I've read through both of these books and I just don't see how you learn anything useful by using this system. Recognizing and attaching english meanings to kanji is useless. Furthermore when you finally do get to learning the readings in book two your still not learning them in context, because other than compounds he lists your not actually learing any words. Beginners should learn kanji in context, that is to say they should be learned as your textboook introduces them as words. After finishing the genki series and learning just 300 kanji you would be far better off than anyone who finishes both of these books.Kanji is not the alphabet, trying to learn them outside of words they are used in will only frustrate you, because when you finish both of these books you still wont be able to read any Japanese.

This is an excellent book-- it's amazing how easy the stroke order and the remembrance of the kanji come along! I enjoy it, and it being so easy makes it fun and exciting to learn more!

I have been using this book now for a couple of weeks, and I have to say that I absolutely love it! I have been trying to memorize the kanji now for two years, and this book has helped me to overcome my mental sticking points and organize the characters effectively in my head. I would suggest that everyone try using a sample of the book which is available for free online before purchasing. The method is a whole lot of fun and much quicker and easier than trying to commit them to memory the brute-force way.

I had my doubts about the learning-method used in "Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters", but after having used it for a month, easily learning 20-60 kanji per day, I'm convinced.

Highly recommended!

I bought this based on some good reviews, but I found it pretty useless. I live in Japan, so just the meaning of the kanji is never enough. We also need to know the reading--how we can actually say it in Japanese. Just memorizing kanji without knowing how to SAY them is pretty useless.

From my study the easiest way to learn Kanji is by understanding contextual use of the characters. This book devotes too much time into memorizing individual characters themselves... not at all how they are used.

It's benefit might be in the worthless mnemonics, however, an intermediate student will already be past this method of comprehension. For the introductory student, not knowing how to read the kanji is practically worthless.

If you want a great book, get Kanji in Context. it's a far better guide to learning kanji.

People reviewing this book negatively obviously didn't read the author's introduction very well. This book does NOT claim to be some magical cure that will give you instant Kanji fluency. It's purpose is to give you an incredibly effective way to IDENTIFY nearly all of the modern use Kanji and be able to write them from MEMORY based on their association with a key word that is USUALLY tied to an effective general meaning. It teaches you to SEE Kanji as visual image and not just a random patch of crazy strokes.

For those that say knowing the meaning alone means nothing I say:

You're just flat out wrong. I honestly can't comprehend how anyone could possibly think that not knowing the general meaning for almost ALL general use Kanji isn't useful. You say you need to learn them in combinations...well guess what? That's exactly what this method helps you do if you have the dedication to complete it. It allows you to go to the next step of learning Kanji in context with incredible ease because you will RECOGNIZE every single Kanji you come across. When you learn the reading of a new combination it will be tied to your mental image of Kanji that you ALREADY KNOW. You won't have rely on brute memory to try and remember a combination. It will now be tied to the imaginative image's that you have learned through Remembering the Kanji.

Buy it, now.

This book does what it says it does: it helps you remember the keywords, but a lot of the time you're not even sure what exactly the keyword in English is supposed to mean, since one word can have many meanings and connotations, and the author doesn't always go into those. Also, he curtails the English meanings -quite a bit- and is by no means comprehensive--he gives only one word usage for each kanji. This may be helpful just to get a foot off the ground for a beginner, but it's also irksome since it doesn't prepare you in any way to apply practically the kanji you learn any time soon.
I had a second problem with this book, and it's not entirely personal--he really, direly overuses christianity and christian mythology in the explanation of the kanji. I find this irksome firstly because I don't want to have to use someone else's religion in order to remember these things; and secondly I don't think it's appropriate to tie a Western religion to a character that comes from a completely different culture and had absolutely no such intentions behind it when it was written. I feel like this does a disservice to the non-Western cultural value behind each character, and makes it, if anything, more difficult to understand what the kanji really means, and where it's coming from/why it's written that way.

This book does what it says it does: it helps you remember the keywords, but a lot of the time you're not even sure what exactly the keyword in English is supposed to mean, since one word can have many meanings and connotations, and the author doesn't always go into those. Also, he curtails the English meanings -quite a bit- and is by no means comprehensive--he gives only one word usage for each kanji. This may be helpful just to get a foot off the ground for a beginner, but it's also irksome since it doesn't prepare you in any way to apply practically the kanji you learn any time soon.
I had a second problem with this book, and it's not entirely personal--he really, direly overuses christianity and christian mythology in the explanation of the kanji. I find this irksome firstly because I don't want to have to use someone else's religion in order to remember these things; and secondly I don't think it's appropriate to tie a Western religion to a character that comes from a completely different culture and had absolutely no such intentions behind it when it was written. I feel like this does a disservice to the non-Western cultural value behind each character, and makes it, if anything, more difficult to understand what the kanji really means, and where it's coming from/why it's written that way.

