Kanji Pict-O-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics by Michael Rowley - Succeeds admirably at what it's supposed to do

How does one learn kanji, the characters of written Japanese? The traditional approach is rote memorization. Japanese children write each kanji hundreds of times at their desks, and eventually they are acquired. Michael Rowley offers a different way, a mnemonic-association approach that provides a hook on which to hang the meaning and retrieve it easily when the kanji comes into view. The concept is simple: each character is represented under the word or concept it stands for (such as turf, bamboo, eat, or duty), followed by the pronunciations of the word in Chinese and Japanese, and a drawing that captures the meaning and resembles the character enough so that itll come to mind whenever the kanji is seen.

Organized thematically in chapters such as Power, Places, Tools, The World, Food, People, and The Body, Rowleys book lets you learn the root symbols before teaching the words that add to them for further meanings. For example, the character for water is a splatter of three dashes that Rowley pictures as three splashing water drops. Later, you see that steam, float, boil, dirt, and bathe all build on the water character. For steam, theres the water character plus a series of lines that Rowley exaggerates to resemble swirling, vapory tendrils, and the association helps. Building on units of memory and relationship, recall is aided considerably by the simple yet evocative drawings. Rowley even manages to help with the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, providing appealing pictures that look a bit like the letters in question and begin with the same sounds. So the na letter looks like a knot, nu resembles Rowleys drawing of noodles held by chopsticks, and its easier to remember which symbol means te when you picture a telephone pole.

Its hard to do Rowleys book justice with words, since the visual element is what makes it tick. He does a wonderful job, blending insight, imagination, and drawing technique, in a book that far surpasses the old rote method, making kanji learning both appealing and accessible. --Stephanie Gold

Succeeds admirably at what it's supposed to do
As a background, I have already tried a few different books as an independent learner. I was told that I could get away with learning the language without learning the writing systems, but that seemed like a cop out. And in any case, it seemed silly to ignore reading and writing, since that forms such a vital part of communication.

This book's premise is so brilliant that I'm surprised it hasn't been done before and I'm glad I found it.

Pros:

1) The cover and titly imply that the book is all about learning kanji, but actually the first few pages are dedicated to visuals and mnemonics for memorizing hiragana and katakana. Only then does the book move on to the kanji.

2) The kanji are organized in chapters with wide themes (respectively: world, food, animals, people, body, spirit, power, learn, tools, places, journey). These chapters are in turn divided up into mini-themes dealing with each chapter (for example, different animals and ideas associated with them). This helped me a lot in mentally organizing kanji and their meanings.

3) Each kanji entry contains a reference number that corresponds to the numbers printed in the upper corner of each page (i.e. each page will show kanji #1-7). This is helpful for when you're flipping through. If you prefer, you can also look up the kanji by this number in the index, which is organized by reference number and pronunciation.

4) Each entry contains the English meaning, and each kanji character is printed in a clean typeset font for easier memorization. Also included are the Chinese and Japanese readings and a visual mnemonic as well as a textual mnemonic (a play on words to go with the drawing, which itself resembles the kanji).

Cons:

1) This book is only for learning how to read, not write. No stroke order is given for hiragana, katakana, or kanji.

2) Since there are only 46 letters each for the hiragana and katakana, those are all covered in the opening pages. However, only 1225 kanji are listed here. This is a little more than the kanji mastered by Japanese children in elementary school and, I've been told, is sufficient to be able to understand most of a newspaper. However, the Japanese Ministry of Education has identified about 2000 basic kanji, so you'll probably need to continue studying beyond this book.

Frankly, these cons don't bother me. This book is doing for me what it set out to do: help me memorize kanji. I am hopeless with flash cards so this was a very welcome respite. If I were to judge this book as a book for learning kanji, it would get a much lower mark, as it doesn't teach you how to write. As a memorization tool, it is excellent and deserves five stars.

In sum, great book, but it should just be a supplement to your learning arsenal.

Other beginner learning materials that I have found helpful include:

Ultimate Japanese Beginner-Intermediate (Book) (LL(R) Ultimate Basic-Intermed) - Get the set that includes CDs with the book.

Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure - Fun and informative way to learn grammar in an informal context. In other words, you're learning Japanese as it's actually spoken and written, a nice change from the elevated formal speech I've found in every language textbook I've ever used. I kept borrowing this so much from my library that I ended up buying a copy. Only downside is it doesn't include lessons. If it had been more like a workbook, it would have been perfect.

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary - This is the kanji resource you've been looking for. Wonderfully organized, very useful, small, AND it includes stroke order for each kanji. Buy it on Amazon; I've found it in local bookstores and they seriously mark the price up.

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