Japanese Kanji & Kana - by Wolfgang Hadamitzky & Mark Spahn (Paperback)

About the Book

The essential resource for learners and linguists

Book Synopsis

"One of the best modern texts. Highly recommended." --The Japan Times

Complete, compact and authoritative--this Japanese language book provides all the information needed to learn kanji and kana, including the 92 hiragana and katakana phonetic symbols (known collectively as Japanese Kana) and the 2,136 standard Joyo Kanji characters that every Japanese person learns in school. This new and thoroughly revised edition reflects recent changes made to the official Joyo kanji list by the Japanese government.

The kana and kanji are presented efficiently and systematically which helps you learn them quickly and retain what you have learned to improve your mastery of the Japanese language. The ability to read Japanese and write Japanese is an essential skill for any student and will build on their previous knowledge and improve their overall capacity to learn Japanese. A concise index allows you to look up the Kanji in three different ways (so the book also serves as a Japanese Kanji dictionary) and extra spaces are provided to allow you to practice writing Japanese.

Japanese Kanji and Kana contains:

• All 2,136 official Joyo kanji with readings and definitions.
• Characters are graded by their JLPT examination levels.
• Up to 5 useful vocabulary compounds for each kanji.
• Brush and pen cursive forms as well as printed forms.
• 19 tables summarizing key information about the characters.
• Kanji lookup indexes by radicals, stroke counts and readings.

From the Back Cover

Language

oOne of the best modern texts. Highly recommended.o

uThe Japan Times

This new edition of the widely acclaimed reference classic now reflects the recent update of the Japanese governmentAEs official Joyo kanji list.

What makes this guide the leader?

A readable, detail-rich guide to all aspects of the Japanese writing system. It explains the kanji and kanaAEs history, orthography, and usage, as well as guides to writing, punctuation, romanization, and how to use Japanese dictionaries and reference books.

For all 2,136 Joyo kanji, here are their officially recognized readings, most important definitions, and up to 5 useful compounds. And for maximum use to learners, the compounds use only kanji that have been introduced earlier.

19 essential tables, summarizing key infoufrom the 214 historical radicals, to the rules for determining a kanjiAEs radical, to the derivation of kana.

oA helpful guide for anyone who needs to use kanji.o

uMainichi Daily News

Review Quotes

"Japanese Kanji and Kana by Wolfgang Hadamitzky and Mark Spahn is a much-have resource for anyone learning Japanese, because it is so versatile." --Judith Meyer, LearnLangs.com

"A helpful guide for anyone who needs to use kanji." —Mainichi Daily News

"Each character is introduced with full info: stroke order, radical and composition, ON and KUN pronunciations along with different meanings that these imply (very useful for me!), as well as several example words or phrases that can be created with these Kanji. The examples have been carefully chosen so that they only use Kana or Kanji that were previously introduced so that you don't need to jump around in the book. All around a must-have for students of Japanese." --Goodreads

"One of the best modern texts. Highly recommended" --The Japan Times

"The historic material, which many students skip, is meaty enough to satisfy geeky questions but not so demanding that I felt at all guilty about skimming through the more challenging sections." --8 Asians blog

"The kana and kanji book has the most common readings for each character which could definitely be worth memorizing. It also has stroke order which is useful and common words using that kanji which is very useful." -- How to Japan blog

"This book is great for helping students learn and memorize the different Japanese characters, but I have to emphasize that having at least some prior knowledge of Japanese is important for working with this book. The true beginner will most likely become overwhelmed with all the information and might even feel intimidated just by reading the introduction. Many people who choose to learn Japanese try to find quick and easy ways to learn how to write, but writing in this language takes dedication and patience. Using this book will not make you a writing or reading expert in a matter of months, but it will certainly make a huge difference." --Language Trainers blog

"This will be a useful reference tool in the future...there are some good tips here." --Deep Kyoto blog

About the Author

Wolfgang Hadamitzky is a freelance author of Japanese language learning materials and has worked as a librarian on the staff of the East Asia Department of the Berlin State Library and of the German Cultural Institute (Goethe Institute) in Tokyo.

Mark Spahn has a background in mathematics, engineering, and computer science and has worked in Japan as a teacher, computer magazine writer, programmer, and translator. He is currently a technical translator and consultant.

Hadamitzky and Spahn are the authors of numerous language learning and reference books including The Learner's Japanese Kanji Dictionary, The Kanji Dictionary and A Guide to Writing Kanji & Kana Books 1 and 2. All of which are available from Tuttle Publishing.