The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2,300 Characters - Softcover

Conning, Andrew Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568365268 ISBN 13: 9781568365268

Publisher: Kodansha America, Inc, 2013

Synopsis

Kodansha's widely acclaimed Kanji Learner's Course (KLC) is a complete guide to mastering all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese. It anchors a comprehensive kanji learning system, supported by the KLC Graded Reading Sets, the KLC Green Book, the KLC Wall Chart, and keystojapanese.com (a user-support website for forming study groups, exchanging tips, and tracking one's learning progress with points and level ranks). The KLC is also cross-referenced for convenient use with Kodansha's companion volume, the Kanji Learner's Dictionary.

About this title

Review:

This unique treasure for learners is a step-by-step guide to mastering all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese. It forms the core of the widely praised and comprehensive “KLC” kanji learning system, supported by the KLC Reading Practice Sets, the KLC Green Book, the KLC Wall Chart, and a user-support website (keystojapanese.com) where you can form study groups, exchange tips, and track your learning progress with points and level ranks.

The 2,300 entries of this main textbook adeptly integrate the three essential elements for mastering kanji meanings: accurate keywords, carefully selected sample vocabulary to illustrate meanings & usage, and an unparalleled system of mnemonic aids.

  Keywords. Each character’s core meaning is encapsulated into a concise, easily memorized keyword. The keywords for all 2,300 entries have been carefully chosen to be semantically accurate and to integrate the character's various senses into a core idea.

   Sample vocabulary. The concept captured in each keyword is illustrated with up to five sample vocabulary items, carefully selected to clarify how the kanji is used in building typical words and phrases.

   Mnemonic aids. Each entry contains an original mnemonic aid that is carefully designed to help learners remember the character’s core meanings. Mnemonic aids pay special attention to helping learners immediately recognize each kanji and distinguish it from lookalikes.

A SELF-GUIDING, SELF-REINFORCING COURSE
The Course arranges all the information needed to master 2,300 characters into a streamlined, self-guiding, and mnemonically self-reinforcing curriculum. The course follows a sequence that aids learning by introducing kanji components step by step, grouping related kanji together, and teaching kanji in rough order of importance. Moreover, sample compounds include only such kanji as have previously been learned. This ensures that learners are able to understand and use each compound, and provides a built-in review of all the kanji already studied.

THE ULTIMATE KANJI LEARNING RESOURCE

   Provides a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the core meaning of each kanji, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization.

   Introduces the meaning and usage of each grapheme the first time it appears, helping learners seamlessly acquire new kanji based on a sound understanding of their component parts.

   Innovatively uses concrete imagery to simplify complex characters and make their meanings immediately recognizable in their graphical forms.

   Teaches characters in a pedagogically effective sequence, presenting graphically related characters together to help learners give significance to their contrastive features as they learn them, and thereby avoid having to re-learn them later.

   Helps learners actively apply each character’s principal meanings and readings using key vocabulary words, carefully chosen to illustrate the character’s uses and to help learners employ it in everyday reading and written communication.

   Helps learners differentiate among graphically similar kanji by showing how to remember the characters in a mutually contrastive manner that connects their graphical distinctions to their underlying semantic differences. Along the way, the course introduces nearly 800 pairs of easily confused kanji.

   Helps students learn to write kanji accurately, by indicating each kanji’s stroke order and placing careful emphasis on distinctions among graphically similar characters.

    Includes all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese, including all 196 characters added to the official Joyo Kanji List in 2010.

   Includes convenient indexes that allow learners to find a kanji with minimum effort, using its reading, radical, or stroke count. Extensive cross-referencing allows learners to easily find the entries of lookalike kanji, as well as all kanji appearing in the sample compounds

About the Author:

Andrew Scott Conning is a doctoral candidate and Presidential Fellow at the Harvard School of Education. He received a bachelor s degree in languages from Georgetown University and a master s degree in social anthropology from the Escuela National de Antropologia e Historia (Mexico). He has been active in Japan as a lecturer and university administrator, and most recently as a research scholar at the University of Tokyo.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kodansha America, Inc
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1568365268
• ISBN 13: 9781568365268
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 720