanji you'll encounter later on. Once you learn the basic stroke order rules you will find the difficult kanji easy to remember too, as they are usually just an amalgamation of common radicals that you learn writing the easy kanji.

This book is great for beginners who need to learn stroke order and for those who want to write more beautifully. It only contains the Joyo kanji (those taught in Japanese schools). If your remember them all you'll be able to read the kanji in the newspaper.

(My review is about the 1961 revised edition; I don't know if the problems I mentioned have been fixed.) I have used this book, and found it helpful, but it is NOT a guide to reading and writing Japanese. It is best described as a beginner's dictionary to the Toyo kanji (1850 for standard use). That said, it is a reference book, not a primary text, and probably shouldn't be used as such. The first 881 (elementary) characters are given with stroke order, meanings, and 3 example compounds; on and kun readings in Hepburn romanization (which I personally don't like). The remainder of the kanji have neither stroke order or examples. Includes a kana syllabaries, on/kun reading index, and stroke order index, but no meaning index or radical index. Originally written post-war era, and showing its age and lacking some more modern uses. Some kanji missing important readings or meanings (example: kanji for oku-san does not give this reading or meaning of wife, only way I've seen it used). Not a bad book, quite compact, but probably not the best choice; those looking to read actual Japanese texts will quickly become frustrated. It is, however, extensively referenced in other texts from the same era.

As a North American professional who lives and works in Japan, my Japanese studies have recently included kanji. While learning these Chinese characters seemed daunting and complex at first, I found this guide incredibly helpful.

The book contains the 881 "essential" kanji designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education, along with the 1,850 characters designated as "standard" for everyday use in the publishing world (including the 881 essential kanji). Phonetic writings, definitions and everyday vocabulary are also supplied.

One of the book's most valuable features is that kanji are clearly presented as handwritten, stroke-by-stroke models. This fosters a grasp of kanji construction, while making it easier to identify characters found in books, magazines, newspapers and on printed signs. An added benefit of the handwritten models is that reading personal letters or other correspondence becomes easier.

My only small complaint is with the "romanized" (romaji) readings provided for each kanji. Since I began my studies by learning the two Japanese syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), I've found that having to read romaji is a distraction and like taking a giant step backwards, since it merely serves as an approximate guide to pronunciation.

Overall, I'd enthusiastically recommend this book as an essential reference guide for students of Japanese at any level. Also, if available, the paperback version might be a better choice--it's lighter, more compact and easier to flip through quickly.

I highly recommend this book as a kanji dictionary for beginner to intermediate students. It has two main parts: The first part contains the 881 kanji most used in the Japanese language, listed in order. It gives the stroke order and all of the readings for each, as well as a few examples for usage in different contexts (this however is not very useful, because there are a vastly larger number of words you may see any one kanji appear in than the amount of samples offered). However, the second half functions as the dictionary, listing the 1850 most used kanji, categorized by stroke quantity. It is very easy to look up any kanji as long as you can decipher how many strokes it takes to write. This may sound difficult, but it is actually much easier than the alternate method other dictionaries use which involves memorizing the different peices used, called "radicals." Once you find the kanji you are looking for in the dictionary half, the book either refers you back to the first half with the page number the kanji appears on, or it will give you the readings and english glosses right there. The book's title, however, is extremely misleading as this book will not teach you anything about reading or writing the japanese language, and should not be used as an instuctional tool in any way. However, it is a great kanji dictionary for students and it has yet to fail me. Therefore, I give it 5 stars for serving this purpose well.

Not a learning tool by itself, and a bit dated. However, this is a required book for most college classes in Japanese. It is a dictionary of the Toyo Kanji, kanji considered "standard education" by the Japanese ministry of education and required knowledge to pass high school. These kanji are what is considered fundamental (high school graduate) literacy in Japan. While I am looking for an updated dictionary, this is probably my most weathered Japanese book.

I bought this book over 20 years ago when it *was* in paperback and I can't get along without it. Seeing the hiragana and other characters written with a pen or pencil is so helpful. I have also found that when I just can't figure out where in Nelson's kanji dictionary a certain character is, I'll use this book to find it strictly by stroke count.

This book is good but it is more than 20 years old. The kanji are listed according to the official specifications of the Japanese Government of 1946. It has, since then, been updated in 1981 and the new list of kanji required in everyday life now contains 1945 caracters. The content is good but it is definitely antiquated.

A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese is an extremely handy Kanji dictionary, referance and drawing guide to the characters. It also includes Kana and Hiragana in the back of it, as well as there stroke orders. This is the second revised edition 1961, the book says it can take you to a 6th grade level of writing if you learn all that is in it, however standards have slightly changed... The amount of characters learned per grade, and the characters learned in each grade has somewhat changed from the publication of this book. For instance one can even tell its age looking at the first page where it lists Shi as Four, this was changed well over two decades ago because Shi also means death and makes many Japanese feel uncomfortable using it.

This is a great book, but I suggest the third revised edition (2003) as its more up to modern standards, not that this edition is bad in any way, you just might find yourself using some outdated characters here and there.