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A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese: Fourth Edition, JLPT All Levels (2,136 Japanese Kanji Characters) 4th Edition

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Florence Sakade (Author)
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Florence Sakade (Author), Janet Ikeda (Editor)
4.0 out of 5 stars 8 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 860-1421990417
ISBN-10: 4805311738
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Tuttle Publishing; 4 edition (November 12, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 4805311738
  • ISBN-13: 978-4805311738
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsCould be better especially with kana
By lin golden on November 12, 2013
Format: Paperback
A lot of Japanese learners still want to be able to hand write kanji legibly and with some beauty, and as well, read it if it is hand written. A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese: A Comprehensive Guide to the Japanese Writing System might help you with these goals.

However this Guide is not all the book it could/should be. My impression is that it was somehow rushed to press and perhaps squeezed into some parameters of space or length to be part of a "same format" series, (which would include 600 Basic Japanese Verbs). This may have limited or confused the aims of this book. I mention both the problems and what I found good about the Guide below.

Here is how the book is set up: Each of the 1006 "Essential Characters", those taught in grades 1-6 elementary school in Japan, is given in a generous 1/2 inch high by a bit wider kanji and then with smaller size for the stroke diagrams in 9 squares. Each kanji character is given in a beautiful type face (for me, the biggest asset of this book) and are clear with wide to tapering strokes. For writing the strokes you must depend on the diagrams but first read the introduction which gives some important basic, though limited, information on "the priorities of stroke order". As there are no numbers given for start of strokes or arrows for direction, you do have to bring some intelligence to the process. I am not against this, as a little work could help solidify the learning.

There are kanji with more than 9 strokes, so condensed stroke diagrams are given in these cases. As an example, the kanji for "mouth" is 3 strokes and occurs early in the book, on page 7.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsIndispensable -- but with flaws.
By Thomas J. Brucia on February 7, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Indispensable. The only reasons I don't give a five-star is that the "Index of Readings" in this fourth edition are frequently incorrect. (I've learned when it says page 145, column a, to check a few pages further on to the that kanji.) I don't find the new 'radical index' to be very useful, but that may not be true of others (especially those familiar with radicals because they are native Chinese readers. One thing seldom mentioned is the cover. Reference books (and this is definitely a reference book) absolutely need strong and durable covers. This work meets that standard!
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2.0 out of 5 starsWhile once essential in a time when students made their own flashcards, this entire approach has been superseded by apps
By Christopher Culver TOP 1000 REVIEWER on October 8, 2015
Format: Paperback
Since it was first published in 1959, this book has taught the kanji to generations of Japanese learners and has seen frequent new printings and passed through successive editions. Those new editions (the 4th is out as I write this) have generally been released to match new Japanese government education standards for learning the kanji, so foreigners can learn the particular kanji, and in the particular order that Japanese pupils would.

But all you are getting here is a dry list of each of the 2136 kanji, the order in which it is written stroke by stroke, its readings (in romanization only, not kana), and three or so example Japanese words that use the kanji along with romanization and English translation. Once upon a time, students would have painstakingly written out flashcards from this material. Nowadays, however, there are many apps out there for smartphones and tablets that contain these kanji, often similarly tiered for students working towards e.g. the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), and which can teach you with highly effective spaced repetition algorithms.

Consequently, it's hard to recommend a purchase of A GUIDE TO READING A WRITING JAPANESE. Even those who obtain this book may find it gathering dust as soon as they discover a kanji reference for their particular smartphone or tablet device. Instead of this, I'd recommend shopping around for a graded Japanese reader, because while learning the kanji through rote memorization is one thing, feeling comfortable with them in practice requires exhaustive reading of texts where you encounter them in real use.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThis book shows students how to properly write (form)Japanese Kanji and Kana characters
By Dick1 on March 2, 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
It also provides the primary English meaning of the Kanji. What it does is terrific, for me. It is not a dictionary. Beyond the above, it is not much of a guide to learning how to read and write Japanese either. But it shows the strokes for the most commonly used Kanji and I find that very useful. I would recommend it to English speaking students of Japanese Kanji as a supplement to their other texts.

This book is an updated version of the 1959 edition. It has most of the new characters--2136 Kanji. I bought it because I have been using the 1959 edition for years and it is falling apart. Amazon describes this as a paperback but it is a Hard paperback and should give me another 50 years of service..
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