Remembering the Kanji 1

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

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Remembering the Kanji Volume 1

The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because--contrary to first impressions--it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume). For further information and a sample of the contents, visit http: ///www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_l.htm.

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Remembering the Kanji

Following the first volume of Remembering the Kanji, the present work takes up the pronunciation of characters and provides students with helpful tools for memorizing them. 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 patterns and offers helpful hints for learning readings, which might otherwise appear completely random, in an efficient and rational way. 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, Heisig 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. Unlike Volume 1, which proceeds step-by-step in a series of lessons, Volume 2 is organized in such as way that one can study individual chapters or use it as a reference for pronunciation problems as they arise. Individual frames cross-referencethe kanji to alternate readings and to the frame in Volume 1 in which the meaning and writing of the kanji was first introduced.

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Remembering the Kanji

Updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the Japanese government in 2010 as "general-use" kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to provide students with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of forgetting how to write the kanji, or for a way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing the kanji because--contrary to first impressions-it is in fact simpler than learning how to the pronounce them. By ordering the kanji according to their component parts or "primitive elements," and then assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that make up the kanji. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, one is able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their Japanese pronunciations, one is then in a much better position to learn the readings (which are treated in a separate volume).

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Remembering the Kanji 1

Updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the Japanese government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji, the sixth edition of this popular text aims to provide students with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of forgetting how to write the kanji, or for a way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing the kanji because—contrary to first impressions—it is in fact simpler than learning how to the pronounce them. By ordering the kanji according to their component parts or “primitive elements,” and then assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of “imaginative memory” to learn the various combinations that make up the kanji. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji’s “story,” whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, one is able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their Japanese pronunciations, one is then in a much better position to learn the readings (which are treated in a separate volume). Remembering the Kanji has helped tens of thousands of students advance towards literacy at their own pace, and to acquire a facility that traditional methods have long since given up on as all but impossible for those not raised with the kanji from childhood.

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Remembering the Kanji 3

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

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Remembering the Kana

Following on the phenomenal success of Remembering the Kanji, the author has prepared a companion volume for learning the Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries of modern Japanese. In six short lessons of about twenty minutes, each of the two systems of "kana" writing are introduced in such a way that the absolute beginner can acquire fluency in writing in a fraction of the time normally devoted to the task. Using the same basic self-taught method devised for learning the kanji, and in collaboration with Helmut Morsbach and Kazue Kurebayashi, the author breaks the shapes of the two syllabaries into their component parts and draws on what he calls "imaginative memory" to aid the student in reassembling them into images that fix the sound of each particular kana to its writing. Now in its third edition, Remembering the Kana has helped tens of thousands of students of Japanese master the Hiragana and Katakana in a short amount of time . . . and have fun in the process.

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Remembering the Kanji 2

Purchase the Remembering the Kanji App and take your kanji knowledge to the next level! Following the first volume of Remembering the Kanji, the present work takes up the pronunciation of characters and provides students with helpful tools for memorizing them. 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 patterns and offers helpful hints for learning readings, which might otherwise appear completely random, in an efficient and rational way. 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, Heisig 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. Unlike Volume 1, which proceeds step-by-step in a series of lessons, Volume 2 is organized in such as way that one can study individual chapters or use it as a reference for pronunciation problems as they arise. 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.

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Remembering the Kanji

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Remembering the Kanji 3

Students who have learned to read and write the basic 2,000 characters run into the same difficulty that university students in Japan face: The government-approved list of basic educational kanji is not sufficient for advanced reading and writing. Although each academic specialization requires supplementary kanji of its own, a large number of these kanji overlap. With that in mind, the same methods employed in volumes 1 and 2 of Remembering the Kanji have been applied to 1,000 additional characters determined as useful for upper-level proficiency, and the results published as the third volume in the series. To identify the extra 1,000 characters, frequency lists were researched and crosschecked against a number of standard Japanese kanji dictionaries. Separate parts of the book are devoted to learning the writing and reading of these characters. The writing requires only a handful of new "primitive elements." A few are introduced as compound primitives ("measure words") or as alternative forms for standard kanji. The majority of the kanji, 735 in all, are organized according to the elements introduced in Volume 1. For the reading, about twenty-five percent of the new kanji fall into "pure groups" that use a single "signal primitive" to identify the main Chinese reading. Another thirty percent of the new kanji belong to groups with one exception or to mixed groups in which the signal primitives have two readings. The remaining 306 characters are organized first according to readings that can be intuited from the meaning or dominant primitive element, and then according to useful compound terms.

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First Thousand Words in German

MODERN LANGUAGES (IE OTHER THAN ENGLISH). The classic Usborne word book as a bi-lingual German/English edition, illustrated by Stephen Cartwright. A thousand everyday words illustrated with busy scenes and labelled pictures to help children learn key German vocabulary. Ages 5+

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Remembering Kanji by Radicals

Remembering Kanji by Radicals(vol.1)

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Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1

At long last the approach that has helped thousands of learners memorize Japanese kanji has been adapted to help students with Chinese characters. Book 1 of Remembering Simplified Hanzi covers the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the simplified Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.) Of critical importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memorization. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters, which can, in turn, serve as parts of more complicated characters and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process. Guidance and detailed instructions are provided along the way. Students are taught to employ "imaginative memory" to associate each character’s component parts, or "primitive elements," with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through the creation of a "story" that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes, and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable fashion, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping to prevent characters from slipping out of memory.

