Study Books with an Emphasis on Reading

[Sanzo]

Hi everyone, I've recently been given a number of vouchers to purchase books with from my school (Top Mark in Maths ). I've noticed that there are a number of threads that give opinions on various study materials here and so was wondering if someone can answer a couple of my questions.

Firstly my main reason for studying Japanese is to be able to read Japanese literature, and so I would like to study with an emphasis on reading and writing over speaking. I've heard of a series called 'Introduction to Modern Japanese' by Richard John Bowring and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it?

Secondly I could someone tell me the difference between the 'Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary' and the 'Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary'?

[Javizy]

I don't know what you mean by textbooks that focus on reading. To learn to read properly, you need to have a good understanding of grammar, a large vocabulary, and knowledge of kanji. So focusing on these things, while practising reading whatever you can, is the best way to go about it. I'd recommend the Heisig method for learning kanji initially (it's been discussed on here the few times), some sort of grammar reference (I'm using Oxford's Japanese grammar and verbs, but I'm not familiar with any others so I can't really recommend it), and reading whatever you can. For reading, children's books are a good starting point, and the PDFs on this website are a good resource because they cover grammar and vocabulary, as well as having kana transcripts to help read the kanji.

With the furigana dictionary, you look up words using a hiragana index, ordered in the same way as kana charts. It has about 16,000 entries, and is probably best for beginners since pocket dictionaries are a waste of time. The furigana itself is small hiragana written above kanji to show the reading. I've been using this for a couple of months now, and it has most of the words in my children's books, and unknown ones not listed in the vocabulary in the PDFs. It's a really good dictionary, the only letdown is the number of entries.

The kanji learners dictionary, on the other hand, is a kanji dictionary, which means you look up words by kanji in various ways such as stroke order, radical, etc (although the kodansha edition apparently has its own method). It has over 32,000 word entries, and covers all of the standard 2000 plus kanji used in newspapers and such. I'm definitely going to buy this when I've finished using Heisig to learn the meaning/writing of the kanji, and move on to more complicated material.

Personally I think it'd be useful to have both, however, if you're reading children's books and other materials that have furigana or kana readings available, go with the furigana dictionary. If you're reading full on kanji material where the readings are not available, then go for the kanji learners dictionary.

[Rizu]

I also recommend both the Kanji Learner and Furigana dictionaries you listed in your post. I own both and find myself referring to them often. They've been very helpful in my studying.

[annie]

My Advanced Reading class in University used this book:
http://bookclub.japantimes.co.jp/act/en/Detail.do?id=0915[url][/url]

But we also spent a lot of time reading newspapers and novels.

[Fedgrub]

Colloquial Japanese is the book I use. I don't know if it is available where you live, but each chapter introduces you to a certain number of hiragana, katakana and kanji. It helps build your skills slowly in writing and reading, and has really great excercises along the way.

[markdweaver]

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino is a fantastic resource. Also, the second volume, A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammer, is indespensable to anyone who wants to seriously study the language.