Customer Reviews

Reading Japanese (Yale Language Series)

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

 

 

In common with other reviewers ot this book, I have a great collection of books for learning Japanese, and this is simply the best for learning (reading, writing, and remembering) Kanji.

Of course, it was of great help that I had already a previous knowledge of the language (vocabulary, grammar, hiragana, katakana, etc.), so I just could focus in learning kanji.

The advantages of this book are: 1) there is a constant repetition of the kanji already learned and 2) what is much more important: only kanji that have been dealt with are used in the examples and the reading material (and this feature, believe me, is unique to this book and makes it stand above the rest of the books for learning kanji, where the example sentences use kanji that you do not know how to read or their meaning, rendering these books unusable for the proposed task).

So, if you want to avoid for yourself the suffering that others (including myself) have gone through, buy this book and forget about the rest.

Although there are plenty of mnemonic systems to learn kanji, such as Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" and Rowley's excellent "Kanji Pict-o-grafix", this is by far the best way to RETAIN the characters, and to actually read - instead of visually decode them. The examples following each kanji are numerous and include varying levels of formality, and are mixed male and female responses. This makes for excellent cross-study, and further reinforces the varietous ways in which kanji are used in Japanese writing. I would suggest the Heisig or Rowley to supplement this book, as both of those two employ a system which breaks down kanji into its 'radicals', which is very useful for trying to visually decipher new characters, but for sheer drills and practice, this is the only way to go. I am on my second copy of this text, as the first one was totally worn out, which by itself makes quite a strong statement - that didn't even happen to my school-assigned Japanese textbooks!

Of all the Kanji related books I've purchased over the last four years since I began studying Japanese, this book is without question the single, most useful reference I've come across. The Kanji are presented one at a time, with its reading and its meaning, and then example phrases and sentences are given. Most importantly, these Kanji resurface over and over again as you progress through the book, making you learn through repetition. If you're looking for a firm foothold on the slippery slope of learning Kanji, start with this book.

This is really the best book for learning to read Japanese. The book certainly doesn't teach the grammar. But the Kanji characters are introduced in small chunks at a time and literally drilled into the head by the exercises. The authors have also included the texts in hand-written Japanese which is very useful.

I have only one complaint about this book - It does assume a knowledge of the authors' "Beginning Japanese". Not having read that book, I found the transliteration of the Kanji characters to be quite odd. For example, the authors have used "h" for "f" etc. So, unless a dictionary or teacher is consulted, the student is bound to make mistakes. It may not be fully suited for self-study.

Having just purchased and started on KANJI FROM THE START I am once again reminded of how lacking so many other kanji books are, and I own quite a few! There is nothing like READING JAPANESE out there. There really should be, and like other reviewers note, why there isn't a volume 2 and 3 etc., is beyond imagination!
I enjoy studying RJ but keep my eyes out for other books to get a little variety. Nothing else comes close. I studied Heisig's READING THE KANJI before beginning RJ (with great success, also a must!), hence know all the kanji by keyword meaning. If only the readings could be so easy! Well RJ is definately the biggest help so far.
RJ is meant to be studied as a companion text to BEGINNING JAPANESE I&II. These are both excellent books (and audio) and you would NOT be wasting your time studying them either.BUT, as educational as they are... they're not too exciting. To be honest, I don't know how long I would have lasted if I didn't already know most of the material in BJ I&II, good luck with that anyway.
So, I am very thankful that I was convinced (by AMAZON.com reveiwers, thank YOU!) to purchase both REMEMBERING THE KANJI and READING JAPANESE. However, having to do over again, I think that RJ is more valuable, at least in the short term. What the hay? Just study them both! They are the only kanji books you will need for a good 6 months. (And I do mean good!).

In all my years of studying Japanese, this is easily the best text I came across. If you are interested in learning how to read the language my advice is very simple: digest this book completely and utterly! The methodology - introducing kanji and then reviewing them periodically - is outstanding. I used this book fully 11 years ago and remember it like it was yesterday!

