250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use, Volume 1 Review

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250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use, Volume 1 ReviewAs the negative review on this site points out, this book is not a complete Japanese course. In effect, it assumes that you are studying (or already know) first year Japanese, but as a guide for learning Kanji, it is exceptional. Unlike other kanji texts I have seen, it has many and varied drills along with profuse and useful material for seeing the kanji in real-life situations, including many photos or mock-ups of street signs, calendars, meishi, etc. Understanding is also promoted by the useful choice of kanji motivated by a well thought-out and coherent order.
Although the book gives "understanding the kanji" explanations with illustrations for every kanji, it is often easier to ignore the more abstract ones. For example, the explanation for the "day of the week" kanji is "combines sun, wings, and fat bird. The sun flying on a bird's wings suggests a day of the week." Admittedly, the explanations of the more concrete versions are better, but I didn't really find them very useful. If you like that kind of thing, supplement with Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji," which has more useful mnemonics (but doesn't have any exercises or vocabulary).
The bottom line is that this book is far more than a list of kanji and vocabulary. It is a complete and well thought-out system for learning kanji as a whole.250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use, Volume 1 OverviewThis book is indispensable for any non-native speaker trying to make it through a day in Japan. Covering 21 everyday situations, this book deals with a variety of topics ranging from the cordial (How do you do?) to the crucial (Going to the hospital.) Fully illustrated with line drawings throughout, 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use Volume I offers valuable information for learners and visitors alike.As many classroom students can tell you, the kanji taught in most textbooks is not always encountered in everyday situations. To fill this gap, a group of researchers from the prestigious University of Tokyo pooled their talents to create 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use Volume I, a workbook that teaches the characters one is most likely to see in the day-to-day world.All entries include the meanings, stroke-orders, common compounds, and derivations of the kanji. Sample materials such as forms and public photos illustrate the actual use of kanji, showing the settings where a traveler or resident may come upon the characters. The quizzes and exercises fortify the lessons, making the text ideal for classroom use or self-study. By the end of the book, you will have learned the 250 most important characters in Japanese and thousands of vocabulary words in which they appear.

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The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary Review

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The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary ReviewI used the old (red hardback, ISBN 0804819653) Nelson's for years, until this one came out. I much prefer the old, red Nelson's to the new blue hardback Nelson's (ISBN 0804820368). See the review of the new blue hardback on Amazon for a good discussion of its shortcomings. However, this Compact Nelson's is an improvement over both due to its portability and ease of use.
I have been translating Japanese to English for 10 years now, and I have found the red Nelson's to be sufficient for my character needs. Mind you, I work primarily with medical translation and military technology, so I do not read a lot of Japanese literature by Mishima or others which seem to have difficult characters according to another reviewer. Over the past two years I have used the Compact Nelson's and not had any problems.
If you need to look up characters you cannot find in Compact Nelson's, you may want to get a Japanese-Japanese character dictionary, such as the 10,000 character _JIS Kanji Jiten_. That one should include Chinese characters as well.
Other reviewers mentioned difficulty looking up characters using the original radical look-up in Nelson's. After using the radicals for a while you get used to them. It certainly helps to read the instructions on how to look up characters. I also translate Chinese and use Chinese dictionaries from both Taiwan and the mainland. There are many different radical look-up systems but they do not take too long to get used to. If you have difficulty you may want to look more closely at the character to make sure you are looking up the right radical.
Another reviewer mentioned some archaic words in Nelson's. Well, Nelson's is not designed to be used as a Japanese-English dictionary. For that purpose you may want to get Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary (ISBN 4767420253).The Compact Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary OverviewThe Compact Nelson is an abridged edition of Tuttle's New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary, with 3,068 characters and the Universal Radical Index (URI).Its paperback format and trim size make it a portable, practical companion for students and travelers.And like the New Nelson, The Compact Nelson allows users to look up any main-entry character from any of its radicals, eliminating the struggle to determine the primary radical.The Compact Nelson's unique URI also contains more than 10,000 entries, making it the most thorough and reliable index available.Finally, each main entry contains the character's cross-reference number in the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) code and Morohashi's Dai Kanwa Jiten.

