Jouyou book?

[jppod1013897]

Hi,

Does anyone have a suggestion on a book with all the Jouyou kanji, geared at self-study?

I'm looking for something that builds up in terms of kanji complexity, has at least the most common readings, and doesn't use any romaji (I find it distracting, since my eyes tend to hone in on the familiar alphabet letters).

Flash cards are not necessary, but if they're bundled, all the better.
I'm also not looking for a dictionary, since I already have an electronic one if I need to look up kanji. I'm looking for a study book. I already know around 300 kanji, but I need some sort of system to make my study more organized.

The basic Jouyou will do, but if you know of a book that's more comprehensive, please mention it.

Thanks.

PS -- how do I change my forum username to something more human like? I feel like a bot or something.

[Javizy]

I recommend Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. It doesn't meet all of the requirements in your post, but if your overall goal is to become proficient with kanji, then it's the best way to go. Here's a sample of the first 273 characters, along with the introduction that explains the method. You can find out a lot more about it and how it fits in to the broader aim of learning to read at the Kanji Koohii Forum. You can review it using that site, or find a premade deck with the awesome application Anki. The latter two links are great resources for studying in general.

[jppod1013897]

Thanks for your reply.

I saw that book on Amazon, but I really do want something with the readings, which, I believe, that one doesn't have? I've been learning by writing the kanji many times and that seems to work for me.
Do you know of any other books that are recommended?

I will check out Anki, maybe I can make kanji drills on my cellphone?
Thank you.

[j_bertoni2279]

There are two Heisig books, one for writing, and one for the readings. They worked well for me, and there are Anki decks for practice.

Some people like Kanji in Context for the more advanced study.

[jppod1013897]

I see. If they made one that had both I'd be interested. I don't want to go back and forth between two books.

But I saw a sample of "Kanji in Context" the reference book might be more to my liking. Not sure about the work books though.
Thank you.

[Javizy]

It doesn't have readings, since it teaches you how to write and remember the characters themselves. It helps you get that tedious process out of the way in advance so you can focus on learning vocabulary. Most take a couple of minutes or less and you won't need to write them more than a couple of times either. If you do get stuck, there are tens of stories for each character on the forum I mentioned to help you.

Vocabulary is where you should be learning readings. Readings in isolation are of limited use, since aside from being hard to remember, you can never be sure which one to use. You learn that 費用 is ひよう and you learn to recognise a word and two sets of readings at the same time. All you need to do this is to be able to recognise the kanji.

I don't know how many words you're learning at the moment, but if you want to be learning 20+ a day without frying your brain, all you need is Heisig and Anki. The book is certainly worth the few months sacrifice for the long-term benefits.

[j_bertoni2279]

The books are set up to be used one after the other, not jumping between.

I agree that learning via vocabulary and reading is a lot more pleasant and useful.

[jppod1013897]

Sorry, but it's just how I prefer to study and what works for me. Why would I change my whole method if I'm doing well with it? I'm also not in a hurry to learn all jouyou, but I prefer to learn the readings and stroke order for each kanji at the same time. I really don't think there is a need to have a story for each kanji, to me, it's not particularly useful. That is not to say that I won't be learning how to use them in sentences (which the "Kanji in Context" seems to address by the way, I think that might be a nice book and I hadn't seen it before, anywhere).

That's not to say that I don't appreciate your recommendation, but I'm really looking for something that has the features I mentioned on the opening post.

[Javizy]

Like I said, it sounds strange, even scam-like, and I was put off at first as well, but everyone who finishes the book goes on to learn to read relatively quickly. It works. When you have hundreds of similar and complex characters to deal with, having a mnemonic of some kind is invaluable, but the best thing about it is that it makes learning quick and easy. You might find this discussion useful.

I'm not insisting that you change things, but since there's a free sample, maybe it's worth investing a little bit of time to try it out so you can understand it better and decide for yourself whether it works or not. Good luck with whatever you do, and I definitely recommend Anki or smart.fm for reviewing. Kanji Koohii has lots of good resources and is a good place to ask for help about Japanese and Japan too.

[Belton]

If you want to try native Japanese sources, the Study Step series of books for the kanken are good for exercises. Generally the graded groupings of kanji do correspond to their frequency of use and usefulness. And the breakdown into groups of 200 or so make the steps a bit easier. The tests themselves are good to check your real world kanji literacy.
http://www.kanken.or.jp/tosyo/index.html

下村 昇 http://www.n-shimo.com/ has a series of interesting books and dictionaries on kanji, mainly the 1006 kyouiku kanji though. He has an interesting method of "spelling" kanji.
I like his little 500 yen books but for real value look at 下村式 小学漢字学習辞典
(You may want to consider the Kyouiku as an intermediate goal on the way to Jyouyou. They account for about 90% of usage. In informal tests I see at least 75% usage. No matter what anyone says there seem to be diminishing returns when learning kanji.)

Lastly if you have a DS have a look at Kakitorikun. There is a full Jyouyou edition but personally I think the earlier Kyouiku version is a better starting point. (I actually think it could be worth getting a DSLL just for this software) I don't think you can better it if you're interested in being able to write kanji.
http://100mas.jp/kakitorikun/

[remsleep]

Heisig is definitely the one that worked for me, and I continue to do my flashcards with my morning coffee every day. Without flashcard testing, it is easy to mislead yourself into believing you're more solid than you really are. At first I didn't know about Anki, so after about 8 months, I had almost the 2000 physical cards, but now it's Anki all the way. I'm at about 20 months, and (checking Anki) am at around 92.4% for 2200. I pretty much stopped working on new Kanji since I'm working on readings now (making an Anki deck for Hesig vol 2 as I go along). I anticipate resuming the march towards the 3007 next year.

Naturally, no matter what method you choose, it does take a dedicated effort, but I would say Heisig is the best way to get good results from that effort. I started to notice the payback around 1000 when I suddenly realized that I actually knew a big fraction of the characters in the manga I read -- whereas with any previous method, I really only "knew" a sampling of the characters that I see reading. By the same token, around 800 I was starting to wonder if this was all going to be worth it, but I stuck with it.

However, if you have no imagination, then Heisig doesn't work

[tanitayou]

A book that put together mnemonic hints( breaking down the kanji) , illustrations, meanings, readings and vocab is
KANJI LOOK AN LEARN The Japan Times. (512 kanjis)
On the site you can find a free sample. Ganbatte

[j_bertoni2279]

I thought I had replied already. Hmm, well.

There are lots of small books that contain the basic kanji and some vocabulary. Here are two:

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Kanji-C ... 544&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Kana-Handbo ... 567&sr=1-2

Those are both okay, IME, although I just looked through them, in the end, and didn't use them much.

[jppod1013897]

I don't think it sounds scam-like, I understand what they're going for with the Heisig books, it's just that I don't find it's the right approach for me.
I will try to check that thread later, thanks. But I already find ways to remember the kanji, either by associating my own little anecdotes, or breaking it down by radicals or remembering the strokes. All put together, I seem to memorize them pretty well, along with the readings and the meaning. Writing them down is more essential to me. Writing has always helped me memorize things. We have a saying here "once written, twice read".

It's late here, so I will have to check the other links tomorrow, but thank you very much for your replies and advice. Oh, and I don't have a DS, I thought about getting one for that game/dictionary, I think it's the same one you mentioned. But I ended up just buying a Casio Ex-word instead.