Lets Learn More Kanji: Family Groups, Learning Strategies and 300 Complex Kanji
by Richard Glenn Covington, Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura, Joyce Yumi Mitamura
Category: Foreign Language Study

Everyone agrees that it is possible to learn to speak Japanese in a reasonable amount of time, but no one has ever said that about reading and writing it. It is widely held that spoken and written Japanese require separate efforts by the student, as if these two aspects were in fact distinct languages. A first step toward alleviating the problem of learning Chinese characters, or kanji, was taken by Yasuko Mitamura in 1997 with the publication of Let's Learn Kanji, which introduced the student to the fundamentals -- strokes, radicals, components -- and 250 basic kanji. Now, Let's Learn More Kanji goes one step beyond: the learning of complex kanji and the formation of compounds of more than one character. Not just a brilliant exposition but also a workbook, Let's Learn More Kanji teaches the student how to analyze difficult characters in terms of radicals, components, and basic kanji, how to put kanji together into compounds, and how to recognize and learn any kanji not introduced in this book. Progress is continually checked, and the student is encouraged through quizzes and exercises. The result: 300 complex kanji and over 1,000 compounds, learned with ease.