Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142887 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

Synopsis
A compact, visual guide to the two basic kana syllabaries used in Japan. Combining drawings and text memory aids (mnemonics), it teaches the beginning student the shapes and pronunciation of these essential written characters. Notes on look-alikes and kana charts are also included.

Customer Reviews

A useful book for learning the Kana syllabaries
Although I speak no Japanese, about a year ago I decided to try to learn the Japanese Kana syllabaries as a prelude to starting to learn the language. I got about 80% through them before reaching saturation, where I was forgetting as many characters as I was learning and so gave up.

I then came across Michael Rowley's book. This offers the chance to learn the Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries by associating each character with an image that acts as a mnemonic. Bizarre as it may seem to those who know Kanji, it hadn't occurred to me to learn kana in this way - I had been trying to learn the raw characters.

Physically, the book is small in size, light, and conveniently fits in any pocket making it ideal to carry around while learning. It's remarkably cheap as well.

As for the content, I have to say that I have only had the book a month or so, but can now reliably recall ALL 92 characters (Yeah OK some of them I still have to think about :-). Most of the images are very intuitive and easy to remember. I don't use all the images in the book, as some characters are innately memorable from the first time I tried to learn (don't know why, but Ka and No just stick in my mind without any need for mnemonics).

Where the mnemonics really come into their own however is in remembering the distinctions between the similar looking letters such as Nu/Me, Ne/Re/Wa even Shi/Tsu. I had great trouble with this the first time around.

If I were to have any criticisms, it would be that several of the mnemonics are a bit skewed. For example, the mnemonic for both Ra characters is actually a word starting Ro, and this happens with a few other characters as well. I don't know the nationality of the author, but this kind of vowel pronounciation seems American, maybe Australasian and doesn't work quite so well with a UK accent.

This however is a small point and I have no doubt that without this book I would still be at the given-up-after-80% stage. As it is, I now have the confidence to tackle Kanji next (although I expect this to take more than a month :-) :-)

Excellent little book -- quick and simple
This book is near perfect, so don't be put off by reviewers who say it is of no use because Rowley has an American accent. Firstly, that only affects a very few of the characters (basically, some of the "o" sounds become "a" sounds in American -- "rocket" becomes "raahket", "hot chilli peppers" becomes "haaht chilli peppers" to remember ro and ha, and a few others). And secondly, you should be able to think up your own mnemonics for those few that don't work for you. Rowley shows how easy and effective it is -- so make up some that are memorable to you. This is so small and light it's much easier to stick in your pocket for review.

I came to this book knowing no Japanese script at all, but having some basics of speaking the language. I found that using the mnemonics, I learned all the hiragana in approximately a week (it took me several days to remember the consonant shifts, so I came up with a mnemonic of my own to help -- "klingon toad habits"!) and the katakana in 45 minutes! You simply could not ask for a quicker, better and more fool-proof system. Highly recommended.

THE most effective way to learn Kana fast
When taking a Japanese class, you're presented with a table of Kana, and the teacher expects you to just learn it by studying the grid of basically meaningless characters, and writing them over and over to drill it into your memory. If like me you've tried this 'traditional' way and failed, then this little book is just for you.

Now, I'm from the UK, and keep in mind that the author of this book is American. Thus I can relate to what my fellow reviewer "J. Q. W. Bayes" is saying, mnemonics such as "sob" relating to the kana "sa" doesn't make sense unless you pronounce "sob" as an american would ("saab"). But I found that even seeing the author's picture of a sobbing face made me remember "sa" when I saw it printed in a book.

However, not all the author's mnemonics suited me, some were very obscure such as "cock-a-doodle do" relating to the kana "ka" (and a picture of a rooster's head). In that case, I looked at the kana for a while and made my own mnemonic "CAtapult". Personally this book encouraged me to be creative in remembering the kana - if you don't like his, make your own!

This book isn't perfect, it also doesn't include stroke orders for kana - even though its only meant to aid reading, it doesn't take much effort on the author's part to put a few numbers beside the kana tables to indicate order. That, and the americanised mnemonics forces me to give this book 4 stars.