Product Description

"Kanji Pict-o-Graphix offers an engaging way to learn and memorize Kanji."-Rocky Mountain Region Japan Project

"A fun book for studying kanji. The illustration reveals more of its contents and method than any description ever could."-Japan Times

"It is a very nice book, simple and pretty effective. A useful addition to the library of all beginners who aspire to learn Japanese. Recommended."-Protoculture Addicts

Learn more about kanji from Stone Bridge Press: KanaPict-o-Graphix, Designing with Kanji,Kanji Starter 1&2, and Crazy for Kanji

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11861 in Books
• Published on: 1992-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Amazon.com Review
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 it'll come to mind whenever the kanji is seen.

Organized thematically in chapters such as "Power," "Places," "Tools," "The World," "Food," "People," and "The Body," Rowley's 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, there's 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 Rowley's drawing of noodles held by chopsticks, and it's easier to remember which symbol means te when you picture a telephone pole.

It's hard to do Rowley's 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

Review
Michael Rowley has created a visual vocabulary that is striking and, most importantly, memorable." -Wired Magazine -- -Wired Magazine

Michael Rowley has created a visual vocabulary that is striking and, most importantly, memorable." -Wired Magazine -- Review

Language Notes
Text: English, Japanese

Customer Reviews

Okay if you know what you're looking for
I'm self teaching myself Japanese and Kanji definetly is a hard hurdle to master. While I've only so far used this book to learn Kanji (along with [...]), suffice it to say you need quite a few different methods/tools to learn this difficult aspect of Japanese language. While this book is helpful if you know what you are looking for (by looking back in the glossary for the corresponding Japanese romanji term), it's too much to just to go through and try to learn all of the words, unless you're looking for words you like, like love or whatever. Also, the pneumonics aren't the best in the world, but believe it or not it is actually more helpful to me with my kana then the kanji. While this may be a helpful addition to your collection, I'd say research a bit more before buying this book. If you do, just note that you'll definetly need more than this book if you want to become good at Kanji.

Good for Learning Japanese, but Not Chinese
I am a student of both Japanese and Chinese. When I came across this book, I thought it would be fabulous to kill two birds with one stone since the description said that it had both Japanese and Chinese pronunciation. It does have pretty helpful Japanese pronunciation (although there should be hiragana to make it less confusing) but the Chinese pronunciation is from 2,000 years ago. How helpful is Chinese pronunciation from 2,000 years ago to a student learning modern colloquial Mandarin Chinese? I find the description to be very misleading since it has convinced many people that the pronunciation is modern Chinese.

Despite not being able to use this as a study aid for Chinese, it's still very helpful in learning Japanese. I don't use this as my primary way of learning kanji because the number of pictures can be overwhelming and confusing but it's a good reference guide. When using this book, just make sure to pace yourself.

Good for beginners, but soon becomes limiting
This is a fun book to flip through, perhaps with younger learners of Japanese, but the visual method espoused by the author becomes somewhat forced and cumbersome for serious adult learners. A more thorough and systematic approach that breaks Kanji down into radicals such as the book by Henshall or Heisig is more useful.

Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color