WOW! I have been plodding along, slowly at best, with Japanese, including writing and reading. I am totally SHOCKED at how easy James Heisig makes this.

I have already spent a *small fortune* on Japanese references and grammar books, so my desire to get a great self-learning tool has been balanced by a STRONG aversion to spending YET MORE MONEY. Therefore, on the advice of other reviewers of "Remembering the Kanji", I downloaded the sample from "Reviewing the Kanji" at http://kanji.koohii.com/

In case that was filtered out, that's * kanji dot koohii dot com *.

Going through the first 3 lessons, I made flashcards and quizzed myself once on those first 52 kanji (and the couple of non-kanji radicals thrown in). In just one quiz, I only had to peek a couple times to remember the imagination-clues (kind of like mnemonics, but based more on ideas). I could also just cover the kanji, look at the meaning, and write them with almost no sweat.

Keep in mind I already know quite a few kanji from my studies, and certainly, as he said we might, those first 15 (counting from 1 to 10 and another 5 which are extremely well-known and easily remembered).

The fact that the imagination clues are used to lead you to easily build on previous knowledge as you go along is the KEY!

Getting through the first 3 lessons in a couple hours (because I *am* writing things down as I go along), I will be done with the sample in a couple days, which has 11 lessons. I can easily see why someone using this method can memorize about 2,000 kanji in a few short months!

Others here have criticized the seperation of kanji-memorization from learning the readings, compound words, and grammar. Hogwash! Learning the kanji either by rote memorization, or even in conjunction with grammar, does NOT work well. Why? There are too many, and as you build complex sentences and practice communicating real ideas with others (things you actually WANT to communicate), you don't repeat most kanji often enough, and there is no LOGIC to the kanji-learning process ITSELF.

Mr. Heisig's method promises to get ONE aspect of Japanese language-learning DONE WELL IN A TIMELY MANNER, which in my opinion will make the others EASIER, since you will not be distracted from your grammar to constantly memorize kanji in an ad-hoc manner or to look them up. You can go back to RTK now and then to review, or use your own flashcards -- but AT A SEPERATE TIME. Let your grammar studies be dedicated to GRAMMAR, in which you will naturally use kanji -- kanji you have learned or are learning in isolated lessons.

Think of it this way, it would be like taking 2 classes. A Japanese kanji class and a Japanese grammar class. Even if you take them at the same time, they will use their own SEPERATE METHODS and FOCUSED LESSONS, though they each make doing your homework easier for both classes because they inter-relate. Does that help you understand the benefit of learning kanji in this way?

It seems obvious to me that if you can remember the meaning of a couple thousand kanji merely by looking at them, it will be a GREAT aid to *memorizing vocab* and to *reading* in actual Japanese!

Mr. Heisig says to not mix his method with others, and I think that's a good warning. However, I don't want to lay off the learning I've already started, so I will continue with grammar practice (that *happens* to introduce kanji). But I will focus on the grammar and not care about retaining any kanji in the grammar book beyond the lesson itself.

So I can continue to learn grammar in JLPT order, which is as good order as any, considering I am not in a formal classroom and can buy previous JLPT test questions to self-test myself.

And as soon as I learn the 2000+ kanji in "Remembering the Kanji" (which should be fairly quickly), I will NOT have to keep looking up kanji I've forgotten, or which are included in vocab lists (or sometimes overlooked in vocab lists) of grammar texts.

Yay!!! I am buying this IMMEDIATELY!!!

I had SUCH high hopes for this book - what a disappointment. I've been learning Japanese for a year now and I'm moving to Japan in two weeks, so I was hoping for a crash course on kanji before I left.

As soon as I opened the book, I realized its major flaw: there is no Japanese pronunciation! In each box you will find the kanji with an explanation in English, but no way to use the word in conversation. I feel totally lost learning it this way. I was accustomed to the Genki I and II books, which have the kanji, pronunciation in kana, and the significance in English, followed by a few ways the kanji is used. This book is really flawed if you are serious about learning kanji.

