Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not To Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters Paperback – 30 Jun. 2011

The mnemonics are a little cringeworthy at times (lol), but they're good starter ideas if you can think of a better one.The book itself is well written and well paced.This will show you a logical list of the 2000+ kanji: both how to draw them in their correct sequential stroke order and what they actually mean as a pictograph.What it doesn't mention, and I have paired this up nicely with this: (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/4805311703), is the on/kunyomi pronunciations and some example words/phrases that you might see each kanji in.For example, this book will show you how to draw the kanji for 'moon'/'flesh'/'body part' but it won't then tell you that it can be pronounced "GATSU"/"GETSU"/"tsuki" nor that you might see it written in ICHIGATSU (meaning January = One + moon). Conversely, the second book doesn't include what this book shows.Together, the two books cover everything you'd want unless hunting for kanji outside the standard list, though the kanji are not listed in the same order of course, so there's a bit of page flicking. I would advise sticking with this book's order, as it has been specially written to facilitate ease of learning stroke order patterns rather than purely by level of difficulty of concept/stroke complexity.If you can find the kanji you're looking for in this book by how to draw it, or use this book to work out how it's drawn indirectly, it's then incredibly easy to count up the number of total brush strokes (and the general direction it's drawn in) and then look it up in a kanji dictionary or in the index.It's going to take a LOOOOOONG time to learn these, but every journey starts with a single step, right?

The best thing ever. Let me tell you.If you are beginner in Japanese language, if you want to learn quickly you will use this book. There are people that do not like Heisig method, BUT.. that is because they do not understand what this book gives you.You will learn 2200 characters. You will remember them and have mnemonic meaning. People say "how does this help you with Japanese?" and "what is the point to know how to write character if you don't know the real meaning in context".Hear me. After you know 2200 kanjis and their mnemonic meaning, it will be so easy for you to go into grammar and vocabulary. Why? Because you will store new words in your head so quickly, because you know the kanjis already. It's so so so simple.Basically this method shortens the whole procedure of learning Japanese by a lot.When you were learning latin alphabet, you had to remember A, B, C, D to make a word. It is the same with kanjis. When you know them it's easy to remember the word.So trust me, and go through this book, once you remember the kanjis, Japanese grammar and vocabulary is peace of cake.

A great and unique way to learn the kanji. Don't expect to know how to pronounce all the kanji at the end, but that isn't what the book is designed to do. Instead you will go from seeing squiggles and funny symbols to being able to recognise each kanji using the primitives that make them up. I struggle with learning purely by repetition, but the method in this book can have you learning 10 plus kanji a day with minimal effort. Once you have this mental kanji dictionary, I find remembering the readings 10 times easier.It seems as though all the negative reviewers are expecting to learn the language from this one book. You will not learn a single Japanese word from this book, nor will you improve your speaking skills even a tiny bit. This is a supplement to learning Japanese, and should be used alongside something like genki or minna no nihongo.

I am a Japanese speaker - I studied at uni, went to live in Japan, worked at a major games company as a translator and now at another huge company where I use Japanese every day.And yet I have always struggled with writing kanji. No matter what I did, I couldn't get them to stick in my brain when I wanted to write them by hand.Until now.A large number of my Japanese-speaking friends were using this book and so I bought it to join the bandwagon. I'm probably only 1/10 into the book but I can't believe the amount of kanji I'm able to write just like that, following this method. I use a website in conjunction with it, which has the kanji in the same order as the book and also has some alternative stories just in case you aren't happy with Heisig's ones (as I often am) and I highly recommend you use the website as well.A great book for beginners as you will learn what those "little picture things" mean, and great for people like me with a high level of Japanese, who can start to look at kanji in a much deeper way to try and remember how to write them.

Absolutely brilliant method of learning the kanji. Of course you'll have to learn them in actual words, but this book gives you a solid framework to easily build from. Use in association with kanji.koohiidotcom where you can share mnemonics and use their SRS flashcards, as Heisig only provides mnemonics for the first part of the book. You can then adapt the techniques you learn here to create mnemonics for Japanese vocab, allowing you to pick up the language a lot faster. Took me about 5 months to complete. It's a bit dated and un-PC in places, but you can ignore any stories that are distasteful and create your own. It's worth reading alternative keywords on koohii as people have come up with better ones in places. I think it's worth getting a handle on the kanji before you start on the vocab as the kanji will not be an obstacle and you'll be building on what you already know.