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Introduction

Welcome to the study of Japanese kanji characters—a most challenging and rewarding part of the Japanese language. The aim of this book is to help you master the most important kanji for beginners. The kanji in this book are included on many important national and international exams—from the International Baccalaureate to the Advanced Placement Japanese Exam—and reflect a synthesis of all of the most commonly used college level beginning Japanese textbooks. Whether you are a college student, high school student, or simply interested in Japanese, this book can help you.

This book is designed for students who have completed a basic level of Japanese study, equivalent to one year of high school or one semester of college. Romaji is used, but you will get much more benefit from this book if you master hiragana and katakana, as well as beginning level vocabulary and grammar.

There are 1,945 common use kanji characters in Japanese, and 410 of them are often considered core for Japanese exams. Although large in number, these 410 kanji can be learned in a relatively short time with good instruction and consistent effort. Japanese elementary and secondary students spend many years learning the kanji characters by rote learning. This book, however, teaches them in a way that reduces study time and monotony.

This book uses both traditional as well as unique new methods to make the kanji characters easier to learn. The traditional methods include extensive writing practice, drills, and quizzes. The methods unique to this book include over one hundred reading passages and comprehension questions similar in format to those on many Japanese exams; numerous and engaging practice sections; and original mnemonics, illustrated by a Japanese artist, presented with each kanji.

Mnemonic illustrations associate the shape of the kanji characters with things already known to most learners, making the kanji easier to learn and remember. Using mnemonics is a proven, though often ignored, method of foreign language instruction. Some kanji characters are complex, so it makes sense to use mnemonics to ease the burden on memory, and improve the pace and quality of learning.

How to Use this Book

This book is organized into 22 lessons, each containing 5 to 15 kanji characters, beginning with the most basic and simple to write kanji, and reflecting the general progression of typical Japanese programs. There are abundant exercises in each lesson to help reinforce the newly learned kanji. Naturally, these exercises promote reading and writing proficiency, but some also provide speaking and listening practice as well (see the “Review Questions” at the end of each lesson). The key to mastering kanji is to learn to write them, study the most useful vocabulary, and practice them extensively in a variety of interesting and comprehensible contexts.

Write, Write, Write!

One of the best ways to learn kanji characters is simply to write them repeatedly. Nearly every page in this book provides extensive opportunities to write the kanji. There are simple drills and engaging exercises that promote kanji proficiency. Don’t be tempted to skip over these valuable chances to improve your handwriting as well as to really learn and internalize the kanji.

Vocabulary Building

Since most kanji vocabulary are compound words (with two or more kanji characters), rather than learn them in isolation, it is best to learn kanji through actual vocabulary. This book presents between three and six useful words for each kanji character. Try to learn them all. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to improve your Japanese proficiency is to steadily increase your vocabulary.

Read, Read, Read!

This book teaches 205 kanji characters (plus 18 additional non-core kanji), and provides reading passages related to each one. The reading passages are level-appropriate for the ability and interests of high school students. Take the time to read these passages, and try to answer the comprehension questions that follow them. Learning to read, after all, is one of the main purposes for studying the kanji characters.

In the back of the book you will find answers to the reading comprehension questions. The table of contents also lists all of the kanji characters, grouped by common theme, for easy reference.

Two Ways to Pronounce Kanji Characters

Kanji characters often have multiple meanings and pronunciations, because the Japanese language has changed considerably in the past 1,500 years. Students often express anxiety over having to learn more than one meaning and pronunciation for kanji characters, but on the other hand, this also means there are one half or fewer kanji characters to learn than would otherwise be the case.

There are two basic ways that kanji characters can be read: the on-yomi or Chinese pronunciation, and the kun-yomi or Japanese pronunciation. Before the Japanese began to borrow Chinese characters, there was no written language of Japan. By the 6th century, Chinese characters were widely used in Japan. They became known as kanji, “kan” meaning the Han Dynasty, and “ji” meaning characters. The Japanese used kanji characters to represent Japanese words and ideas, but also adopted many Chinese words and their pronunciation (or their best approximation of them). Today, although the meanings of many kanji characters are mutually understood by Japanese and Chinese people, the pronunciations are somewhat different.

As you encounter each kanji notice the different meanings and pronunciations that it may have. For instance, in the example on page 4 the kanji 食 (food, eat) would include た(べる) and ショク. But rather than learning these pronunciations in isolation, they are presented in meaningful vocabulary items. Not all kanji have both Japanese and Chinese pronunciations, and sometimes they have additional special pronunciations. This is a challenging part of learning Japanese kanji, but if you try to learn the example vocabulary it will make this task less challenging.

This book teaches the most useful 3 to 6 vocabulary associated with each character, or about 1,000 vocabulary items in total. The words with the kun-yomi or Japanese pronunciation are introduced first in most cases. Students are often familiar with these words and only need to learn the kanji. The words with on-yomi or Chinese pronunciations tend to be more advanced, and they are presented second.

How to Write Kanji Characters

There are few better ways to learn kanji characters than by simply writing them by hand over and over. Using the correct type of line makes your characters look accurate and authentic. There are five basic types of lines: stops, abbreviated stops, sweeps, stop-sweeps, and checks.

1. Stop: This is a line that comes to a stop before the writing tool is removed from the page. Stops come in varying lengths and directions, and some even change direction midway.

