Product Description

The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because - contrary to first impressions - it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements. In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51387 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 460 pages

About the Author
James W. Heisig is professor and permanent research fellow at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya.

Customer Reviews

It is a love or hate thing
If you are into self studying kanji, this is the book for you if you find the orthodox method of studying kanji frustrating. I picked this book up after having tried the old methods for a month, but only having remembered so few. The book is especially good if you are expecting to start learning japanese in a formal course and want to prepare ahead of time.

What Heisig has done is not revolutionary, but he is very consistent and systematic in the way he does it, which makes it a gift if you are willing to follow his book with blind faith.
The irony of Heisigs mnemonic method is, that he breaks with orthodox japanese teaching method (rote memorization) but instead insist on complete orthodoxy in his pupils doing imaginary memorization. You do it the Heisig way or it is the highway with this book. You start by kanji #1 and stop by 2042, and you MUST do it in the order that Heisig dictates. Otherwise you waste your time. And you need to complete it or you will be on crutches in your further studies of japanese.

Also you need a good grasp on english (but now spanish, french and german versions are out). You need to be comfortable with abstract thinking and you need to work hard imagining up stories that makes sense. Not visualising, that doesn't work. The method is described in detail in his foreword, and you can even get a sample PDF download of the first 270 kanjis from James Heisigs home page.

Critics of the book claims that it is useless to learn english kanji with no readings, but I beg to differ. The usefullness comes in that you can remember what *ALL* joyou kanji means and how to draw them. Just like a chinese can read japanese with some effort, and gain the meaning of sentences if not the readings, so can you after you memorzie enough. This alone makes tying readings and real words together much easier later on, once you have a semantic frame to hang the new information on.

Also critics point towards the fact that many Heisig students experience "burn out" at various points in their kanji journey. This probably comes from overexerting yourself. When using the book it is very important to keep reviewing the stuff you thought you *HAD* remembered, but not too frequently. And it is very important to really imagine up stories that fits the elements properly inside your head, or they will never stick.

Do not buy it if you do not plan to learn *ALL* 2042 kanji, because the order he does it in is completely different to the orthodox method with 1-10 grade joyou kanji. And expect to spend an hour per day working with it if you want to make progress. If you do it is a very rewarding experience. I rocketed up to remembering *AND* drawing over 500 kanjis in a month with this book. the pace slows somewhat after the first 500, but the method is sound.

The book stand-alone is too little to do this thing, and that is why Heisig encourages you to draw your own kanji flash cards for reviewing drills. But I found that too much of a hassle. Luckily there are many third party aids available, Leitner-based flash card programs and boxes of paper flash cards ordered after the Heisig indexing etc.

Beginners in Japanese - take careful note!
I have never met anyone who has completed "Remembering the Kanji I" before learning any other aspect of Japanese, but perhaps you can be the first. Let me explain why you most definitely should. Much has already been said about this extraordinary volume (please see the Amazon.com site), but there is one very important point which has not been raised, even by Heisig himself. Beginners in Japanese - please take careful note.

Put simply, mastery of "Remembering the Kanji I" (along with the simple hiragana and katakana scripts) is analogous to mastery of the 26 letters of our own English alphabet. These 2000 or so characters - compulsory learning for every child in Japan - are the building blocks for almost any Japanese word you would care to imagine.

Why is this so important? Well, it suggests by far the most efficient way for a beginner to learn Japanese. If the beginner can complete this volume before learning a single word or attending a single class (completion, quite remarkably, takes no more than 3 months full-time), then he or she is at a huge advantage over any other student of Japanese. Why? Because every single time that student learns a new word, he or she can learn it in conjunction with its kanji form if it has one.

This is a vital point. Most people when asked how they became proficient in Japanese will say that hobbled along for several years using mainly hiragana and katakana, and, worst of all, the romanized form - romaji (personally, I spent a whole year learning Japanese using romaji). However, to do that is really shooting yourself in the foot. It is a gross inefficiency for three reasons. Firstly, you will have to learn words twice, or even three times (if you used romaji, then 'upgraded' to hiragana and then kanji). Secondly, your memory won't be able to benefit from being able recognize ALL of the kanji you see around you on a daily basis in Japan. Thirdly (and perhaps most importantly) you will never have any insight into WHY a word sounds like it does. For example, learning the word for post office clerk - "yuubinkyokuin" - in romaji is very difficult because you have no idea whatsoever of the kanji building blocks. However, those sounds are there for a reason, and break down into four kanji which, using Heisig's method, you would have learned as 'mail', 'convenience', 'bureau' and 'employee'. Needless to say, these four sound-units appear in hundreds of other words, and this gives an internal logical to vocabulary learning which simply does not exist otherwise.

I am slowly recovering from post-romaji stress syndrome. Believe me, it is the worst habit you could ever get into. Once I realised the importance of the above, I resolved not to learn a single new piece of Japanese vocabulary until I could write it in kanji too. You should do the same. If you know your 'ABC', you can be confident about learning any Japanese vocabulary you want to with considerable ease.

p.s. I would recommend two more aids in addition. Firstly, as other reviewers have noted, Heisig's 2042 "Kanji study cards" are very handy for learning the 'yomikata' (the pronunciation). And secondly, something that hasn't been mentioned is "Kanjican" by Kanjisoft systems (available on the web). While by no means a perfect program, it is designed to accompany Heisig's series, and allows you to enter both Heisig's and your own stories (to replace the author's quite frankly abominable ones), and then be tested randomly on each kanji. Very useful indeed, since you need a place to record your own stories.

A REVELATION!
This book tells you straight away in the short introduction that its aim is to teach you ALL the Kanji characters that every Japanese schoolchild learns. That's over 1,900 of them.
I know people who have been applying themself to this task for years and can't even get half way. Personally,I don't think there is any point in learning how the character is pronounced right at the start as most Kanji have several different readings depending where they are positioned. My aim for now is to learn these characters first, and then I can look in comics and other specialist magazines aimed at foreign learners where the Kanji have Hiragana next to them to show you how to say it. I learnt how to read Spanish with comics - this, I hope, will put me on the same kind of track. (And no,I'm not a manga freak.)
I've already owned a book showing the etymology of Kanji for a couple of years now, it's been very useful and interesting, and it's let me recognise about 100 Kanji - but I'd be hard pressed to recall any more than about 30-40 of them enough to reproduce them for myself.
As for this book - I received it on Friday - started looking at it that evening and already, just on Sunday afternoon I can write and recognise OVER 200 NEW KANJI. I honestly, earnestly believe I will have learnt the remaining 1,800 by Xmas.
This has been the most extraordinary book (the most extraordinary ANYTHING in fact) I have ever purchased.
Maybe it doesn't work for everybody.
It most certainly works for me.
And I'm still in shock by how simple it feels, and how easy it is to remember everything. The 'secret' seems to be in the order the Kanji are introduced - which is certainly not conventional.
My advice is, please read W Heisig's introductions carefully. The criticisms levied by the other reviewers are properly discussed. If what Mr Heisig describes doesn't suit you, you should be able to return a pistine copy to Amazon.

And I'm taking the other positive reviewer's advice by aiming to learn the Kanji BEFORE I progress further orally (I have a survival vocabulary of about 150 words - thanks to BBC's Talk Japanese). I'm looking forward to Xmas with my Japanese Grandmother-in-law, communicating with hastily made 'flashcards'.