The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power [Paperback]

Dale P. Crowley (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Kings Business Pub; 2 edition (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962548901
• ISBN-13: 978-0962548901
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,713,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dated but not a bad Kanji study guide., September 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power (Paperback)

This book is basically a Kanji study guide. The main section of this book consists of the 500 most occuring Kanji. Each Kanji is given its own page. Each page consists of basic data on the character, kanji compounds, expanded kanji compounds / short phrases , and example sentences using the kanji.

Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of this book :
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+ Covers the 500 "most often" occuring Kanji. I like that number since most books either cover about 250 kanji (too little) or the entire approx. 2000 character Joyo kanji set (too much).
+ The expanded compounds/short phrases and example sentances are just great. They will really help to expand a student's vocabulary.
+ Romaji of expanded compounds/short phrases and example sentances in seperate section.
+ Covenient size

- Old. The 500 kanji selected for this book came from a study on the most frequently occuring kanji from the "popular journals of the 1950's". (the book was original published in the early 70's)
- Uses handwritten script which is a little hard to read sometimes.
- Old. Gives readings from the old Toyo Kanji "Appropriate Use Characters" set in the main section. Joyo Kanji set additions are listed in an appendix.
- Romaji of compounds on same page.
- Did I mention old? ;)

I think the way that this book has been put together is great but I feel uneasy with the age of this book... I mean, how would I know if there are words in this book that aren't in common use 40 years later?

This book would be almost the perfect beginner/intermediate kanji study guide if it was completely revised and updated.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so good, January 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power (Paperback)

Yes, the idea is nice: to have the kanji ordered from the most frequent down to the less used. The book covers only the first 500 kanji (which leaves appart several important characters) but makes a good starting point. The kanji are hand-written. This is not bad in itself because it could be considered useful for approaching the way in which they appear in real life situations. However, the quality of printing is terrible. Complicated kanji are illegible and then imposible to recognize, particularly for the beginner. Also, the low-quality paper does not help much in this sense. All in all, too expensive for what you get. Browse a little more before buying this one.

By the way, I came into this book driven by the fierce advice from a kanji-study web page. The site is also the only source for the book...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treats Kanji as root word system, January 27, 2004

By 

Colette T. Bezio "inkwolf" (SEYMOUR, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power (Paperback)

As a rank beginnner, this is the first book I've come across which makes an effort at making sense of Japanese, and building off what you learn immediately, rather than just starting you off by memorizing words, phrases and symbols by rote. It allows you to start with basics and build up from there, in my view essential for learning a language where no friendly Latin root words are present to give you clues.

For example, the kanji which stands for day/sun. The Japanese pronounciation (nichi or jitsu) is also given, and then the book then goes on to show exactly how it acts as a root word/symbol for longer words/kanji combinations like konNICHI and sakuJITSU. The connection between written and spoken Japanese is extremely helpful for attempting to understand both, and connecting words in this way makes building and remembering vocabulary much simpler.

If you're just starting out, this book will give you reassurance that, yes, there is some kind of sense and structure to it all, after all.