The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course is an innovative and highly effective system for learning and remembering kanji, or Sino-Japanese characters. The book contains 2,300 character entries, including all 2,136 Joyo Kanji ("regular-use kanji") plus 164 of the most useful non-Joyo Kanji. It offers a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the basic meaning(s) of each character, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization. Each kanji is accompanied by an explanation of how to remember its meaning(s) clearly and distinctly. These mnemonic explanations teach you to associate each kanji’s graphical form with its unique range of meaning, often by "seeing" its meaning in the form of the kanji itself. An outstanding feature of the course is the special attention it gives to the challenge of learning each kanji in a differentiated way. This allows you to associate the meaning of each character with the features that distinguish it from graphically similar characters. Another unique feature—and a significant breakthrough in kanji pedagogy—is the sequence in which the course introduces kanji. Most kanji dictionaries and textbooks arrange their entries in ways that do not address the needs of non-native learners, such as by traditional radical or by the grades in which the kanji are taught in Japanese schools. The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course uses an original sequence that presents graphically related characters one after the other to help you give significance to their contrastive features as you learn them, and thereby avoid having to relearn them later. It also introduces the meaning and usage of each graphical element—each kanji building block—the first time it appears, thus enabling you to seamlessly and rapidly acquire new characters. In short, The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course makes learning and remembering kanji easier than ever before. This book fills an urgent need for a timesaving yet sophisticated kanji-learning system that can be used from beginning through advanced levels—an enjoyable, no-nonsense path to proficiency. It is intended for anyone serious about learning to read Japanese. Features: Includes 2,300 kanji entries Completely up-to-date: includes all the 2,136 officially prescribed Joyo Kanji ("kanji for regular use") Each entry explains how to remember the character’s meaning clearly and distinctly, often through the innovative use of visualization and concrete imagery Introduces kanji components in a logical, step-by-step order that makes learning new kanji easier than ever Can be used as a stand-alone resource or together with The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary. Includes cross-references, character meanings, readings, and sample vocabulary from the dictionary.

Following the first volume of Remembering the Kanji, the present work provides students with helpful tools for learning the pronunciation of the kanji. Behind the notorious inconsistencies in the way the Japanese language has come to pronounce the characters it received from China lie several coherent patterns. Identifying these patterns and arranging them in logical order can reduce dramatically the amount of time spent in the brute memorization of sounds unrelated to written forms. Many of the “primitive elements,” or building blocks, used in the drawing of the characters also serve to indicate the “Chinese reading” that particular kanji use, chiefly in compound terms. By learning one of the kanji that uses such a “signal primitive,” one can learn the entire group at the same time. In this way, Remembering the Kanji 2 lays out the varieties of phonetic pattern and offers helpful hints for learning readings, that might otherwise appear completely random, in an efficient and rational way. Individual frames cross-reference the kanji to alternate readings and to the frame in volume 1 in which the meaning and writing of the kanji was first introduced. A parallel system of pronouncing the kanji, their “Japanese readings,” uses native Japanese words assigned to particular Chinese characters. Although these are more easily learned because of the association of the meaning to a single word, the author creates a kind of phonetic alphabet of single syllable words, each connected to a simple Japanese word, and shows how they can be combined to help memorize particularly troublesome vocabulary. The 4th edition has been updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji.

With The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary: Revised and Expanded, learners finally have at their fingertips accurate and in-depth information on all the kanji prescribed by the Japanese government. In all, 3,002 characters—772 more than in the first edition—fill its pages, making it the most comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary of its kind. The main goal of the dictionary is to give the learner instant access to a wealth of useful information on kanji, including their meanings, readings, stroke order, and usage in compounds. Compounds pose a special problem for learners. Normally one must memorize them as unrelated units. A unique feature of this dictionary that overcomes this difficulty is the core meaning, a concise keyword that defines the dominant sense of each kanji, followed by character meanings, or specific senses the kanji can have when used in the living language. Together these features help learners understand the logic behind compound formation. Another unique feature is the System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns (SKIP), a revolutionary indexing system that has gained widespread popularity because it enables the user to locate characters as quickly and as accurately as in alphabetical dictionaries. With SKIP, all one needs to do to find a kanji is identify the geometrical pattern to which it belongs, then count the strokes in each part of that pattern—a much speedier process than searching by traditional methods. These features, and many more, make this dictionary the most powerful kanji-learning tool ever devised.

