A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters: All the Kanji Characters Needed to Learn Japanese and Ace the Japanese Language Proficiency Test

by Kenneth G. Henshall

This is a one-of-a-kind kanji study guide that introduces joyo kanji along with detailed, authentic notes about the historical development of each.

As useful as it is fascinating, it's a book any new or aspiring Japanese language scholar will visit over and over. In clear, large-sized entries, A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters details each of the General Use Characters In clear, large-sized entires, A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters details each of the General Use Characters—the 1,945 characters prescribed by the Japanese Ministry of Education for everyday use. Both Japanese readings and English meanings are given, along with stroke-count and stroke-order, examples of usage, and suggestions for memorizing. The components of each character are detailed. The Japanese kanji are graded according to Ministry of Education guidelines, allowing the student to prioritize them and track progress. It will appeal to students seeking to learn kanji as well as Japanese language enthusiasts who want to know the history and etymology of Japanese kanji.

This book Comprehensive and clear, A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters makes Japanese writing accessible to everyone wishing to learn Japanese.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Reference, Language, Nonfiction, Japan, Linguistics

704 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Kenneth G. Henshall is a graduate of the universities of London (B.A.), Sydney (PhD), and Adelaide (Dip. Ed.), and is now a professor of Japanese at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has also taught at the universities of Auckland, Western Australia, California and Waikato. He is well-known for his translations of literature and history books, and is the author of A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters.

Reviews

[Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if I would ever finish this book in this life time! heh-heh It is such a thick book that is packed with so many history behind each Kanji! And there are around 2,000 of them! Kudos to Professor Henshall for this splendid lifetime achievement. His work would always be cherished. His style of breaking down each compound and component of each Kanji to help you remember its meaning fits perfectly well with my own style of memorizing it! In fact, I've been doing the same thing even *before* I found his book! But his has real history and research behind his method. And that makes this book more special to me. It reads like a good history of culture book, too. And many history behind each characters even brought tears to my eyes. I was very moved. So you can say this is much more than just a language-teaching book. It reads like a best-seller. Thank you, Professor Henshall. I hope I will finish your book one day!

[Michael Rowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough and informative. A great book for the serious student of kanji or any curious person.

[Anne Beardsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Henshall takes you through kanji on a brief history tour. For each character, he shows you what the original seal script looked like and what it meant. Then he shows how it developed into the modern kanji used today.
He finishes with explaining the characters it might be confused with, and how you can tell them apart; and then gives a clever mnemonic to recognize it by.

In other words, this book makes Japanese kanji memorable.

It's organized by the year in which Japanese school kids learn them; from kindergarten through high school, with a good number of other 'general use' kanji included afterward.

An interesting, practical, useful way to learn the Japanese kanji.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been extremely helpful. I have never studied the kanji through by grade level, and I discovered that I was missing some that were not in my adult-learner texts. It helped me to learn some of the readings that I had not gotten before. I love reading about the background of characters and the mnemonics provided help me a lot!

I want to note that I have only really used this intensively to around #900 (thought I'll return to it after I finish my current review), but I removed a star because I find that some of the examples are not terribly useful. Other times I find that the one word definitions some compounds have are lacking and I have to write in a clearer definition myself out of my other dictionary. If I wouldn't have done this, I would have completely misunderstood what the word meant in some cases.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

this has all of the 1945 joyo kanji. I love how it's organized-kanji at the grade level it is taught in Japan. Also, each kanji has a little paragraph about the kanji's entymology that is helpful in seeing where the modern characters have come from. At the end of the paragraph there is a little neumonic device to help you remember the kanji, I find it harder to remember the device than to just remember the kanji, but they help some people I guess.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through my career of researching and teaching Japanese, this is the best all round Kanji book I have seen so far. It is perfectly balanced and allows the user to search for characters via the "sound readings" or via the stroke count index. Containing "shodo" (Brush stroke style), the examples are written superbly with very good mnemonics based on the radicals.

This book is very valuable indeed.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most amazing kanji book I have found so far. Not only is it useful practically containing ON and KUN readings, stroke order, mnemonics, example kanji compounds, and etc., but it also is just fun and interesting. I could get lost for hours reading the history behind each character. This is truly a fantastic reference book.

[Mike DeLue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic reference material for the individual who needs context for their Kanji study. Don't expect to be able to use this as a dictionary-style reference though. This is primarily about the development, underlying meaning, and construction of each and every Joyou kanji. The version I have of this book was pre-reform, and so is missing the 100 or so kanji added in 2010.

[Ollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Колись натрапила на цей дивовижний довідник на GoogleBooks, але там не вся книга була у вільному доступі. При першій же нагоді замовила цю книгу, щоб мені привезли з Японії.
Мені більше сподобалася, ніж аналогічні видання із вивчення ієрогліфів, бо містить дуже цікаві викладення про походження знаків (і навіть про поширені омилкові етимологічні судження!), а також мнемоничні підказки для запам'ятовування ключів, що становлять конкретний канджі, у прив'язці до одного (чи кількох) його значень.
Вчитувалася навіть у ті статті, де йшлося про добре вивчені простенькі канджі. Читати на ніч, класти під подушку, листати у метро і в парках!

[♦ SquallAdv ♦ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Henshall, you are my hero. This is the kanji reference book par excellence, much more than just a language-teaching book. The perfect method to study kanji without hating them, so much history, culture, and above all creating some kind of relationship between the kanji and the person behind the book, introducing stories and mnemonic phrases to help you remember kanjis... It's just awesome, you will love it!

[Frank Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does what it says on the tin. It tells you the original meanings of both the characters and the separate elements, which (besides being interesting in its own right) makes it easier to remember them. You can use Wiktionary.org for this as well, so you don't really need it, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word. But I dare say that, of all the things you don't need for learning the kanji, you need this book the most.

Very useful. Recommend.

[kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it reasonable to love a reference text like I love Henshall?

[Winda Priliadewi]

good book

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely effective for learning Kanji and makes the process interesting too.