Learning Kanji by rote memorization the way native Japanese do is something that is only worth pursuing if you happen to start your Japanese language studies at any early age. As a fully developed adult, the way in which one should go about studying vast amounts of characters is entirely different from that of a child. Through various techniques utilizing visualization and imagination, this book presents a radically different approach that blows traditional kanji learning methods out of the water.

It does require some mental flexibility on your behalf but the rewards are astonishing, should you put the proper time and effort forth necessary into this study series.

Do not be afraid by the lack of readings and other aspects you may deem pertinent, as this first series is solely designed to help you commit the characters' meaning and writing to memory. You will find that once you have a character's core meaning internalized all the other elements fall into place.

I highly recommend this book to those who have found themselves frustrated by traditional methods of studying the characters and also to those who wish to systematize what they already may know.

As my studies progressed I found myself altering some of the imaginary/arbitrary meanings associated with radicals in order to cement them in my mind. While Heisig recommends following his system strictly, remember that he created this system from scratch. So this is not the final end all be all. You too are entitled to create your own offshoot or modify this as it suits you best. As human beings we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Once you can harness your true learning potential strengths, the sky is the limit. I was able to take the fundamental principals shown in this book and run with it.

I hope you can use it in a way that will benefit you as well!

Heisig developed a unique method for learning the Kanji, or the Chinese characters as they are used in Japan. He splits the study of Chinese characters in two phases.

Phase 1-Learn to write all 2000 Toyo kanji (i.e. the Ministry of Education's general use characters) from an English keyword (Book I).

Phase 2-After learning to write all 2000 kanji, study how they are read and pronounced (Book II, sold separately).

In Book I, Heisig organizes the kanji somewhat as they are organized in kanji dictionaries. Some kanji, often called radicals, are simple and very distinct in form and meaning. More complex kanji are assembled from the simpler radicals. You learn the kanji by concocting mnemonic stories, the more dramatic the better, and using the radicals as story elements.

The method stirs controversy. Usually, kanji are taught by order of frequency, with the most often used characters being taught first. Heisig doesn't care about that order and some obscure kanji come very early in his list. Also the characters aren't conquered one at a time, but rather you learn to write all of the characters in the Toyo list before learning how to read any of them.

If you do chose to follow Heisig's method, you really should get Heisig's flash cards as well. If you complete both books, there is a third book covering another 1000 characters for upper level literary proficiency.

My experience is that Heisig's method will work more or less effectively depending on how good you are at remembering stories. And of course, the method will not exempt you from having to sit down and do the work! It will take you a few months.

But whatever method you chose, you will benefit from living in Japan and combining your kanji study with language study. By living in Japan you will encounter the kanji every day and you will recognize kanji you have learned, a very rewarding feeling.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

It's been almost two years since I started learning Japanese and I still struggle remembering hundreds of kanji characters I've read over the period. RTK has been my companion only for the past few months, yet I can see a big difference in how I comprehend every new kanji. The method is of course based on mnemonics, which is basically what you cannot live without, when you have to memorize all these characters.

The great thing about this book, is that it gradually introduces the so called "primitives" followed by kanjis themselves. With the help of these "primitives'" system you can either build up your own mnemonics or carefully follow the Heisig provided stories.

Heisig however decided to only assign one English meaning to each character and usually it turns out as a bad choice. Although the intention was to simplify the learning process, it made it somewhat worse, for you'd have to memorize the kanji from the scratch, when you come upon its other meanings. That's one of the biggest flaws of this otherwise great introduction to kanji.

My suggestion would be to carefully look up each Kanji, pick the most common meaning provided and if it's something completely different from Heisig's keywords (thus the mnemonics) just start making up your own stories (which is basically all you're left to do in the middle of the book).
o
Finally the tools that you shouldn't start your journey without:
google for "kanji + kohii" website - a great site with user shared mnemonics - highly recommended
SRS (Spaced Repetition System) applications namely Anki (premade Heisig deck available), Supermemo. These will make sure you never forget what you've learnt.

I find Heisig's book to be extremely helpful in memorizing the Kanji, its stroke order, but not its meaning. For example, there is a Kanji in his book listed as being "Word," when in fact it is used as "language" Japanese. Other Kanji which he defines turn out to be slightly different from their actual meaning. I believe he did this in order to make memorization easier, but I find it odd to come across a Kanji, remember that it means "X," but later find out that it also means "Y," or is some slight variation on "X."

