Crazy for Kanji Review

How do you study kanji? I’ve followed Eve Kushner’s posts on Japanesepod101, where she blogs about how wonderful kanji are, for a while now. So when her new book Crazy for Kanji came out, I had to get my hands on it.

If you have seen her posts, you will see a lot of familiar writing in the book, but it expands on concepts in ways that have never been achievable on the blog. There are charts, analysis, study tips, and much more, all written in Eve’s disarmingly friendly tone.

Here’s a video I made to show and describe the book. Hopefully by the time this post goes live, the HD option will be available so you can get a good look inside.

If you would like to buy the book, it is available at Amazon JP and Amazon USA.

If you would like to check out the other book I mention in the video, it is called Read Japanese Today (JP link, USA link)

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Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic. He writes for JibTV too.
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mati

i like E K’s writings. However, it totally sucks that she uses romaji instead of furigana. strange since anybody who would be interested in her blog is an advanced learner.

for me it is a reason to not buy the book.

Claytonian

I know what you mean, but from the standpoint of trying to make it as accessable as possible to beginners, romaji are a necissary evil.

Luckily, the romaji in this book isn’t distracting or a crutch, it’s always parenthetical confirmation for readings.
http://www.readthekanji.com Joe Ellis

One of the lessons I learned when building my site was that there are a large number of potential students who are interested in learning Japanese, but are just too daunted by all the characters to start, kana included.

So I don’t blame her for using romaji if it helps grab the interest of those types of students. It’s also such a big help to have someone show you why kanji can be fun to learn in the beginning instead of having to think they are an extra chore on the route to fluency.

http://www.twitter.com/christaran Karisu

Irrational comments incoming:

Kanji wonderful? I’d love to know what crack she’s smoking! Most illogically/unnecessarily complex writing system in the history of mankind.

And after studying Japanese for about 2 years now, I still can not understand the romaji hate. It’s kinda ridiculous to me really. It represents the same exact sounds that you get from reading kana, only it’s about 100x’s easier to read for English speakers. Even knowing kana perfectly, I still can not just glance at kana like I can romaji.

When I want less of a headache I much prefer romaji.

http://www.binary-apotheosis.com/blogs/index.php Rob A

Kanji isn’t that bad. About 5 years of self-study and I can faithfully identify about 600 or so. That number drops when you ask me to write them outright

I highly recommend ‘Kanji Pict-o-Grafix’ if you have trouble remembering them from regular study. It’s cheap and they use mnemonic pictures to help you remember about 800 kanji and their parts.
Kenji

if you dont understand asian culture then please dont learn
its not just about convincingness its meaningful arts
each character has a meaning and story behind

http://www.binary-apotheosis.com/blogs/index.php Rob A

Awesome as always Clay. I’ll have to check this book out. DOUBLE HAPPINESS!
http://bensescapefromny.blogspot.com Ben

I love kanji. I don’t know about this method, but, in RTK I trust. *Swears to kanji bible*

http://surrealu.blogspot.com Claytonian

Eve’s book isn’t a method, but she covers several, including RtK

Lira

You are cute!

Crazy for Kanji Review

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