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Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese: Third Edition Review

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Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese: Third Edition ReviewWhatever your reasons are for wanting to study Japanese, you'd do well to learn hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Some people go for the spoken-only approach, but I've found that learning hiragana, katakana, and a lot of the kanji has definitely improved by retention of Japanese vocabulary. Many Japanese words include kanji (for example, the word "nihon" for Japan is the combination of the kanji for "sun" and the kanji for "origin"), so knowing what the words literally mean will help increase your understanding of Japanese overall.
After learning hiragana and katakana (the syllabaries of Japanese; much simpler than kanji, these are sound-based rather than meaning-based), you'll want to integrate kanji into your study of the language. That's where this book comes in. The 1,006 Essential Characters are listed by grade (1st through 6th). Each of these kanji entries includes: the stroke order, Japanese pronunciations, meanings in English, and three examples of the kanji contained in Japanese words. The 1,945 General Use Characters are listed by stroke-order (1 through 23); this includes all of the kanji of the 1,006 set plus those other general use characters not taught in 1st through 6th grade. A hiragana and katakana chart is also included, as well as an index sorted by pronunciation in the back.
This book makes a great reference for teaching yourself the kanji. Of course, you shouldn't expect to end up using this book alone for learning the kanji; it's more helpful for review and reference. There are plenty of resources on-line and several other books that would be helpful to use in conjunction with this book. For example, Kanji Pict-o-Graphix encourages mnemonic, visual memorization and Japanese For Everyone focuses on both written and conversational Japanese. However, this book serves the purpose it was created for: to provide clear and succinct entries for the Joyo kanji so you can learn how to write and understand them. It is an essential reference that every Japanese-language learner should own.Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese: Third Edition OverviewA best-seller trusted by beginning and intermediate students since 1959 and now in its third edition, this affordable study guide includes all 1,945 current joyo kanji. Detailed entries for all 1,009 "essential" kanji include stroke order, meanings, and pronunciation.

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Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary: A Study Guide to Mandarin Chinese's 500 Most Frequently Used Words (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) Review

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Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary: A Study Guide to Mandarin Chinese's 500 Most Frequently Used Words (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) ReviewThis is actually a dictionary of the 500 most common Chinese characters ("hanzi"), not words(it has several words listed under each character). However, it is not a true character dictionary either since it does not show how to write characters and you can only look up the character by frequency or by the pronounciation, which a student often won't know. In a true character dictionary you can look up the character by stroke count, radical or pronounciation.
However, while the lookup methods could be improved, the definitions are outstanding. Unlike a character dictionary (like the excellent "Reading and Writing Chinese" published by Tuttle), which provides a basic meaning or two along with a few examples of words that use the character, this book provides all meanings of the character along with many examples. Most helpful of all is the explanation of characters which are related to the grammar structure. For example, the aspect particle "le", the "to be" verb "shi", and the "at" and current tense aspect marker "zai" each have about a page and a half explanation along with example words and sentences.
It should be noted that only simplified characters are used in this book (simplified characters are used in mainland China while complex or traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). Also, all example words and sentences are shown both in characters and in pinyin (the romanization system used for pronounciation).
I found this book to be a good complement to both a standard character dictionary and a regular dictionary. I would rate it a 5 if it contained 1) a more complete lookup system (stroke count, radical, etc) 2) writing information for each character and 3) complex characters as well, at least in the entry listing if not in all of the examples.Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary: A Study Guide to Mandarin Chinese's 500 Most Frequently Used Words (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) OverviewThis text acts as both a traditional dictionary and a teaching guide to Manarin Chinese, providing meaning and gramatical explanations for the use of each word. Entries are presented in both Chinese characters and roman letters with pinyin transcription. There is also a pronunciation guide.

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