Product Description

This compact book is a lively collection of contemporary memory aids (mnemonics) that teaches you the shapes and sounds of hiragana and katakana, the two basic syllabaries used in written Japanese. Combining clever drawings and text memory aids, each hiragana and katakana pair is presented on a single page for comparison, with separate visual and text mnemonics. Fits handily into any pocket.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61737 in Books
• Published on: 1995-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

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

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

About the Author
Michael Rowley is an illustrator and graphic designer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Learning Tool !
Nice tiny little book. Take it anywhere. I found that it's a great way to remember how to pronounce the kana of the Japanese writing!

Believe the hype- it's really a great little book.
When I saw reviews for this book, I was worried that too many of the reviews sounded canned, but I thought for $6, there wasn't much to lose. After getting the book, I think all the enthusiasm might just be genuine. Please note- this is a *very* little book, as in measuring perhaps 5"x3", and consisting of 73 pages. This is beyond pocket-sized, it's micro. But for what you get, this book (er, "pocket guide" is more appropriate) easily qualifies as one of the best pound-for-pound deals in the industry.

Included are the full katakana and hiragana (absent are the kanji, but the author has a book just for that titled "Kanji Pict-o-Graphix"). The book opens with a short introduction and pronunciation guide to the romanization, and ends with a nice selection of useful topics in concise from, from voiced and unvoiced characters to combined forms and doublers. There are even quick-lookup indexes. There really is enough in here to read and (passably) pronounce these two alphabets. Note that a dictionary of actual meanings is absent, so you'll need to compliment this with other materials if you want to do more than meaninglessly sound out phrases.

The central gimmick of creating mnemonics to help you quickly memorize and retain the kana is absolutely praiseworthy. Each page has one sound / character, in its katakana and hiragana equivalents. You see the actual character, and the author's look-alike picture and sound-alike phrase. You can see this on the cover- the symbol Chi is presented by a figure cheering, and CHEer is your pronunciation clue. Some of the look-alikes are pretty far-fetched, but overall, it works. (Like the phrase for Mo is "Catch MO' fish with two worms", with an appropriate picture- I doubt I'll ever forget that one, which might be a good thing)

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to learn your katakana and hiragana, I've frankly never seen a better pocket guide than this. The best possible reason to get this volume is if you're already in a Japanese course (or have another book on learning the language) and your real trouble is just memorizing these alphabets. Most of the characters will instantly register with you, and retention is excellent. Understand that this book is what it is- a guide to memorizing the kana- and that it is no more and no less. If that's what you need, I highly recommend this product.

The Perfect Tool For Learning the Kana!
This tiny little book does exactly what it says it does--it teaches you the kana in a matter of minutes/hours. I've tried other mnemonic pictures available on the Internet, but none are better than these. You'll learn the kana quickly and painlessly--I can't recommend this one highly enough!