Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters [Paperback]

The first thing to say is that this book will not teach you Japanese.

Anyone who has ever attempted to learn Japanese will, however, agree that the hardest aspect of studying this infuriating, endearing language is kanji, and the main trouble is remembering how to write the little beasts. What this book does is to systematise the mnemonics that we all invent for ourselves - "thing like a ladder, box lid, lantern, child, camp-stool, moon, mouth, twiddly-thing-that-means-motion". Then the author combines these, or encourages the student to combine them, into 'stories', which you are supposed to visualise, thereby remembering the writing of the kanji. And it does work, up to a point.

Other reviewers have commented that the book is very, very American, which sometimes poses difficulties. Several of the stories are concerned with baseball, about which I know nothing; there are numerous references to Bible stories and the doings of Almighty God, which is rather off-putting; and "a moose head hanging on the wall of the den" is not the first image that would come to the mind of an urban Brit. There are some strange choices, too - why the familiar standing bowl of rice that forms a part of so many kanji to do with eating and drinking - taberu, nomeru, musume... should become 'halo' is beyond me. So I am not sticking faithfully to Mr Heisig's 'primitives'; I am using the book more as a starting point for creating my own system.

The book does not include any Japanese readings of the kanji - each one is just given a 'key word' meaning in English, some of them rather wide of the mark, I feel. I gather that there's another volume that teaches the readings, but I will probably stick to my kanji textbook for that. Heisig warns that you should not use his book whilst studying kanji the conventional way, which is quite weird - who, other than a student of Japanese, could possibly want to Remember the Kanji?

Truly a great buy if you're just starting out to learn Kanji. I've only had the book about 2 and a half weeks now but I've already memorised just over 100 primitives just from casual reading and practicing in my spare time, on the train, or even during quiet moments at work or at lunch times. This book's strong point is definitely more about teaching you HOW to remember the characters, and how to retain them in your long term memory using imaginative stories and imagery. The author's approach to tackling the great challenge of learning Kanji is almost the complete opposite of how it's traditionally taught in launguage schools, which was originally how I had approached the issue; by simply trying to force my brain to remember one Kanji after another by trying to memorise every reading, and stroke order. As predicted, I could remember a number of them, but after learning more and more, I'd very rapidly forget the previous ones. This book's approach is very simple and basic, almost child-like, but nonetheless very effective in stimulating your long-term memory.

I've yet to actually begin with the 'heavy' stuff, but I can already notice the benefits from the techniques and ilttle tips and tricks that this book provides. Although I found it interesting, before this book, I found Kanji extremly tedious and very laborous. Now quite the contrary, I actually enjoy learning more and more. This book has made it fascinating and, definitely more of a fun challenge to try and test what you've learnt using the techniques the book employs.

Just as my personal recommendation, this book should be used side-by-side with Anki, a free downloadable program which acts like digital flashcards. It's extremely useful in testing yourself and guaging your progress. Coincidentally, this book is actually supported by Anki! That means you can download the Anki setting for this book, which will allow you to practice and test yourself at the same pace as the book!

Even though mine is a second hand copy, and a little worn, it's still definitely worth the money. If you're serious about learning Kanji, then I say this book is a definitely a worthwhile investment!

An indispensable site to help greatly speed up the rate at which this book can be completed is http://kanji.koohii.com/, however this site is ordered according to the numbering in the fifth edition of this book. This is sixth edition, which has been extended and re-ordered to account for the additional joyo kanji added by the Japanese government in 2010. If you are planning on using koohii.com, the numbering in this edition will not match up and you will have to work around it. If you decide to get the fifth edition instead, the additional characters added in 2010 are available in a free supplement provided on the author's website: [...]