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Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters Paperback – May 1, 2007

by James W. Heisig (Author)

70 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0824831653 ISBN-10: 0824831659 Edition: 5^th

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The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because - contrary to first impressions - it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume).

Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

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Product Details

Paperback: 460 pages
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press; 5 edition (May 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0824831659
ISBN-13: 978-0824831653
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James W. Heisig is professor and permanent research fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya.

Customer Reviews

(70)

4.3 out of 5 stars

5 star		47
4 star		12
3 star		2
2 star		3
1 star		6

See all 70 customer reviews

In this particular book what it does is concentrate on HOW TO WRITE it and what the kanji means.

Dust

This book is definitely one to try if you are serious about learning Japanese and are having trouble remembering all the characters.

Katrine Lundager

My daughter is currently teaching English in Japan and is using this book to learn the Japanese language.

F. Sherer

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful

The Biggest Investment

By E. Frias on March 27, 2009

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Anyone who states that the Heisig method for learning kanji does not work, says so because they have not tried it. I, myself, was Anti-Heisig for a good 5 years after I saw it on the bookshelf. I remember picking it up and saying "Ha, this book is a joke! It ONLY teaches you the meaning? WHAT A JOKE!!", and I also remember putting it back on the shelf and walking away from it not knowing what a gold mine I had just passed up on. After finding about the AJATT method for learning Japanese (you MUST google AJATT if you really want to learn Japanese), I completed Heisig's Remembering the Kanji book 1 + 3 and in 6 months I was able to learn 3,000 kanji perfectly! I could recognize every single kanji in books and instead of drawing blanks when I would see kanjis, I now see meanings. After the 6 months of studying the kanjis, I started learning to read real Japanese kanji in context through sentences found in the Yahoo Jiten (Yahoo online Japanese Dictionary). After about a year of studying sentences with learning to read the kanji in context like a real Japanese person, I am able to communicate with online Japanese friends, have a normal conversation in Japanese, and read fiction books.

After Heisig, this is how you will learn Kanji readings. After looking up a word, let's say "Sunshine" you'll see that it is pronounced as "youkou" and it's kanjis are Sunshine+Ray. That's it, you're done. It's that simple! Now whenever you see Sunshine+Ray together you know it's read "youkou". After graduating from Heisig, you won't waste countless hours writing out the kanjis to memorize them because you HAVE ALREADY MEMORIZED THEM. That is a such a gift. Genius.

I used to HATE Heisig, I used to think that it was the stupidest way of learning kanji, but now after graduating from Remembering the Kanji, I bow my head in humility to Heisig because Remembering the Kanji and the AJATT method of learning Japanese have blessed me with the gift of fluency. I did it, and you can too.

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

Bottom line: it works.

By Micah Cowan on September 20, 2010

Format: Paperback

Bottom Line: It works

Okay, so here's the bottom line. It _works_. It does precisely what it sets out to do. I've been studying the Japanese language since I was 13 years old; it's now been about 20 years of studying the language. It hasn't been entirely consistent; it has often been a few months on (full-bore), a few months off (after burnout). Before I worked through RTK, I was probably familiar with around 300-400 of the most frequently-used kanji. I could never seem to get much past that hump, it always felt very much like an uphill battle, and even though I'd hit the foot of the hill running full-bore, I'd never quite make it to the top before, exhausted, I'd start to slip downhill again.

I'd beat my head against a Japanese Reader (A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library)) for a while, which, though organized in such a way as to intrudce a few characters at a time, instead of leaving you to deal with whatever characters you may happen to find in other reading materials, still progressed fairly rapidly, and was also fairly outdated. Then I'd beat my head against some "real" reading material for a while. Then I'd try to ramp myself up on gradeschool-level texts, so there'd be fewer kanji to deal with; but this doesn't necessarily help so much, since kanji can often be a key to understanding a compound word's roots, and help a good deal in learning the words from which they're built.

The problem is, every time I came to an unfamiliar kanji, it would put a hard stop to the flow of my reading.Read more ›

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

For students without a kanji-based primary education, this is the only way to go.

By Peter P. Parisi on October 14, 2007

Format: Paperback

Several reviewers have downgraded this book because it wasn't what they expected. You should know up front: the book teaches nothing beyond the kanji. You will not learn a single Japanese word from this book. This is the book's strength! With a little exertion of the imagination, you learn the Japanese characters in a rational way, through a technique called "component-analysis." That is, Mr. Heisig has broken the characters down into elements that combine with each other to produce more complicated characters.

Heisig's motto is "Divide and conquer." He isn't kidding. If you manage to get through this book--and I grant that it is not easy, just easier than the way the average Japanese child does it!--you will have overcome the greatest obstacle to fluency in Japanese. The grammar is not complicated and the vocabulary no harder than that of any other language. It is the task of learning about 2000 intricate ideographs that defeats most students.

Don't take my word for it: go to a website called "Reviewing the Kanji" and see for yourself. Check out another site called "Kanjiclinic." The book has strong partisans because it works.

Finally, while some students have had remarkable success, learning all 1945 kanji in as short a time as three months, don't be afraid to take your time. Consider: if it takes you 4 years to complete this book, learning 1-3 kanji a day in your spare time, you will have completed the task in less than half the time it takes a Japanese child, studying an hour or two every school day.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Do your research-- you'll see that Heisig is the absolute best method...

I lived in Japan 5 years ago and haven't studied written Japanese since then. I STILL remember half of the kanji (meanings, not necessarily the pronunciation, as this book just... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Matthew M Everett

It's a pretty decent introduction to Kanji

It doesn't give you Japanese pronunciations or words or anything, but if all you needed was a mnemonic and the meaning of the kanji, this does a great job of helping you to fit it... Read more

Published 9 months ago by arleas

Freaking LOVE it!

I love this book because it actually helps you remember the meaning of the kanji. You DO need an imagination for later parts of the book in order to create your own story, but if... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Alexander

absolutely essential book!!!

uses the highly engagable 'imaginiative memory' rather than the much more absent-minded 'visual memory'. FANTASTIC...takes the intimidation out of learning Kanji

Published on October 8, 2012 by C. Bowen

Some find this excellent, others not so much

Many find the Heisig method the best way to learn kanji. Not everyone, however, learns in precisely the same way, and what works well for one individual may not be appropriate for... Read more

Published on August 12, 2012 by Easton Reader

Never forget how to write a kanji!

NOTE: The following review is tweaked from my blog:

As a student of Japanese, you eventually have to learn kanji; however, it's something that many of us are afraid of. Read more

Published on October 6, 2011 by Kenrick Chien

Great system, depending on your goals

I've been using Heisig's book for about 7 weeks, and have "learned" 310 kanji during that time. I wanted to share some of my experiences and thoughts to add to the other thoughtful... Read more

Published on July 16, 2011 by Sitting in Seattle

Re-print Now available through University of Hawaii Press

I haven't received my copy yet, but found this book on the University of Hawaii Press website for $34!! Yay for reprints! Read more

Published on July 11, 2011 by darchangell

Great book

My daughter is currently teaching English in Japan and is using this book to learn the Japanese language. She really likes it.

Published on June 22, 2011 by F. Sherer

Not smooth sailing, but sailing nonetheless

After finishing the first volume of this book today I feel somewhat inclined to share my honest opinion about it with any potential learners of the Japaneses Language. Read more

Published on March 19, 2011 by Kuma