If you say this method doesn't work, you have either a) have a lazy imagination, or b) don't have the focus right now to learn a different language anyway. Using this book takes dedication, work, and not a little creativity. Kanji are as important as vocabulary in the Japanese language, so using the fastest, most efficient method to learn them is key to learning the language as a whole in a faster, more efficient manner. Use this book, improve your grades in a language class, acquire the ability to read printed Japanese, tell your friends, impress natives that you meet.

I ordered this book for a Japanese language class. While some of the author's inclusion of some characters is not practical, with a native speaker teacher I learned which were the most useful kanji. The author utilizes stories to help students to remember the kanji. The crazier the story, the better one will remember.

Heisigheads and anti-Heisigistas are like the Israelis and Palestinians of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language. Bring up this book in a group of learners and a heated argument is more or less guaranteed.

Me? I'm a militant Heisighead. I love it. The reason is a point that really needs to be stressed more: Dr. Heisig's method is fun!

This matters. When you have to learn 2000+ kanji, boredom and frustration are your biggest enemies. Finding a method that keeps you interested and engaged for the duration is an absolute necessity. And here, Heisig shines.

His method is nothing if not playful. It systematically engages your imagination, stimulates it, tickles it, shocks it...whatever it takes to keep you engaged. This makes Kanji learning more like a game than a chore: a series of amusing little puzzles to be solved through play.

I wake up every day looking forward to my Heisig session that day, savoring the fun little stories I'll get to make up and the silly little squiggles I'll scribble.

For the last few weeks, I've been "hooked on Heisig" kind of the way I was once "hooked on Tetris". You can spend hours and hours, pencil in hand, going through these little stories and scribbling kanji...there's just something addictively fun about it. And, unlike with Tetris, at the end of the session you're left with solid knowledge of how to write a new batch of kanji, instead of that vaguely guilty feeling of the tetris addict.

Students stuck using the traditional method see kanji memorization more or less like they see a visit to the dentist: torture to be undergone only because it is absolutely necessary. Heisigheads, on the other hand, approach it as a game. Which group do you think is more likely to see it through to the end?

It's no small thing. The reason the Mindless Repetition method almost always fails is that it's just too boring to keep you interested for as long as it takes to learn all the basic Kanji. So being "fun" is not just some fringe benefit of Heisig: it's a massive part of the reason it works.

(Incidentally, for the indispensable companion website to this book - and to meet hundreds of fanatical Heisigistas - be sure to Google kanji koohii)

Heisig-heads and anti-Heisigistas are like the Israelis and Palestinians of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language. Bring up this book in a "mixed" group and a brawl is almost guaranteed: Dr. Heisig's supporters are numerous and passionate, as are his detractors. More than obviously, his method is NOT for everybody.

Me? I'm a militant Heisighead. I love it. The reason is a point that really needs to be stressed: Heisig is fun!

This *matters*. When you have to learn 2000+ kanji, boredom and frustration are your number one enemy. But Heisig engages the imagination, so it makes Kanji learning more like a game than a chore. For the last few weeks, I've been "hooked on Heisig" kind of the way I was once "hooked on Tetris" - there's just something addictively fun about it.

Personally, I wake up every day looking forward to my Heisig session that day, savoring the fun little stories I'll get to make up and the little squiggles I'll scribble. I look forward to challenging myself to learn more kanji today than the previous day. So it's really unlikely that I'll get discouraged and quit halfway through: you don't just quit doing something you like to do.

I'm sure this won't bring the anti-Heisigistas around, but I think it's a key point. Half the reason the Traditional ("Brute Force" repetition) method usually fails is that it's just too boring to keep you interested for as long as it takes to learn all the basic Kanji. So being "fun" is not just some fringe benefit of Heisig: it's a big part of the reason it works.

At my current rate (about 60 min. a day) I should know all 2000 kanji in about 5 months. After that, I will do Vol II. and Vol III, which teach you how to actually read Japanese. In less than two years, I expect to be able to read basic texts in Japanese. It's still a long time and quite a bit of effort, but a lot less of both than with the traditional method. I mean, there's no way you get results that fast using Brute Force. No way.

(Incidentally, for the indispensable companion website to this book - and to meet hundreds of fanatical Heisigistas - be sure to Google kanji koohii)

I have seen some reviews of this book which criticize Heisig for not paying attention to overall grammer structures. I find that the fatal flaw in such arguments is that this book is not (and I don't believe it has ever claimed to be) a comprehensive Japanese language book: it is simply a kanji book. Even though not all Nihonjin can write all kanii by hand, I do not believe this book is a challenge for Gaijin to gain a greater mastery of Kanji. I see this book as one of the most detailed dictionaries there ever was, and a dictionary in which you sample a plethera of choices before deciding what to focus on.