2. Abbreviated Stop: This line is shorter than a regular stop, and sometimes looks like a dot.

3. Sweep: This is a line that tapers off as the writing tool is gradually removed from the paper.

4. Stop sweep: This line stops midway, changes direction, and then tapers off like a sweep. This leaves the end of the line a bit thicker than the rest of it.

5. Check: This line is made by removing the writing tool from the paper, as it changes direction, leaving a hook-shaped mark on the end of the line.

Kanji Stroke Order

Not only do students need to use the correct types of lines, they also need to write them in the correct order. Using correct stroke order makes your kanji look natural, particularly when writing them quickly. Experienced Japanese writers can tell when a kanji has been written out of order.

In this book the correct stroke order is provided with each new kanji character. Note these stroke order sections carefully. Like hiragana and katakana, kanji are usually written from left to right and from top to bottom. There are several general rules for writing kanji:

• Kanji are written from left to right. [川 is a useful example; see p. 40.]

• Kanji are written from top to bottom. [三, 言; see pp. 12 and 122.]

• When horizontal and vertical lines cross, the horizontal line goes first, and then the vertical line. [十, 未; see pp. 18 and 274.]

• When there is a left-middle-right arrangement and the middle is the longest, it is written first. [小, 水; see pp. 62 and 32.]

• When outside lines surround a character, the outside lines are written first. [月; see p. 30.]

• When the center of a kanji is surrounded by a box, the center is written before the bottom line. [日, 田, 国; see pp. 30, 38 and 218.]

• Lines that cover the outside, but not the top, are written last. [近; see p. 84.]

Some kanji do not follow these general rules, so pay careful attention to the stroke order sequence of each kanji as it is introduced. Using correct stroke order may seem awkward or unnatural at first, but it makes a big difference in the way the kanji look to Japanese people. With practice you will soon be producing natural looking kanji characters without having to think about stroke order at all.

The writing practice boxes in this book are on the small side, which can be helpful to some learners in keeping their strokes’ lengths and relative positions more precise and consistent. But if you find that the larger writing spaces available in the lessons’ Practice sections work better for you, remember that you should feel free to practice your writing on separate sheets of paper. It’s impossible to practice your character writing too much!

Focus on Meaning

As you learn Japanese kanji characters you will be developing skills that are shared among over 1.5 billion people, including Japanese, Chinese, and others. One reason that alphabet-based writing systems have not replaced these characters is because of several advantages they have. One such advantage is a focus on meaning. In English, for example, readers can pronounce most words, but occasionally need to look up the meaning in a dictionary. In Japanese, on the other hand, readers occasionally come across characters they cannot pronounce, but they understand the meaning, so they do not need to stop reading to look it up.

The aim of this book is to help you master the most important kanji for beginners, particularly to be able to read more and more materials in Japanese. You will naturally be able to read more characters than you be able to write. As you focus on the meaning, you will be able to read and comprehend many sentences you may not be able to write, let alone read aloud. In each lesson you will encounter several reading passages that will help you practice this skill.

Do not worry if you cannot pronounce every character in the reading passages. Understanding the meaning of the characters is more important for reading. You will know this skill is developing, if you can answer the reading comprehension questions correctly.

Contents of the CD-ROM

To download, please click here.

The CD-ROM contains a program for reviewing the kanji characters introduced in this book. It has a vocabulary quiz section and a reading comprehension section. Using a multiple-choice format, you can get immediate, interactive feedback on how well you are progressing through each lesson.

In addition to the quiz program, the CD-ROM also contains a set of flash cards for all of the kanji characters and vocabulary introduced in this book, and a few extra vocabulary items as a bonus. The front displays the kanji and the useful vocabulary associated with it, and the back displays the corresponding hiragana, romaji, and English for each card.

The card files are provided in two different page setups, so that you may select your preferred way of printing them. One set is formatted to print double-sided if your printer allows that (i.e., the card “pages” are sequenced with each card-fronts page followed immediately by its corresponding card-backs page). The other format has all card-fronts in a group, and all card-backs in a separate group.

Card stock paper works best for printing out flash cards. Not only does it last longer, it also makes it impossible to accidentally see the answer through the paper. You may want to print out multiple sets of flash cards, one side only, for playing games like Memory. One advantage of having the flash cards on the CD-ROM is your ability to print as many copies as you wish.

Also, please note that Japanese has many homonyms. For instance, the word spelled in hiragana as にかい can mean 二回 (two times) and 二階 (second floor). This is one reason why kanji characters are important to the Japanese language. As you progress in your Japanese studies, you will encounter some words that share the same sound as words you have already learned, but have different meanings. This is the case with some of the words on the flash cards. Luckily there are kanji characters in most cases to help minimize this confusion!

For best results, try studying a few at a time, adding more cards as they become easy. Some students prefer to divide their cards into two piles as they study: the cards they already know and the cards they are still working on mastering. By focusing on the stack of flash cards you are still learning, you will use your study time more efficiently.

One Step at a Time

The Japanese have a saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” 千 里の道も一歩から “senri no michi mo ippo kara.” This applies to learning kanji. You are taking the first steps toward mastering written Japanese. The list on the table of contents may seem vast at this point, but taking kanji one character at a time, one lesson at a time, you will make great progress. Most experienced students will tell you it is not easy, but worth it. When you look back, you will be impressed by all the ground you have covered. All the best to you in this journey!