Japanese Kanji & Kana Revised Edition: A Guide to the Japanese Writing System

This book includes the entire Jouyou Kanji list (1,945 characters), as well as complete hiragana and katakana, all of which are required to be considered literate in Japanese. This alone makes the book an excellent learning tool for any beginner ready to tackle the written language. Each kanji symbol is followed with romanized readings, as well as several common compound words it may be found in. Every symbol even provides stroke order, to aid in proper writing techniques. The book pushes beyond the basics, however, also including a list of nearly 300 kanji that can be found in names. The first section of the book provides comprehensive reading for any level student, featuring history, styles, rules, punctuation, and more, for the written language. The indexes in the back give the learner three methods of searching for kanji: by radical, by stroke count, or by reading. While this book will not provide the reader with a complete list of the thousands of kanji that exist, it is an excellent tool with which to start at the basics and help you work your way towards fluency.

I think so highly of this book that I have purchased 4 copies of it. Two for myself (I wore out the first one, because I used it so much doing translation work.) and two other I bought as gifts. This book is great. You can look up Kanji using three methods-either by radical, stroke or its readings. I've using this book for sometime, I am now able locate any kanji character within mere seconds. If you need to translate Japanese or need help learning Kanji this is a great book for you. I own around 40 books on the Japanese language and this is one of my favorites. Highly recommended!

Though there are other books for kanji learning, this is truly the best out there for beginners, because not only this one includes stroke order of all the 1945 Jouyou Kanji (the number you need to learn in order to be able to read almost any japanese text without using the dictionary too much; actually you begin to feel comfortable reading once you get past the 1000 kanji), but it also has some preliminary -and very useful- statements on the use of japanese characters. The indexing systems are OK and easy to use. If you are looking for an electronic dictionary for kanji lookup, you may wanna try JWPce's. This is a japanese-capable wordprocessor (freeware) downloadable ....It has many ways to look up a japanese character, with info on how to locate it in famous japanese character dictionaries such as this one, Nelson's and Halpern's, along with many more goodies that'd take too long to discuss. Worth a try.

The challenge of learning Japanese has two parts: written and spoken. While the spoken part is relatively easy, the written part takes the most work. I am thankful for this book more than any other in my struggle to learn written Japanese. I used this book like flashcards, hiding parts until I could prove to myself that I had it in my long-term memory. Once I had memorized one Kanji, I would highlight it. I made a goal of learning 10 or so each day, each week logging my progress. After two years with this book I had mastered 1500 Kanji. I continued using this book while in Japan to learn all 2000. There are some characters that are in common use and are not included in the standard 2000. However, learning these basic 2000 will give you the boost you need to attain written fluency. The next challenge is learning the compound nouns, which are usually made up of two Kanji. This book provides a few common compounds, which are listed next to each entry.While this book is great for learning the individual Kanji, you will need to learn your vocabulary from an additional source.

I really recommend this handbook because of how detailed and informative it is. As one review mentions, the name section does not include stroke order but there are many characters that are similar if the not the same if stroke order is important to you. My favorite part of this book is the explanations of the radicals and origins of hiragana and katakana. It not only gives you practical kanji combinations but also introduces you to the history of writing in Japan. A wonderful reference, especially to students!