I have just finished working my way through this entire book with a tutor. It took something like 2 years, but I feel it was probably the best way to learn this material without a formal class and without being in Japan. WHERE IS VOLUME 2? I now know the 425 Kanji in this book (plus quite a few more), but I need a source to learn the 1,500 still to go.

This is a truly excellent resource for learning written Japanese. Great pains were taken to introduce the characters in such a way that they can be used immediately and repeatedly from that point forward. For instance, when beginning with the Katakana characters, rather than teaching the characters in canonical order, it starts with just the two characters "su" and "mi", and from those teaches you to write "Sue", "Smith", "Miss Sue Smith", etc. It then quickly builds on these, ensuring at each step that the next small set of characters introduces a large array of new things you can immediately learn to write.

Accusations that the material is out-of-date, are not wrong (this is the reason I must give the book four stars rather than five). The book was published in 1976! Much of the kanji is used a little differently, or has been replaced in certain uses by other characters. Of course, most of it is still applicable, and when no newer resources come even close to being as effective, you learn you must make do with information that may be out-of-date--better to have slightly-dated but solid knowledge of the most common uses of several hundred kanji than to continue to struggle to learn your first hundred or so.

Note that the author has written a more recently-published set of books, Japanese: The Written Language: Part 1, Volume 1 (Workbook) (Yale Language Series); I have not examined these but I suspect they may correspond to much of the same material, but perhaps more recently-updated. It might be worthwhile to look into those.

This book, Reading Japanese, is intended to be used in conjunction with a companion grammar book, Beginning Japanese: Part 1 (Yale Language Series) (Pt. 1). However, if you are already familiar with basic Japanese grammar, you will probably find that you can do without the companion.

A note on romanization: you should not be scared off by the fact that it uses "si" instead of "shi", or "hu" instead of "fu". Many Japanese will romanize similarly, and a serious student of the language will need to become comfortable with systems such as Kun'rei-shiki in addition to the more popular (at least among English speakers) Hepburn romanization system. Recognizing "si" and "shi" as the same phoneme with the same pronunciation will help the student become stronger in the language.

Weighing in at only 425 kanji, this book will clearly not be enough on its own to give you command of the written language; but it provides a very excellent start. Follow it up with something like A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) (another somewhat-dated but excellent book), which covers a much fuller set.

I have purchased quite a few books for kanji study in the past few years and this is probably the best of them all. I like the way the book only shows you kanji used in sample sentences only after you have learned them, which effectively gets you used to reading kanji pretty often, without the stress of random new kanji. All examples are well presented and easy to absorb. It also shows how the kanji looks as it is typed out as well as written out, which can be a bit different. The flaws of this book, is that it uses somewhat different romaji spellings (like TI for CHI) for pronunciations, and also should use hiragana/katakana or at least offer them as well for readings of kanji.
Some people may find the TI/CHI thing a big flaw, but you get used to it after seeing it a few times, and I was able to overlook it especially when everything else of this book is well done. WHY did I buy the other kanji books istead of just sticking with this?... Well, for one, I actually like to see different styles of teaching kanji, but also because (another flaw of this book)it is BIG. It's almost triple the size of other kanji books, so it isnt easily carried around. I used this for home study and toss the other books into my back to study elsewhere.

In the introduction of RJ, the authors mention the fact that RJ is synchronized with Basic Japanese volume 1 (lessons 1-20) and volume 2 (lessons 21-35), e.g., "RJ presumes control of BJ 18, RJ 24 of BJ 34 etc.".So one should read BJ lessons 1-10 before starting to study RJ.
The romaji notation used by the authors in BJ and RJ is not the Hepburn one, and can be a source of errors for a true beginner, The Hepburn system seems more familiar.
There is a total absence of furigana characters to assist in Kanji reading. Those characters are helpful in the beginning. Their absence pushes one to double check the pronunciation of the Kanjis.
It is not exactly a self teaching guide, no keys to the exercices.
About the progressive introduction of Kanjis and their easy and permanent memorization, i am not far enough in the book to tell.