Remembering the Kanji: Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters v. 1 (Manoa) [Paperback]

I'll try to write something that hasn't been covered by the other reviews. My background before reading (and studying) this book. JLPT ~3, and I knew ~400 kanjis (through the old fashioned memorization).

The Remembering the Kanji is *exactly* what it promises. After reading many reviews and forums, many people think it is something more. It is not.

What does it promise then? Luckily this time (unlike with many other books) you don't have to buy it blindly. Heisig has released a good number of pages freely available on his site, so you can decide before buying. Also as with any method, you have to review the the kanjis systematically. There is a website called Reviewing the Kanji, which although fan made, is done with quality of a commercial site.

One thing though that surprised me, not in a good way. There are stories only for the first 500 or so kanjis. After that, you have to be a little bit creative. But thats where the Reviewing the Kanji -website comes into help (see for yourself).

As you may have already read from other reviews, after reading this, you cannot say that you have mastered the kanjis, this is only the start. At most 1/4 of the work. Maybe even less. But it is quite possible to be able to finish the book in 2-4 months with the reviewing, depending on the time you use daily. After that, and with a basic knowledge of the Japanese grammar and words, you are able to guess new words very easily (although you don't know how to pronounce those). And when you see compounds, I have found that it is easier to remember those now if I know the individual kanjis.

As also pointed out by the other reviewers, the 2000 "general use" kanjis include some kanjis, that I cannot imagine being used daily. These include names of plants and some medical body parts. For those who don't think they are up to learning 2000 kanjis, there is a reduced list of kanjis called RTK Lite (Remembering the Kanji Lite). Check that out if you are interested.

This is not a book for everyone, but read the freely available pages, and if you are still willing to continue, I doubt that you will think that you have wasted your time.

In 'Remembering the Kanji" Heisig has created an effective study guide for learning the meanings of the general-use kanji. Be careful not to believe that this book is going to miraculously help you learn the kanji with little effort, it still requires hard work and concentration.

To help you remember the kanji Heisig has deconstructed the kanji and provided meanings for each particle that make up the characters, introducing elements (or "primitives") systematically throughout the course of the book. In doing so he has made it possible for you to create stories, albeit often tenuous stories (some of them are so silly they are almost annoying), that help you to remember characters. Nevertheless there is no doubt that it is an effective method, though in my opinion there is nothing special about the technique; the same technique could be applied by you with a list of radicals and the kanji and their meanings, either through etymology or through your own interpretation. What is really effective about this book, however, is the layout and the fact that you are provided with all the general-use kanji and their meanings in one book. Kanji are not organised by their number or stroke count, but there is a natural progression that allows you to learn primitives and apply them to several kanji before moving on to new primtives. While this is very effective for learning the meanings of the kanji, those who are revising for the JLPT will not find this book useful unless they have a long period of time to study. Heisig provides you with stories for the first 500 kanji but it is necessary for you to make up your own stories for the remaning 1500, which can be quite time consuming, and it may be the case that you'll have to complete all of the characters before fulfilling all the characters in your JLPT test (regardless of what level), and skipping to the relevant JLPT character would defeat the purpose of the layout and make it much less effective. Also, please be aware that this book deals with the English meanings ONLY; Japanese pronunciation is not factored in to this book (there is a RTK vol.2 that offers this part, but you mustn't buy it until you've learned all 2000 characters). So yes, very useful if you want to learn the meanings of all the kanji, but not suitable to learn for JLPT because it requires you to stop learning kanji through the regular method until this book is finished, and it won't help you with speaking Japanese at all.

This book still gets 4 stars from me because it does do what it claims to do; offers you an effective way of remembering the meanings of the kanji. How you want to learn is up to you. If you want to simply learn how to read then this is perfect (though compounds and verb endings are not included). The time you take to learn the meanings in vol.1, then the pronunications vol.2, (then the compounds in vol.3!) may be better spent learning through regular textbooks if you are wanting to be able to pass tests.

I hope this review was useful to you!

I think the only people who don't find this book to be something of a god send either unfortunately don't get on with the mnemonic system, or completely missed the point and gave up (like some of the reviewers).

Stop to think for a second about what this book aims to achieve: being able to write accurately, from memory, 2045 characters, and the ability to very easily learn additional ones. Most people manage this is within 3-6 months, and with consistent SRS review, the results will last a lifetime.

Trying to cram readings on top of that with brute force memorisation completely contradicts the idea of the book. It's hard to believe the people who suggest this have even read the introduction. You will learn lots of readings from seeing characters that you recognise in your studies and reading, and after finishing the book you will recognise ALL the characters.

If you want to learn kanji, you owe it to yourself to at least try to see if this method works for you.