Customer Reviews

Japanese Kanji & Kana Revised Edition: A Guide to the Japanese Writing System (Tuttle Language Library)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The challenge of learning Japanese has two parts: written and spoken. While the spoken part is relatively easy, the written part takes the most work. I am thankful for this book more than any other in my struggle to learn written Japanese.

I used this book like flashcards, hiding parts until I could prove to myself that I had it in my long-term memory. Once I had memorized one Kanji, I would highlight it. I made a goal of learning 10 or so each day, each week logging my progress. After two years with this book I had mastered 1500 Kanji. I continued using this book while in Japan to learn all 2000.

There are some characters that are in common use and are not included in the standard 2000. However, learning these basic 2000 will give you the boost you need to attain written fluency. The next challenge is learning the compound nouns, which are usually made up of two Kanji. This book provides a few common compounds, which are listed next to each entry.

While this book is great for learning the individual Kanji, you will need to learn your vocabulary from an additional source.

I purchased this book because of recommendation, and after doing so I can do nothing but congratulate the author and recommend it myself. The book contains all the 1945 Jou-you basic kanji plus and extra 284 kanji for official use in names. The 1945 basic kanji have uses, stoke order, different fonts (brush, pen and printed), pronounciation in both ON and KUN readings plus variations. Also included are a range on official examples in which the Kanji is used, which I find to be an essential feature. However, the 284 name kanji omit stroke order and a lot less detail and attention is payed to them. The book also contains 3 index systems by radical, stroke count and reading. However, I have found that some readings of a particular kanji are not shown, for example, the suffix '-tachi'. To solve this, you must look the kanji up in another index, proving that the multiple index's are essential. The book also provides a useful and helpful introduction that includes the background and origin of Japanese plus various uses of the kana; hiragana and katakana. In conclusion, a worthy purchase and if you haven't already done so, add it to your colleciton forthwith.

This book includes the entire Jouyou Kanji list (1,945 characters), as well as complete hiragana and katakana, all of which are required to be considered literate in Japanese. This alone makes the book an excellent learning tool for any beginner ready to tackle the written language. Each kanji symbol is followed with romanized readings, as well as several common compound words it may be found in. Every symbol even provides stroke order, to aid in proper writing techniques.

The book pushes beyond the basics, however, also including a list of nearly 300 kanji that can be found in names. The first section of the book provides comprehensive reading for any level student, featuring history, styles, rules, punctuation, and more, for the written language. The indexes in the back give the learner three methods of searching for kanji: by radical, by stroke count, or by reading.

While this book will not provide the reader with a complete list of the thousands of kanji that exist, it is an excellent tool with which to start at the basics and help you work your way towards fluency.

Though there are other books for kanji learning, this is truly the best out there for beginners, because not only this one includes stroke order of all the 1945 Jouyou Kanji (the number you need to learn in order to be able to read almost any japanese text without using the dictionary too much; actually you begin to feel comfortable reading once you get past the 1000 kanji), but it also has some preliminary -and very useful- statements on the use of japanese characters. The indexing systems are OK and easy to use. If you are looking for an electronic dictionary for kanji lookup, you may wanna try JWPce's. This is a japanese-capable wordprocessor (freeware) downloadable ....
It has many ways to look up a japanese character, with info on how to locate it in famous japanese character dictionaries such as this one, Nelson's and Halpern's, along with many more goodies that'd take too long to discuss. Worth a try.

This books makes a nice kanji dictionary; using the stroke-count lookup or the radical lookup it's often much easier and faster to find a kanji in this smaller book than it is in one of the larger dictionaries.

However, as a textbook for learning the kanji it ultimately fails, in my view. You will not learn to read Japanese solely by studying meanings and readings of kanji, and there is little purpose to learning the kanji if you are not going to read Japanese. You need reading practice in addition to this (reading passages also tend to be more interesting than endless drilling of readings and compounds).

There are plenty of books which are better at teaching you to read Japanese, including "Basic Kanji Book" (volumes 1&2), "Kanji in Context", and "Reading Japanese".

I think this book is great for learners who are interested in learning to write kanji (because it gives the stroke order to each character), and to learn the usage of individual characters (it has many examples of how to combine kanji characters together). But for learners who are interested in the meaning behind the characters and methods of remembering how to write them, then there are better books out there (e.g. Kanji Pict-O-Graphix by Micheal Rowley). This is more like a dictionary allowing learners to look up characters using the useful index at the back. I think for absolute beginners to kanji characters, this wouldn't be the best book to start off with.

I really recommend this handbook because of how detailed and informative it is. As one review mentions, the name section does not include stroke order but there are many characters that are similar if the not the same if stroke order is important to you. My favorite part of this book is the explanations of the radicals and origins of hiragana and katakana. It not only gives you practical kanji combinations but also introduces you to the history of writing in Japan. A wonderful reference, especially to students!

It is true this book is more for beginners. But as such, I found it to be the best tool for learning all the common kanji. Yes, there are other more exhaustive references, but it is a LOT harder to find the kanji you are looking for in those books. I have Nelson's character dictionary with about 5000 kanji and I hardly use it.

Kanji & Kana has plenty of examples, 4-5 for each character, but the main characters are used many other times subsequently in compounds with other kanji characters. So, for example, there may be 4 examples using the character for PERSON, but many other more advanced kanji also form compound words with PERSON, so you will find additional examples throughout the book. Both ON (Chinese) and KUN (Japanese) readings are given. The characters are ordered so that the most commonly used ones appear first, so that compound words you encounter later always reference only characters that have already been covered. This ordering may bother some who like to look up characters by radicals. Never fear, you have 3 indices in the back to look up characters based on reading, or radicals, or stroke count. Very handy.

This was my only Kanji dictionary while I studied Japanese for 2 years in college, and it is still my favorite.

I think so highly of this book that I have purchased 4 copies of it. Two for myself (I wore out the first one, because I used it so much doing translation work.) and two other I bought as gifts. This book is great. You can look up Kanji using three methods-either by radical, stroke or its readings. I've using this book for sometime, I am now able locate any kanji character within mere seconds. If you need to translate Japanese or need help learning Kanji this is a great book for you. I own around 40 books on the Japanese language and this is one of my favorites. Highly recommended!

This book can serve as a beginner's kanji dictionary; though serious translation requires more than the 2000 or so common kanji.

More importantly, from the point of view of someone starting out; it explains how to "spell" with kanji and kana, and it explains Japanese punctuation marks.

The revised edition has cross-references to "The Kanji Dictionary" by the same authors which lists a large number of kanji compounds under all the kanji in them.