Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged For Learning And Reference,   ISBN:9780834802223

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Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged For Learning And Reference

The title of the book sums it all up. People have said but i'll repeat. This is by no means a complete book that you can buy and learn just from it. It really shines as a REFERENCE book and it is OK as learning book.

This is the book that you want to have with you all time, because it's small and have all the basic kanji, just bring this to you class or something, it's way more pratical than any kanji dictionary. It's NOT something you can bring in your pocket, but is small enough to place in you backpack or you can just carry arround in your hand.

As a learning tool i find this book to be ok, the kanjis are arranged in such a way that all the compounds are made using previous kanjis with is very nice for memorization. You don't have a lot of info for each kanji so it can confuse you some times, it would be better to give you a sentence instead of a compound, but that wold make the book a litte bigger.

I have two main complaints with this book. First: romaji. If you are a japanese student (not even a serious one, just a japanese student) you need to know AT LEAST the kana and katakana, so romaji is a BIG no. Second: material quality. The book is not made with cheap material, but it could be nicer. The paper could be dictionary quality like, that would make the book even thinner, i find the paper in this book to be to thick (it could just be me).

I recommend this book only if you are also geting a kanji dictionary, this is suposed to be a tool of integration and reference, you should have that in mind. Overall a good book.

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Essential Kanji is just what it advertises- one guide for learning and memorizing kanji. To begin, a note for absolute beginners- the Japanese Ministry of Education set forth a list of "essential" kanji for their frequency, everyday use, etc. This book is essentially just an expansion of that list to present the 2,000 most important Kanji the author believes you need to learn and memorize to become fluent with written Japanese.

You must understand up front that this is not nor is it meant to be a complete book on Japanese writing. The kana (hiragana and/or katakana) are not at all included. This book is only meant to teach you the kanji, and so everything is in English except for the kanji themselves. It is thus meant to be part of a larger Japanese course, a role it accomplishes in spades.

The book has three parts- an introduction, the kanji, and index(es). The introduction is a *very* condensed look at how the kanji came to be, and why the guide is set up as it is. For absolute beginners, this introduction alone could take a week to fully parse. However, that's again assuming you're using this as your only book, which shouldn't be the case. You should be cracking open this book because you're taking a Japanese course separately and need to start memorizing the kanji, in which case the introduction is merely thorough yet concise.

The meat of the book is the actual kanji. Each kanji is presented in beautiful calligraphy, with hints on stroke order. You also get both the ON and KUN readings, as well as a short bit on the "definition" of the kanji. I say "definition" as many kanji can have multiple meanings, and this book only gives a few of the most common in a few lines to aid memorization without cluttering the process. You also get a few uses of the kanji, and in a really interesting twist, kanji used in this portion are only drafted from previous entries in the book. Thus, the third kanji will have usages that involve the first two to tie things together, and this roughly continues through the book. Those fluent in the language may find some of these usages to be a bit awkward, but they're all technically correct, and are clearly meant to aid memorization instead of serving as a phrasebook.

The closing of the book tries to give you some fast ways to look up kanji, but this is always problematic. Each kanji is referenced in a separate section be stroke order and by reading, but many kanji may have the same stroke order or the same readings, so this guide is of limited use. It'll help you in a pinch assuming you know either the reading or the correct stroke count, but it's not at all useful as a dictionary. Then again, it doesn't advertise itself as such either, so it's hard to mark it down for that.

So overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It is what it is- a guide to help you memorize essential kanji. It is not a complete language program, it is not a dictionary, or a phrasebook. But if you're a self-learner, or even part of a class and you just need a leg up on the kanji, this book should become an "Essential" part of your collection. The only way it could possibly be better would be if it also gave you the pronunciation/breakdown of each kanji using the kana, since that's the form you're most likely to see them in. Japanese manga, for instance, might use small kana to help readers who might not be up on the more difficult kanji yet- it would be useful to know both forms.

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This book is absolutely must-have for everyone who intended to study Japanese. I found it very helpful also for my calligraphy practicing. Highly recommended!

Customer Rating: 

This was a definite must. It has very concise pictures and definitions of 2000 kanji.

Any intelligent person could memorize 10-30 per day using this and flashcards.

I would highly recommend it to anyone with a brain.

Customer Rating: 

I've been studying japanese for some time and when it was time to start studying kanji seriously I spent a lot of time comparing different kanji books.

I was fed up with stupid mnemonic rules such as drawings, small stories for each kanji.... That nonsense is useless. If you have to learn kanji, there's no other option than studying and working hard.

This book has everything you need to learn kanji, but don't misunderstand me: it won't do any miracles as it's you the one who has to study and do the effort.

The book contains 2000 essential kanji. For each kanji it gives:
- Complete stroke order
- Different typographies: brush, handwriting, and normal "newspaper" one.
- On readings
- Kun readings
- English meaning
- Modern chinese reading
- A couple of compounds

The book only uses in the examples kanji which have been already learnt, so it is a nice way of reviewing.

It actually gives even more information. For instance, there are certain kanjis whose on readings can be used as a sole word, even if they aren't part of a compound. Those are indicated as well. There's also information on the modern chinese pronunciation, but I don't know what that is as I don't know chinese :P.

Some kanjis have older versions which can sometimes also be found in Japan. These are included.

The book has different indexes (by readings, by stroke number and by english meaning) which makes it really easy to find any kanji within seconds.

I really recommend this book for the serious student. There's no point in buying it if you are lazy and are expecting to learn kanji without effort with some miracle method.