For what it is (and not what it isn't), I give an enthusiastic 5 stars.

Several reviewers have downgraded this book because it wasn't what they expected. You should know up front: the book teaches nothing beyond the kanji. You will not learn a single Japanese word from this book. This is the book's strength! With a little exertion of the imagination, you learn the Japanese characters in a rational way, through a technique called "component-analysis." That is, Mr. Heisig has broken the characters down into elements that combine with each other to produce more complicated characters.

Heisig's motto is "Divide and conquer." He isn't kidding. If you manage to get through this book--and I grant that it is not easy, just easier than the way the average Japanese child does it!--you will have overcome the greatest obstacle to fluency in Japanese. The grammar is not complicated and the vocabulary no harder than that of any other language. It is the task of learning about 2000 intricate ideographs that defeats most students.

Don't take my word for it: go to a website called "Reviewing the Kanji" and see for yourself. Check out another site called "Kanjiclinic." The book has strong partisans because it works.

Finally, while some students have had remarkable success, learning all 1945 kanji in as short a time as three months, don't be afraid to take your time. Consider: if it takes you 4 years to complete this book, learning 1-3 kanji a day in your spare time, you will have completed the task in less than half the time it takes a Japanese child, studying an hour or two every school day.

Do not recommend this book for anyone. Although it may work for you to remember how to write the Kanji, you are learning the least useful aspect. The meanings you associate with the Kanji are often completely disconnected from what the Kanji really means. You see, you make up stuff in your own mind to help you remember. Although it can work, it just leads to "brute-forcing" the Kanji into your head as characters disconnected from the Japanese language. Then, you'll have to learn the actual meaning of the Kanji (yeah, that English meaning you applied in Book 1 is just what you use for yourself, it isn't really what the Kanji means).

You could easily confuse yourself to a point where you have to "re-learn" the Kanji all over again. Don't do it, don't make the mistake of falling for the scam of learning all of the 1945 Kanji in 6 months, or whatever they say. The only way to truly learn them is to go over and over them. Using mnemonics that have no connection to the meaning of the Kanji (in English) is a waste of your time: your brain will be stuck using English to try to discern the meaning of Japanese, and this is just plain bad.

Bought when I was still a naive student of Japanese. Ditched it when I matured a bit, and became an opponent of the flawed system when I became more of an advanced learner.

This book takes your from simple to difficult. It is the easy way to start learning kanji.

This book (RTK1) is not about learning Japanese, it's about learning kanji. Kanji characters are not an alphabet, they are pictographs where each (usually) represents a single idea. Compare it to how "!" means Exclamation and "?" means Question yet neither appear in the English alphabet. I would dare say these represent a kanji concept. I say this as you'll read complaints that this book does not teach Japanese pronunciations or compounds. It is not meant to do that any more than it would present Chinese or Korean pronunciations of the exact same kanji.

RTK1 teaches you a single English (for Spanish, French or German, he offers similar books in those languages) meaning called a "keyword" for each kanji presented. Since a majority of kanji are made up of smaller kanji (called primitives in the book), Heisig organizes the book by primitives. This simple idea allows a simple build up of stories to connect the keywords to the primitives. Since there are a smaller number of primitives (themselves sometimes made up of easier primitives), you quickly know how to write the kanji correctly no matter the complexity (a feet many native to kanji learning cannot claim expertise in).

As been said in other reviews, you can test this book out for free on the first 250 kanji characters. A simple google search can bring it up. If you really see the use, then buy the book.

To further help you along as ultimately the book was designed for you to learn Japanese eventually, google "Reviewing the Kanji" which is a website that incorporates RTK1 in a useful online flash card set-up. That site will offer forums to further assist learning Japanese.

Bottom line, this book is meant to give you an quick and rough knowledge in your NATIVE LANGUAGE of 2000 kanji that appear on the Japanese Joyo list. The author offers an outstanding Try Before You Buy online file to help you decide. There's an online presence that compliments the use of this book. There's plenty of personel testimony that claims success. With that, please make an informed choice.

PS: I'm upto 1000 Kanji learned with 600 being learned in the last 7 weeks. It's probably above average for speed, but without this book I may have been stuck at 50 Kanji that I might mistake for others.