Learn Kanji with this Well Organized Kanji Book & CD

Kanji are organized into Natural Groups on individual Lesson Pages. Wonderfully easy Mnemonic Strings help you to learn the structure and meaning of each kanji quickly and efficiently. Discover why the Kanji Mnemonics manual is your best choice as a complete study guide for all 1,945 Japanese kanji characters. You can see Sample Pages by scrolling down.

 


Kanji Mnemonics- An Instuction Manual for Learning Japanese Characters is published by Kanji Mnemonics Publishing and is also available on CD.


You can order a copy of the book and/or CD from the Kanji section at www.theJapanShop.com

Click here to  ORDER DIRECTLY



WHAT  IS THE “NATURAL GROUPS” METHOD FOR LEARNING JAPANESE KANJI?

We learn best when the things we need to remember are in groups that have some natural basis. Try to learn the following list:

Example 1. poodle, maple, lemon, hound, oak, grape, pine, spaniel, cedar, orange, beagle, apple

Learning the list requires effort, even though there are only 12 items. Now imagine that the list contains 1,945 items. This is the number of kanji you need to know to read and write the Japanese language. Obviously, it would help to group the items first before you start to learn them:

Example 2. poodle, spaniel, beagle, hound, apple, grape, orange, lemon, oak, cedar, maple, pine.

This is a little easier to learn, but we can do better.

Example 3.
                                 
Dog              Fruit            Tree

beagle         orange         cedar
hound           lemon          pine
poodle         grape           maple
spaniel         apple           oak

Now the list is even easier to learn because it is well-presented. You can almost learn it at a glance. See if you can remember the items a day later. Could you have remembered them all from the first ungrouped list in Example 1? If the list were vitally important, you might easily remember it for many years, with occasional refreshing.

This is the situation for kanji. You must learn them all and remember them, forever. It is not an easy task, especially if you are stuck with a poorly-presented, ungrouped, and disorganized kanji book (or kanji teacher). But, with the Kanji Mnemonics manual, you are on your way to efficient learning!

NATURAL GROUPS OF KANJI

The Kanji Mnemonics manual puts all 1,945 Japanese kanji into Natural Groups, with group size varying from 2 to 12. The manual has four groups:

(1) Kanji that are Pictures or Symbols
(2) Kanji that have a Common Structural Element and Common Reading
(3) Kanji that have a Common Structural Element and Mixed Readings
(4) Kanji that have a Common Structural Element and Different Readings.

Here is an example of kanji that are pictures and symbols.


PICTURES AND SYMBOLS

This is the most direct  group of all because the kanji are either pictures or symbols of something. The pictures often have evolved over time from their more graphic originals, and the Kanji Mnemonics manual explains the evolution of a kanji to help you remember it. For example,

    大　is a depiction of a person with spread arms and legs, looking big. And big is the meaning of this kanji.
    小　is a depiction of a person with legs together and arms at his sides, looking small. And small is the meaning of this kanji.

Both figures of course are stick figures, minus their heads, but that is OK. Once you understand the picture, it is easy!  You will likely remember its meaning forever. This is what a Lesson Page looks like in the manual.

 

LESSON PAGE

 

Notes for the Web Page

DAI and TAI are the on-yomi, or Chinese derived readings (pronunciation) of the kanji. On-yomi are used to make compound words such as DAI GAKU (literally, big school). Kanji can have more than one on-yomi.

oo. is the kun-yomi, or Japanese reading of the kanji. Kun-yomi are used to form adjectives, adverbs, verbs and also nouns of Japanese origin. Kanji can have more than one kun-yomi.

By convention, on-yomi are always given in upper case, and kun-yomi in lower case.

Both the intransitive and transitive forms of verbs are given in the Kanji Mnemonics manual e.g.

to.maru  stop / come to a stop
to.meru  bring to a stop


WHAT ARE “MNEMONIC STRINGS” FOR LEARNING KANJI?

Complex kanji like  財are really difficult to learn by rote memorization, and there are nearly two thousand of them.

It is far better to break the kanji into simple components that have been learned earlier, and then make a direct “memory string”  to help you learn it.

For example, this complex kanji  財 (wealth) is composed of two simpler kanji: 貝 (money) and才 (talent). Put these together to form a mnemonic string like this:

Money and talent produce wealth.

Some memory strings, like the one above, seem better than others because they make sense. But a memory string does not have to make sense for it to be memorable.

For example, the complex kanji  許 (permit) is composed of 言 (words) and 午 (noon). Put these together to form their mnemonic string:

Words at noon are permitted.

Even though this mnemonic string does not make a whole lot of sense, you are not likely to forget it!

Mnemonic strings make learning complex kanji a breeze because they reinforce both structure and meaning.

 

 

For Students Who Have Already Started

Students who have learned a few hundred kanji and intend to learn all 1,945 of them know that a hard road lies ahead. The Kanji Mnemonics manual can ease the way because it provides systematic, efficient techniques for learning kanji quickly.

The Lesson Page below illustrates several Special Features of the Kanji Mnemonics manual.

 






Other Web Pages for the Kanji Mnemonics Manual

Click here to see the  TABLE OF CONTENTS  or to learn about the SPECIAL FEATURES that make the Kanji Mnemonics manual the best study guide for learning kanji.

Kanji Liist Online (free) has memory aids for learning the structure and meaning of Japanese kanji. The partial list is taken from "Kanji Mnemonics- An Instruction Manual for Learning Japanese Characters" by Dr. Robert P. Bodnaryk and was prepared by the author.