Customer Reviews

Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 1, Revised

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This summer I decided to take up a foreign language, and Japanese was my first choice. I was fine when I found out that I would be needing to learn hiragana and katakana, but when Kanji came along, i thought that it was over. It turns out that this has been so much fun learning kanji with the White Rabbit Press flashcards. I've learned so many in a short amount of time!
The cards are just the right size (3.5" by 2.5") they are coated with UV varnish so they are super durable. They feel like they are laminated. They are so portable so u can take them any where when you travel (which i do alot) and the cards look really professional.
I highly reccomend these cards even if your not studying for the JLPT.
Gambatte!

These cards are the best on the market period. First of all these cards use kana. The cards also have 6 compounds for each and every Kanji. Finally the "paper" the cards are printed on far surpasses any of the competition.

"White Rabbit Press" the publisher, has an AUDIO companion available on there website. It has the Kanji's ON and KUN readings plus all the compounds listed on each card, read by a NATIVE JAPANESE professional voice actress. If your self studying, or just really care about your pronunciation I can't recommend the AUDIO companion enough.

I haven't even been able to get through all of them yet, but I'm loving them so far. Good points:
1.The kanji is big and easy to read. On the bottom there are also step-by-step picture instructions for writing them.
2.The front of the card has some similar-looking kanji off to the side so that you can easily compare the difference.
3. The back lists the different pronounciations in kana, which helps you off the "romaji" crutch.
4. There are sample words with the kanji on the front with definitions on the back (again, pronounciation in hiragana/katakana) which can be used for expanding and practicing vocabulary.
5. As I think another reviewer has already mentioned, the cards are durable (laminated?), and the corners are rounded so you don't repeatedly stab yourself and acquire a negative association complex with studying ;)

I don't really have any complaints about these cards. Obviously you'll only get out of them what you put into your studying. I grab a handful and stuff them in my messenger bag so I can go over them in my free time. Maybe you and your fellow nihongo fanatics can play games with them or something :)
There's also a flashcard technique that my own sensee taught us in our first semester (he also told us to spell "sensei" like that, so step off ;D). Go through the set once, putting them in 3 piles: the ones you get right away, the ones that take you awhile, and the ones you don't know or get totally wrong. Don't be discouraged by a pitifully low or non-existant first pile. Go through the third pile, go through the second pile, then go through the third pile again, then first, second, third again. Shuffle them up and make new piles. The idea is that each time you do this, you'll be putting fewer in the third stack and eventually more and more into the first stack. He also said to do this as often as possible.

Ganbatte! :)

First, let me mention that there is a revised version of these cards available for order from White Rabbit Press. It's available on Amazon, but it's hard to get to. After I made my initial order, I was contacted by White Rabbit Press with the message that a better version of their product was available and a link to the order site. They also apologized, saying that they've been trying to get Amazon to fix the problem for some time, but without result. Great customer service. Anyway, if you're ordering this product, either check all the reviews on this site (one of them is written by White Rabbit Press and contains instructions on how to order the revised edition), or just e-mail them so they can point you in the right direction. It's worth it. Now, on to my review:

Whether you're studying Japanese in college, or (like me) learning it on your own, these flash cards are an invaluable learning tool. Every kanji presented here is broken down to its essential components: radical, stroke order, on-yomi (original Chinese pronunciation), and kun-yomi (Japanese pronunciaton). There are also about five or six (or more) examples of the use of the kanji on every card, with the pronunciation written in kana on the reverse side as well as its translation. Essentially, each card allows you to do four things: learn the kanji, see it in action, practice kana reading, and expand your vocabulary. A truly great product.

I had already purchased the 1,000+ Tuttle (Alexander Kask) cards, but I was convinced to try the first set of these. I cannot rave enough:

*No romaji. This has helped my reading skills a lot.

*The layout makes a lot more sense. The layout on the Tuttle cards is poorly thought through, the kanji stroke orders are on the back, and the radical meanings are on the front, which means that I need to cover parts up if I want to use them as flash cards. The White Rabbit cards have a much more useful layout, making them better as flashcards.

*The examples are way more relevant. The Tuttle examples are often so obscure I don't see any reason to learn them. But the examples on the White Rabbit cards are words are phrases I can actually see myself using.

*Also, the White Rabbit cards are ordered to fit the JLPT, while the Tuttle cards fit the grade school levels. There are so many different kanji to learn that it's worth giving thought to which ones are important to learn first. For an adult learner, the JLPT ordering will give you more useful kanji first.

For a while, I successfully studied Japanese (among other things) for free, mostly by ordering books through the public library. The only Japanese-related purchase I've made yet is this set of flashcards, and here is why.

I've attempted to learn kanji without flashcards, it wasn't working well. Apparently, newly learned things need to be retrieved from memory several times, with sizeable intervals in between. This is the only way you can store them into long-term memory.

Naturally, I then pondered making my own kanji cards, but this turns out to be a bad idea as well. Most kanji can't be summed up with one english word, or even several words. Their true essence is only revealed in compounds with other kanji. You would have to find compounds that are both useful in everyday life, and more importantly, show the different aspects of that particular kanji. This would require hours of work (per card!), and proficiency in Japanese to boot.

Which brings us right along to: this set vs. other offerings. These are larger and printed on a higher quality paper (I hesitate to even call it paper), show readings in kana, show elements out of which the kanji is composed (selectively); include stroke order and lookalike kanji (none of the other sets include either); and perhaps most importantly, there are 6 well chosen compounds for every card. Others I've seen have 4 at most.

With some mnemonic aids, I've managed to memorize the meanings of about 80% of them in just a few hours, spread out over the first few days after I've received the set. Which isn't to say they are now useless to me, far from it. I now use them routinely as a reference for stroke order, and also work on compounds and their readings. It will take me a long time to absorb even half of all the knowledge contained in these cards.

Volume 2 will be available in a month or so, with something like 700 more kanji, to cover the full requirement of JLPT2. Needless to say, I'll buy it.

As the other reviews have said, these are hands down the best kanji cards I've come across. I've seen or used almost all the other cards available.

The one and only complaint I have is that the cards do not have the grade level of each kanji listed. Since the cards are designed for help on a particular test that makes sense. However, for those looking to study with these cards who don't care about that test it would have been nice to have the grades listed.

If you're considering kanji cards, buy these because you won't be disappointed.

Looking forward to Vol. 3.

These are the best cards on the market. They are printed on high quality paper, almost like it is laminated. The corners are rounded so that you don't poke yourself and they dont bend as easily. The ink is high quality and bold, and they are color coded for JLPT level. Each card has the kanji on the front, as well as cross reference with similar looking kanji. It also has 6 or so sample words containing the Kanji in the compound on each card, and stroke count/order. The back has the on readings in katakana, the kun readings in hiragana, and the readings/meanings for the compound word examples. These cards really are well made and simply the best out there.

I love these flashcards. They have all the information you need, are small enough to carry around in your pocket, are strong enough to be shuffled like playing cards, and give on and kun readings in kana. I bought a different set of kanji flashcards when I lived in Japan, but they were of much poorer quality and I gave up using them quickly. I would recommend the White Rabbit Press flashcards over all others I've seen.

I returned my other flash card set after I read about, and ordered these. I am very glad I did. The quality of these cards is much nicer and the lack of romanji is a HUGE plus for me. Another huge plus for me are the companion audio files you can purchase for an additional 8 buck (I think). Each MP3 file completely covers one card, ON, KUN and all compound words, if its in printed in Japanese on the card, it's read for you on the MP3. This flash card set is well worth the price.