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Remembering 1945 J y Kanji 1

1945 joyo kanji in Japanese (Vol 1)

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The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji

Learn over 2,000 Japanese Kanji characters with this user-friendly Japanese language-learning book. This unique Kanji study guide provides a comprehensive introduction to all the Kanji characters on the Japanese Ministry of Education's official Joyo ("General Use") list—providing detailed notes on the historical development of each character as well as all information needed by students to read and write them. As fascinating as it is useful, this is the book every Japanese language learners keeps on his or her desk and visits over and over. This Kanji book includes: Clear, large-sized entries All of the General Use Joyo Kanji Characters Japanese readings and English meanings stroke-count stroke order usage examples mnemonic hints for easy memorization The components which make up each character are detailed, and the Kanji are graded in difficulty according to Ministry of Education guidelines, allowing students to prioritize the order in which the Kanji are learned and track their progress. This book is essential to anyone who is planning to take the official Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) and will appeal to beginning students as well as those who wish to attain higher-level mastery of the Japanese language. It is the only book that also provides historical and etymological information about the Japanese Kanji. This latest edition has been updated to include all of the 2,136 Kanji on the expanded Joyo list issued by the Japanese government in 2010. Many entries have been revised to include the most recent research on character etymologies.

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Monumenta Nipponica

Includes section "Reviews".

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Remembering 1945 J y Kanji

Remembering 1945 Jōyō Kanji (vol.1)

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Tuttle Learning Japanese Kanji

This book enables you to recognize the 500 most essential Japanese Kanji easily—and to memorize their readings and meanings quickly and easily! This book teaches an innovative new method to learn the basic 500 Japanese characters—teaching you how to recognize the Kanji easily and to remember their readings and meanings. Learning to read Japanese and write Japanese requires knowing hundreds of Kanji. Traditionally, the ability to learn Kanji characters was accomplished purely by rote memorization. This method is extremely slow, tedious and time-consuming. The new science of mnemonics has changed all that. By associating an easily-remembered visual image and story with each Kanji, the learner is able to commit the characters to long-term memory far more easily and quickly than ever before. mnemonics also dramatically helps students to write kanji as well. This revolutionary new method has been tried by many thousands of students, and it really works! Using a systematic building–block approach to written Japanese, this beginner kanji book also shows you how more complicated characters are constructed from simpler elements. And similar mnemonic strategies are provided for learning the different pronunciations or "readings" of the characters. The CD–ROM that is included provides audio recordings by Japanese native speakers to perfect your pronunciation. It also provides a unique interactive software program showing you how to write each character and allowing you to write it yourself on screen! This book can be used by anyone, and requires no prior knowledge of the Japanese language. It can be used in conjunction with any Japanese textbook to learn the important Kanji characters upon which the language is based. Key features of this book include: Drawings and stories to create mental associations for the characters that stick in the brain and allow you to recall their meanings and readings. A CD–ROM software program showing you how to write each kanji character Native speaker audio recordings for all the Kanji characters, vocabulary and sample sentences. Sample sentences to expand your vocabulary by showing you how the Kanji are actually used. Extensive review exercises to reinforce what you've learned. User–friendly indexes allowing you to look–up the Kanji and use the book like a Kanji dictionary. The 500 Kanji characters provided in this book include all the characters needed for the AP and JLPT Level 4 and 5 exams–giving you access to approximately 80 percent of all the Kanji characters you encounter in Japan!

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Japanese Kanji a Day Practice Pad Volume 1

"An easy and effective way of steadily building up your kanji."—Kenneth G. Henshall, A guide to Remembering Japanese Characters This calendar–like practice pad allows you to effectively practice basic Japanese kanji and learn a year's wroth of kanji in just minutes a day. Although more people are studying the Japanese language than ever before, others are still wary of starting because they believe, "it's too difficult." But Kanji–A–Day, Volume 1 will show absolute beginners that learning Japanese kanji is highly manageable when absorbed in small doses. It will help intermediate Japanese learners review and improve upon their past studies and practice Kanji every day. Japanese kanji are fascinating pictographic characters that were originally adopted from written Chinese. After a few weeks of gradual progress your ability to read Kanji, write Kanji and pronounce Japanese will grow tremendously. This calendar like desk companion starts with the most basic Kanji and builds upon itself, one day at a time. For easy reference and review, a booklet listing the 365 kanji is included. Each of the 365 pages contain these six components: The featured Japanese kanji character. The English meaning. The readings written in Japanese script (Hiragana). Related compounds with their meanings and readings. Stroke–order diagrams. 28 practice squares. To get started with Kanji–A–Day, turn to Day One and begin by studying the character, its readings, meanings and sample compounds. Then tear off the sheet and, using the stroke–order guide, practice writing the character in the spaces provided. In a matter of days you'll be on your way to reading and writing kanji with ease!

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Books on Japan in Western Languages Recently Acquired by the National Diet Library

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