Helpful book: Remembering the Kana

[Gai-jin]

Hi all.
I just found the japanesepod101 podcast recently, and love it. I was an exchange student to Japan about 10 years ago. My home is in Rural Illinois, so I have no chance to use Japanese in daily life, and have forgotten so much. The jpod101 cast helps me remember some of the language, and brings back so many memories from my year in Japan.

Anyway, I wanted to share a book series that I found tremendously helpful while I was in japan. It's called 'Remembering the Kana' and 'Remembering the Kanji'.

I believe this is the same book, though it looks different... probably a new edition since I owned them:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/488996 ... 16?ie=UTF8

This book made it easy for me to rembember how to write hiragana, katakana, and what little kanji I knew. It gives instructions on how to write each character, then some kind of memory trick to remember what character it is.

Hope others can find the book helpful!

Gai-jin

[snozle]

I've used that book to memorize the hiragana and katakana and it's great. The hiragana portion is amazing; however, the katakana section isn't as good. Despite this, it's still the best kana book I've found.

[Nate]

I have been trying to find something to help make learning the kana less intimidating. Maybe this is the ticket. I am also using the following website which I beleive is mentioned elsewhere in this forum.

http://www.kanacards.com/

Very helpful for this neophyte.

[lulu_chan]

Are you talking about Hesig's book? it's awesome. I found it both help for the kana and the Katakana.
Personally, i don't reccomend the Remembering the Kanji book series. Althought the book helps one remeber the Kanji, Hesig does not give the stroke pattern or the japanese meaning of the kanji. Just the english. I mean it's great to have a way to remember the kanji IN ENGLISH, but is not practical, IMHO, for more serious students.

DEFINTELY worth buying the Remember the Kana.

[snozle]

Personally, i don't reccomend the Remembering the Kanji book series. Althought the book helps one remeber the Kanji, Hesig does not give the stroke pattern or the japanese meaning of the kanji. Just the english. I mean it's great to have a way to remember the kanji IN ENGLISH, but is not practical, IMHO, for more serious students.

DEFINTELY worth buying the Remember the Kana.

What is wrong with the stroke patterns presented in the remembering the Kanji book? Also, he does give the japanese meaning of the kanji, in book II. Book one is titled "how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters. Book two is titled "A systematic guide to reading japanese characters" and gives the japanese and chinese readings.

[lulu_chan]

I guess, for me, I found the first one as a letdown, I thought the japanese would be there and the stroke pattern. When it just gives you the name in english and the way to remember it. I was just hoping it would all be there. Again, it's just my opinion.

I like learning it all in one..^____^ ...may be due to impatience.

[stonemirror]

I found Heisig's approach to be really helpful, both for kana and for kanji.

Volume 1 of Remembering the Kanji, at least the edition I have, has both stroke orders and basic meanings for all the Joyo kanji (and then some); what it doesn't have is readings (and these are done in volume 2) or combinations of kanji (for which you really need a dictionary, anyway...)

[Suzu]

Best way for me to memorize Kana was using LRNJ program www.lrnj.com
Took me 2 days to memorize them all. Of course this only teaches you how to recognize the symbols and not the stroke order or writing drills but still, it is very useful as a supplement.

Weird thing about the program it worced you to learn Kana that are no longer used, "WE" "WI" in both Katakana, Hiragana. 　ゑ　ヱ　ゐ　ヰ

It's old style type RPG, only you kill slimes by typing in Kana and later Kanji. But I find Kanji part very misleading and would not recommend getting past the Kana part because for Kanji you gotta type out english meaning. Which isn't very useful.

as for Remembering the Kanji by heisig, yes I strongly recommend to get through that 1st. It's gonna save you immense amount of work down the road, trust me.

[mberridge]

I add my vote for Hesig's "Remembering the Kanji Vol 1"

[ppgwave]

Hmmm - in the US all of the Heisig books are totally out of print and going for >$100 each. BUMMER.

I'll try that crazy RPG.