Kanji Power: A Workbook for Mastering Japanese Characters (Tuttle Language Library) (Paperback)

by John Millen (Author) "a single line, indicates the number one. It also signifies the beginning of something..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This text presents advice on how to read, write and use 240 of the most commonly-used characters in Japanese.

About the Author
After graduating from Australian National University with a degree in Japanese and Indonesian, John Millen worked for several years as a teacher of Japanese in Australia, and contributed to the Japanese-language curriculum development for Australian high schools. He is currently employed as a teacher at Seikei Gakuen in Tokyo, Japan, and has recently worked as a co-translator on Mizue Sasaki’s The Complete Japanese Expression Guide, also published by Tuttle.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (May 15, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804817251
• ISBN-13: 978-0804817257
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #136,093 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not for beginners, February 21, 2005

By	Ian R. Mcmurray "japanese student" (okinawa, japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

i am currently living in japan, studying japanese. i bought this before coming in order to study kanji. the book expressly advertises itself as a beginners book, but it isn't. when studying any individual kanji, you are expected to remember many more difficult kanji for each "6 kanji" check test. personally, i cannot remember kanji without writing it. i have showed the book's check tests to japanese co-workers who say they are really difficult, and they are fluently bilingual. i now study with kids drill books, grade one and two, and kanji power is useful as a dictionary with these drills, but as a stand alone book, it is incredibly intimidating.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite kanji book, May 9, 2004

By	"sn0tcat" (AR, USA) - See all my reviews

I have a bunch of kanji books, but Kanji Power is my favorite. I'm not a big fan of the kind that give you mnemonics to help remember the kanji, because then the mnemonic is just another thing to remember. I do pretty well with just plain memorization.

For each kanji entry, the following details are provided: on-yomi, kun-yomi, meaning, explanation of the character's shape, example sentences, common compounds, and writing practice (with tips on writing them correctly). I like that the readings are written in kana, because I'm always suspicious of romaji. Also, it helps me remember them better.

There are also quizzes and tests, but I don't find them useful. While all the kanji compounds it tests you on are listed in the kanji entry, they're not words I find very useful or common. For example, the entry for "shi/ichi" (city, market) includes these "common" compounds: "shikyou" (market conditions), "shichou" (mayor), "shiyakusho" (city hall), and "kabushiki-shijou" (stock exchange).

Personally, I like Hadamitzky and Spahn's way of showing compounds. Only compounds with kanji that have been learned previously are used. That way, even if the words aren't so common, you can write the whole word. However, I don't like the way they order the kanji, and learning them out of order makes that feature pointless.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Kanji Power Has Many Features, June 22, 2000

By A Customer

This book shows where not to make mistakes when writing characters(lines sticking out in wrong places, how to space lines)and has plenty of example sentences. It has many tests to see how you are doing. However, material in the tests are sometimes different than actual studied material. Full reading of kanji are given in the book.