- Paperback: 156 pages
- Publisher: Japan Publications Trading Co (April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 4889960724
- ISBN-13: 978-4889960723
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.6 x 1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
351,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14 in Books > Languages > By Language > Japanese > Writing
- #61 in Books > Languages > By Language > Japanese > Learning Materials
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Product Description
Synopsis
This book will help you teach yourself the writing and reading of all 46 characters each of Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabary from memory. By making use of a method of "imaginative memory," introduced in this book, you will be saved from the order of repetition. Following the method, you will be able to write and read all Japanese Kana is three hours and retain them by means of the incredible mnemonic methods. Instructions at the bottom of the each page will ask you to skip backwards and forward through the book, following the best "learning order." The lessons will guide you step-by-step through this process. As an added bonus, the book includes a supplement on "Learning How to Remember."
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent book if you happen to have an American accent, but if you're English and pronounce words properly, a portion of Heisig's "key words" are going to hinder rather than help. In the introduction he mentions that he's assuming a "generalised American" accent (whatever that is) and so offers a story about an otter (or, "ah-dar") to remember 'a', hopscotch to remember 'ha' and so on. What's more frustrating is, this could have been avoided with a little more care over the keywords (he also mentions in the introduction that he rattled the first draft off in a few hours...)
As with Remembering the Kanji (which doesn't fall into this trap since it doesn't deal with pronounciations, though I worry about Volume II) his method is unusual and fascinating, and there's certainly scope for fixing up the keywords (as I'm doing) with your own which if anything will be more memorable. That said, I think for the cost of this book your money would be better spent on something interactive like BitBoost's TileTag, or Declan's ReadWrite Hiragana, both of which provide sounds, and the first of which has a demo which got me through the first half of both syllabaries in around an hour.
As with Remembering the Kanji (which doesn't fall into this trap since it doesn't deal with pronounciations, though I worry about Volume II) his method is unusual and fascinating, and there's certainly scope for fixing up the keywords (as I'm doing) with your own which if anything will be more memorable. That said, I think for the cost of this book your money would be better spent on something interactive like BitBoost's TileTag, or Declan's ReadWrite Hiragana, both of which provide sounds, and the first of which has a demo which got me through the first half of both syllabaries in around an hour.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Committing almost fifty hiragana to memory by "brute force" is difficult, never mind the Katakana, and (gasp!) the dreaded Kanji... To accomplish this feat of memory, a person must use a system of mnemonics, and hers is such a system pre-packaged and awaiting use. This book can teach anyone with the inclination to read the Hiragana and Katakana systems, and I cannot express enough how useful this book has been in helping me.
The author's boast that the Hiragana can be learnt in just six hours is not an idle one - I did in less, and I have a brain like a sieve! The inspired element is that of breaking the hiragana down into construct of symbols, and creating for each a zany story, usually relating to the character's phonetic value. It works! The process is only slightly hindered by the fact that the author is American - relating the Hiragana character for the sound "A" to the word "otter" and the character "Sa" to the word "Sock" are telling examples, but there aren't many of these, and the affected characters are some of the most memorable in the Hiragana system.
This is a great book - the system is explained and undertaken with simplicity and straight-forwardness, without any confusing asides. It shows Hiragana and Katakana for the immensely logical and beautiful systems they are. Usefully, the page for each character has additional information which may be ignored or picked up later at the student's leisure on different type faces (which is not unimportant - the type face can radically alter the appearance of the character,) but the pages are laid out as logically and as clearly as the argument, and there is no room for confusion. On each page there is a small section testing you on the characters you have learned, and the cover of the book is designed so it can fold over the answers until you're ready for them! Little touches.
The author's boast that the Hiragana can be learnt in just six hours is not an idle one - I did in less, and I have a brain like a sieve! The inspired element is that of breaking the hiragana down into construct of symbols, and creating for each a zany story, usually relating to the character's phonetic value. It works! The process is only slightly hindered by the fact that the author is American - relating the Hiragana character for the sound "A" to the word "otter" and the character "Sa" to the word "Sock" are telling examples, but there aren't many of these, and the affected characters are some of the most memorable in the Hiragana system.
This is a great book - the system is explained and undertaken with simplicity and straight-forwardness, without any confusing asides. It shows Hiragana and Katakana for the immensely logical and beautiful systems they are. Usefully, the page for each character has additional information which may be ignored or picked up later at the student's leisure on different type faces (which is not unimportant - the type face can radically alter the appearance of the character,) but the pages are laid out as logically and as clearly as the argument, and there is no room for confusion. On each page there is a small section testing you on the characters you have learned, and the cover of the book is designed so it can fold over the answers until you're ready for them! Little touches.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I did learn the hiragana within 3 hours and it was thanks to this book. Some of his "tricks" helped me memorise the characters, but I have to add that a lot of them were quite useless. Would you remember one hiragana character by thinking about a dog's tail put through a boomerang? And the stories get even more complictated.
Maybe I'm a bit biased, being Chinese. Some of the original Chinese characters did the trick for me.
Maybe I'm a bit biased, being Chinese. Some of the original Chinese characters did the trick for me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
What a great book
As an English speaker(not American), I was a little worried about the book from the other reviews, but I found it brilliant. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2009 by karina
Innovative, fun, effective.
This book really does do what it says on the tin. I learnt all the hiragana in less than six hours and had fun doing so. Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2006 by K. Pettifer
Excellent Value!
The claim that you can learn the KANA in six hours is one that was difficult to believe, but it took me four. If you want a book to free you from the romanji use this book. Read more
Published on 20 July 2006 by Mr. Ciaran Dunne
Heisig is The Man!
I have attempted to learn kana the traditional way, years ago, spending weeks and weeks trying to get to grips with it without much success. Read more
Published on 18 April 2006 by J. H.
Love or hate thing
For me it's working- I've just got all the basic hiragana learnt in under a week. I tried just rote learning through before and started to forget ones in the first... Read more
Published on 1 Jan 2006 by Julie Cutler
Crazy, useful book
First off, this taught me the kana in one rush, when the more "normal" methods of memorization and familiarization weren't working. Why so good? Partly pictorial association. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2005 by Julian Morrison
Amazing Book!
I think this is the most fabulous learning aid I've ever purchased. Something that I thought would be insurmountable soon became as simple as ABC - literally. Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2004 by Martin Wain
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