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Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters 5th Edition

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James W. Heisig (Author)
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James W. Heisig (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 75 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0824831653
ISBN-10: 0824831659
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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 (75 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThe 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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4.0 out of 5 starsBottom 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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5.0 out of 5 starsFast Kanji Learning. Faster still with Online Resources
By B. Vazquez on December 21, 2008
Format: Paperback
This book delivers on it's promise. Learning in a few months the core meaning in English of over 2000 Kanji and how to draw them in proper order. The later stories in the book require the reader's active imagination, though. I would recommend the website "Reviewing the Kanji" at [...] Users post their own stories for particular Kanji, and some are truly memorable. Plus a community forum of fellow Heisig Method students for advice and encouragement. I would also recommend the Firefox add-on Moji, on: [...]
Very good for underlining and looking up Kanji, their roots, pronunciation, meaning and reference no.in a number of dictionaries.
Finally, a good Flashcard program, like Anki, with a deck in Heisig cards included, and you're good to go!
Try Heisig for a month. Give it just an hour a day and you'll be recognising over 300 common Kanjin in the Japanese press and amazing yourself. After that, you will not want to give it up.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a valid method- for some
By Michigoon VINE VOICE on September 9, 2009
Format: Paperback
Most of the positive reviews you see for this book seem to be from people who are excited to memorize so many kanji so quickly, but who don't yet realize how much work is still ahead of them. Most of the negative reviews are from people who learned or tend to learn language in a way different from this method. What neither side realizes is that this is *a* good method for introducing the kanji- it's not only one, and it might not even be the best one, but it's a good one, to the tune of a 5-star review.

The positives. Would you like to be able two write over two thousand kanji in under six months, while everyone else around you will have probably tried and failed to get even a few dozen of them down at the same time? Would you like an environment that's so fun and intuitive that it feels more like play than study? Would you like to flat-out amaze yourself with your incredible progress day-to-day? (I swear I wasn't paid to write this). Heisig's method is IN-CRED-I-BLE at making the normally daunting task of learning the kanji an absolute blast! I sat down with the sample chapter, and had over 30 kanji memorized inside of an hour. I am completely comitted to Japanese literacy now- what once seemed like the most difficult task of beginning the language (familiarizing the kanji) now feels more like educational recess. I practice my kanji on work breaks becuase it's so refreshing to immerse myself in it.

The negatives. You will recognize the kanji after this course of study, without actually knowing anything about using them. The book only gives you one very basic interpretation of a stand-alone kanji, and this is nearly useless in real literacy (even if it is a boon to memorization).Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThought You'd Never Learn the Kanji? Don't Worry. This method WORKS.

After the 250 or so kanji that I learned while studying Japanese grammar, I went into a lull of *six years* of learning essentially no new kanji, and I was almost to the point of... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Tokyo Mike
5.0 out of 5 starsThe best way for Westerners to learn kanji!

This book is truly amazing - a virtual beacon of light in the inscrutable cavern that is Japanese kanji. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Rajay Kumar
4.0 out of 5 starsThings happen.

The book is in great condition but the wrong one . This is the only reason I will not give a full five star rating. I am going to keep the item because I will eventually need it.

Published 5 months ago by Jacob
3.0 out of 5 starsI like the book a lot but the digital version needs ...

I like the book a lot but the digital version needs some assistance some of the kanji doesn't appear. Instead you get a random emoji picture.

Published 6 months ago by Golden
4.0 out of 5 starsGood book with good information

Good book with good information. I had to contact my seller but they where very nice and helped me out with my issue.

Published 7 months ago by Steven Immekus
4.0 out of 5 starsAbsolutely Adequate!

Yes! Adequate. While I enjoy learning and knowing the kanji by Heisig's pneumonics and stories, they do little good without learning how to SPEAK them. Read more

Published 8 months ago by brainhoney
5.0 out of 5 starsDo 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 23 months ago by Matthew M Everett
4.0 out of 5 starsIt'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 on January 12, 2014 by arleas
5.0 out of 5 starsFreaking 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 on January 6, 2013 by Alexander
5.0 out of 5 starsabsolutely 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

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