Customer Reviews

Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide: A New Character Dictionary for Students and Businessmen (A Kodansha Dictionary)

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

 

 

Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide is an excellent reference for beginners learning the Japanese written language. It contains all the Jooyou Kanji (the official list of 1,950 essential Kanjis of the Japanese Ministry of Education) and some 18,000 compounds, focussing particularly on those appearing frequently in Japanese mass media. In particular, great emphasis is laid on compounds pertaining to the business world. Beyond this, however, the scope of this book is fairly limited. It contains few literary words, and, in general, too few characters and compounds to be of any use to the advanced learner at all. In fact, the book is surprisingly large and heavy for the quantity of content it contains.

The On and Kun readings of the kanji are provided in kana; in particular, the On readings appear in katakana, so the reader must be familiar with this syllabary. Pronunciation of compounds are also given, with multiple or irregular readings indicated. The dictionary makes little use of romaji. Although the definitions provided are fairly useful, few usage notes are provided making the dictionary less useful for Japanese composition. Nevertheless, it is very handy for the beginning student to check the meanings of unfamiliar words.

The arrangement of the characters more-or-less follow the traditional Chinese arrangement according to radicals, although, unfortunately, certain variants usually considered to be the same radical are separated into different radicals in this dictionary, and, hence, some characters appear in a location different from that where one would find it in a traditional character dictionary. Three indices provided allows one to locate a given character by radical, stroke-count and pronunciation. Each kanji also has its stroke order displayed for the convenience of the learner.

The book is physically well produced, with a vinyl-type soft cover and fairly thick paper of high quality that takes wear fairly well. The print is clear, and the head characters are printed very large (about a centimetre square) so that its composition can be clearly seen. Although the book is by no means large, I would not myself have describe it as 'compact' as its title suggests.

A beginning learner of written Japanese could do worse than to acquire this book, although, as an intermediate learner myself, I find that the scope of the book is not really very sufficient, more often than not, the character or compound that I go to look up is not in the book. For those of us who are not businessmen, the Kanji Guide's focus on financial and business vocabulary would be somewhat annoying. In short, then, Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide is great reference, but for beginners only.

This is a sine qua non for any serious student of Japanese. Arranged primarily by radical, the kanji are relatively easy to find (no dictionary has ever provided a truly easy way), stroke order is preserved, and meanings are provided for kanji compounds. The only drawback is that only combinations beginning with the selected kanji are included. The guide is indexed by stroke count, primary radical and by pronunciation (both kun-yomi and on-yomi). If you intend to make any real progress in your studies, this is a "must have."

I have used this guide for some years now, and I find it to be the most useful Japanese dictionary that I have. While of course it cannot compete with Nelson on the number of entries, or kanji for that matter, it is a good deal smaller than Nelson and I can take it to work with me without problem. For business uses and the popular press in general I have rarely run across a word that I could not find in here. And it's so durable!

Some may balk at the traditional radical order of the Kanji, but it's what I was used to, more or less, so I find it convenient. I'm not so sure why the publishers felt it necessary to put the stroke order in - shouldn't you already know that if you're past Japanese 001? I'd recommend deleting it in the interest of adding more entries, but that's my only complaint.

This book is the best kanji book on the market. I found this book at my Univeristy co op in Hiroshima when I was studying there. I have never used another book since. It gives you both the ON and KUN readings and also it introduces some finacial words that are of some interest. I strongly urge anyone who wants a book in which to look up kanji fast and efficiently to buy this book. Another feature is the size of this book as it makes it good to carry around. When I am reading the Japanese newspaper and there is a word that i dont know well its just a quick look and it gives me the meaning. It is designed for native english speakers unlike other ones that are designed for Japanese people.

Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide is easy to use, allowing you to look up Kanji by number of strokes, phonetically, or by the defining radical. It has the 1,945 Joyo Kanji, as well as almost 20,000 common combinations of multiple kanjii (arranged by the first Kanji in the combination). I've literally spent hours just wandering through the book looking up characters that seemed familliar. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is learning to read and write the Japanese language.

This is quite possibly my favorite book.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

My knowlege of Japanese is so minimal that I rarely make much use of this book, so I can't honestly say much about its content and you'll have to rely on the other reviewers for that.

But I had to write this review to say someting about the construction and simple artistry of the way this book is designed. While there's nothing revolutionary about any one aspect, the resulting whole has a perfection akin to that of a traditional Japanese house or a Zen garden. The size of the book is perfect, the quality and color of the paper are wonderful, the way that the pages are cut and assembled, the way that the soft rubbery vinyl cover makes it feel just right in your hand.

The design of this book makes it a delightful piece of art, even if you can't read a character of Japanese. It is simply pleasing to hold in the hand and browse through. If you can actually make use of its contents, so much the better.

G.

This is the best paper Kanji dictioanry that exists however...

The paper dictionary is larger and not as convenient to carry around the Electronic Casio XD-470 which is small and convenient.

Kodansha has 20,000 compounds
Casio has 108,000 compounds plus a Japanese to English, English to Japanese dictionary.

To use Kodansha you have to know something of how to look up Kanji by stroke order in the dictionary.
To use the Casio you simply have to know basic lessons on stroke order and you can make a mistake and it will correct you.

With the Kodansha it takes minutes to look up a compound
With the Casio it takes seconds to write it in with the stylus

The Kodansha is about 30 bucks
The Casio is about 130 dollars

The value of being able to read a manga 10x faster than with a paper dictionary .... priceless.