Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent language learning source!, January 15, 2000
I own the Tuttle Kanji Cards I and II. When I first started using these, I only knew about 80 kanji, now I know around 600. What I liked the best about these cards were: 1.) It has a stroke order (in the first set of cards) and shows you how to draw them.2.) It comes with 4 combinations per card. (some do repeat however, and it doesn't tell you if that particular kanji can be used alone, but I suppose a kanji dictionary would suffice for that) 3.) It breaks it up into two parts (unless it's a kanji radical), which can help in memorization. 4.) The cards are divided into grades, which gives you some idea of how much you actually know. (my recommendation for learning: learn in a set of 10, and repeat that set until you memorize it. I usually learn about 50 cards at once this way. Even memorizing 100 cards in one sitting is possible!)
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Get the White Rabbit cards, December 26, 2005
I had already purchased the 1,000+ Tuttle (aka Alexander Kask) cards, but I was convinced to try the first set of the White Rabbit cards. I think the White Rabbit cards are far superior:
*I know romaji is in frequent use. However, think about a Japanese person using katakana to learn English long after the novice level. Ridiculous, right? Very.
*The layout makes a lot more sense on the White Rabbit cards. The layout on the Tuttle cards is poorly thought through, the kanji stroke orders are on the back, and the radical meanings are on the front, which means that I need to cover parts up if I want to use them as flash cards. The White Rabbit cards have a much more useful layout, making them better as flashcards.
*The examples are way more relevant on the White Rabbit cards. The Tuttle examples are often so obscure I don't see any reason to learn them. But the examples on the White Rabbit cards are words are phrases I can actually see myself using.
*Also, the White Rabbit cards are ordered to fit the JLPT, while the Tuttle cards fit the grade school levels. There are so many different kanji to learn that it's worth giving thought to which ones are important to learn first. For an adult learner, the JLPT ordering will give you more useful kanji first.
*Not that this is the most important thing, but the White Rabbit cards are also made out of a sturdier material, so they will last much longer.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
You get what you pay for, July 19, 2004
By A Customer
These cards are cheap. At $13.97 they are about $.03 per card, but you get what you pay for: poorly design cards printed on small, thin squares of paper; stroke order characters scrawled by hand; and the use of romanji despite strong sentiment among educators that it should be abandoned as it interferes with mastering basic kana skills. I give this product only 1 star because even though it is very cheap, I still felt a little ripped off because the quality is so poor.I recommend 'Japanese Kanji Flashcards 1' published by White Rabbit Press, ISBN 0974869406. True they cost a few cents more per cards, but they are well worth it. I bought mine through the "New and Used" link so I paid about six-and-a-half cents per card, but the features are well worth it for me: the design and printing is excellent, you get more vocab, better definitions, images of kanji which look similar so you don't get confused them, stroke order diagrams in typeset fonts (not handwritten); and, of course, readings in kana scripts (no romanji). Also, they are the same size and shape as regular playing cards, a little large for some people's hands, but I've gotten use to them. Learning kanji is a lot of hard work. If you are a student on a very limited budget, then the Tuttles cards do have the basic kanji information in a flashcard format, but if you can afford a few pennies more per card I recommend investing in the "Japanese Kanji Flashcards 1" product--you get a lot more for the money. It's worth is just for the extra example words (six per card). The biggest problem with the White Rabbit Press cards is that there aren't enough of them. I have written the publisher about this, and they said we can expect Set 2 with 700+ cards sometime later this year, so hopefully they will be out by the time I'm finished with Set 1. Nihongo Ganbatte!
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