With 30,000 exercises graded kanji-by-kanji, parallel English text, pronunciation guides, and extensive grammar support, the Kanji Learner's Course Graded Reading Sets series is the most powerful Japanese reading comprehension tool available today. While its sequence follows that of Kodansha's widely acclaimed Kanji Learner's Course, the series is an irreplaceable resource even for those who have studied kanji by other methods.This Volume 1, covering the first 100 kanji in the course, consists of 990 exercises containing 3,600 kanji. The exercises for each entry contain only kanji previously introduced, and are designed to give you contextualized practice with reading kanji, kanji-based vocabulary, and a wide range of grammatical patterns. The Graded Reading Sets allow you to immediately apply each kanji you learn, and continuously review what you have already studied.Each exercise appears in three parallel forms: Japanese text, Japanese text with phonetic guides, and English equivalent. Phonetic guides indicate word division as an additional learning aid. To further accelerate your learning, this book introduces hundreds of key grammatical structures as they appear, with cross-references that allow you to quickly find in-depth information about any structure that may be unfamiliar to you. This contextualized grammar support allows you to master a wide range of sentence patterns through the natural process of reading and understanding.Each volume in the series is supported by several files accessible through the user-support website, including a comprehensive index of 640+ grammar glosses, and a cross-reference database allowing you to quickly locate the KLC entry of any of the 0.25 million kanji appearing in the series. Kindle's easy-to-activate bilingual dictionary allows you to look up any unfamiliar words with a couple of taps.Begin experiencing the pleasure of reading and understanding authentic Japanese, including an ever-expanding range of kanji, kanji-based words, and grammar patterns. By reading a large volume of material that you can understand, you will absorb grammar, vocabulary words, and subtleties of usage in the most natural and enjoyable way.

The Kanji Learner's Course Green Book offers the most convenient way to practice the writing of all 2,300 kanji in the widely praised Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course.Even today when most learners are focused on learning to read kanji rather than to write them, handwriting practice remains essential. Integrating hand-eye coordination with the kinesthetic experience of each kanji's stroke sequence, handwriting improves your ability to recognize each kanji, grasp intuitively how it is put together, and distinguish it from lookalikes.Designed to help you use your study time most efficiently, this simple little workbook contains just the right quantity of writing spaces -- four large spaces followed by seven small spaces -- to give you enough practice for each character. It also offers you:* Convenience: Following the Course sequence entry by entry, the Green Book makes it easy for you to structure the right amount of handwriting practice into your study routine, experience a sense of creative accomplishment, and exploit the Course's full value.* A broad overview of groups of related kanji: Displaying forty kanji per spread, it also allows you to survey the Course's graphically related groupings, consider the similarities and differences among nearby characters, and fully absorb how each kanji's unique features and composition relate to its meaning.* A good solution for mastering stroke order: Each entry contains both a guide character and tracing characters, but deliberately excludes stroke order to allow you to develop an independent mastery of kanji composition. The main Course book provides stroke order diagrams for when you need them, but this will not be very often provided you follow the Course's graphically cumulative sequence and practice writing every kanji as you go.* Guidance for mastering proper stroke forms: Both the guide characters and the practice squares are cross-hatched to help you achieve precise form.* Savings: Standard genk�y�shi manuscript paper typically costs around US$7-12 online. The Green Book is priced toward the bottom of this range while offering unique convenience for users of the Kanji Learner's Course.

V. 1. A complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters.

Volume 2 (4th ed.) updated to include the 196 kanja approved in 2010 for general use.

Memorising kanji readings is one of the biggest hurdles when learning Japanese. The Kanji Code teaches a systematic method of learning the readings of kanji or Chinese characters. By studying phonetic components and other visual clues, students of Japanese can reduce their reliance on rote memorisation and feel more in control of their learning.

A groundbreaking bilingual kanji thesaurus that provides intermediate and advanced-level users with complete, precise guidance on the distinctions between characters of similar meanings. The Kodansha Kanji Synonyms Guide is the first-ever reference work to group together kanji characters that are related in meaning but different in detail. Arranged alphabetically by concept, these groupings let users focus on the often-subtle differences and similarities between them. Like The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary, and all of Jack Halpern's previous publications, The Kodansha Kanji Synonyms Guide is an innovative, authoritative, and impeccably-prepared resource that helps Japanese language learners deepen their knowledge of written Japanese, and provides educators, scholars, writers, and translators with an invaluable reference tool.