P. G. O'NeillEssential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged for Learning and Reference

This book is amazing if you are an intermediate student in Japanese needing to learn more kanji. The kanji themselves are presented in a systematic order, as described in the book title, and they usually present simple characters first, but sometimes they will present a more complex character if it is really useful and handy to know earlier on. The stroke lookup is very nice too, and I have not yet found a kanji I've looked up that I could not find (though that's bound to change eventually, I guess). I learned 25 new characters my first day with this book, (and completely got the meanings in my head the next morning with my review) and while your mileage will probably vary (as my mileage varies in the amount I seem to be able to memorize per day--sometimes it's only 6, usually it's 10 or so, on occasion 20-25), I think the book is a great tool to use if you've had other courses or studied for a while and have the kana and your basic vocabulary and grammar foundation down.One thing I'd like to address is the complaints on the use of romaji and how this can make knowing the kana readings difficult. Yes, sometimes it could be a problem, but honestly? EVERY Japanese learner should have JWPce installed for those times when the reading is unclear. There's no reason I can think of not to get this free program which is a wonderful companion to the book and has romaji lookup, hiragana lookup, radical lookup, stroke order lookup, four-corner lookup, and there's even an index lookup with this book as an option to select. With the index lookup, you can just pick the book, and enter the kanji number as listed by the book in "index" and it will pop up and you can get complete info on any character in the book this way.I hate to sound like I'm just going on a rant, but seriously, no book or tool should be your ONLY tool in learning kanji. It's my opinion that this book is an excellent tool when used with other references while learning.Another thing I found to be an excellent companion to the book (aside from your actual normal Japanese courses and texts) is "Kageyama Method: Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-Kun - Kondo wa Kanken Taidaku Dayo!" for the Nintendo DS. Now, not all of you may own a DS, but if you do, I can say it's well worth the ~$50 to get this game. It has animated stroke order (awesome), multiple example sentences and readings (really awesome), and kanji handwriting evaluation (it can be shaky sometimes but it can help on occasion). Did I mention everything in the entire game has furigana for ease of use by beginners? That's probably my favourite part; although it is entirely in Japanese, it is very helpful for the intermediate student. It's kinda nice to learn a kanji, then go over to kakitori-kun and get the writing down and glance at the different readings while I'm at it. It also shows your progress in learning the kanji it offers (which are mostly the kana and the joyo kanji).Anyway, enough about those...In summary, I would say this book is a GREAT tool when used in conjunction with some of the software I've given here. Kakitori-kun doesn't even have all the characters this book does (I think it's missing some of the last few mainly used in names), but it's a good aid. JWPce is free, and even if you don't buy this book, I'd highly recommend giving it a spin. The index lookup really quells any romaji issues I can think of, and the book doesn't really make the task of learning all the characters "easier" (I really hate learning tons of mnemonics anyway), but all it takes is perseverance and learning a few characters a day, and soon you will have a much better grasp on the language.I would highly recommend this book to an intermediate or advanced student who hasn't learned all the kanji yet they need to be fluent. If you haven't developed a mastery for basic grammatical structure, vocabulary, and the kana, this is probably not the best place to start. A regular Japanese text may be better for self-learners starting out, but nothing can beat having a teacher, as trite as that is. However, it is understandable if you cannot find/get to a teacher, so I'd recommend just using the texts and to make sure you listen to the language as well, since often it's easy to forget to practice speaking and hearing the language.Most importantly, just don't forget to practice every day. It will severely hurt you to just decide "well, I don't really feel like studying today". If you start doing that, it's often easy to get in the mode where you don't want to EVER study, and you just forget about it for a long time. Even if it's just a few characters or a glance at a text or something, don't forget to do this.I hope you found my review comprehensive and helpful, and I hope you will consider my review when buying this book!

Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged For Learning And ReferenceThe title of the book sums it all up. People have said but i'll repeat. This is by no means a complete book that you can buy and learn just from it. It really shines as a REFERENCE book and it is OK as learning book.This is the book that you want to have with you all time, because it's small and have all the basic kanji, just bring this to you class or something, it's way more pratical than any kanji dictionary. It's NOT something you can bring in your pocket, but is small enough to place in you backpack or you can just carry arround in your hand.As a learning tool i find this book to be ok, the kanjis are arranged in such a way that all the compounds are made using previous kanjis with is very nice for memorization. You don't have a lot of info for each kanji so it can confuse you some times, it would be better to give you a sentence instead of a compound, but that wold make the book a litte bigger.I have two main complaints with this book. First: romaji. If you are a japanese student (not even a serious one, just a japanese student) you need to know AT LEAST the kana and katakana, so romaji is a BIG no. Second: material quality. The book is not made with cheap material, but it could be nicer. The paper could be dictionary quality like, that would make the book even thinner, i find the paper in this book to be to thick (it could just be me).I recommend this book only if you are also geting a kanji dictionary, this is suposed to be a tool of integration and reference, you should have that in mind. Overall a good book.

The product picture gave me the impression that it would be the size of a trade paperback, when actually it's more the size of a mass market paperback. That's a good thing! I hate carrying around bulky material when trying to learn another language. Sadly, the Kindle market for foreign language material is still woefully inadequate, so it was nice to find something portable but extensive. This contains 2,000 common and not so common Kanji to help build a good vocabulary. It also has all the essential breakdowns of the Kanji such as stroke order, On readings and Kun Readings, as well as examples of both being used in a word.What this book is lacking is an overall breakdown of how Kanji actually function within the Japanese language. The preface doesn't even include a basic description of the difference between On and Kun readings, so someone thinking they can use this book as a self-taught "How to Learn Japanese" book will be profoundly confused. It's not meant for that purpose. However, if you have another book that explains the basics of Japanese grammar and sentence structure, the function of Kanji within the language, Hiragana and Katakana, or if you are taking Japanese classes that explore these things, then this book will be a great reference guide and supplement for, as it says, "Essential Kanji" that you will encounter in your studies.

Este libro es una excelente pieza para el estudio del kanji. Incluye las diferentes pronunciaciones Onyomi, Kunyomi, ejemplos. Pero más importante, un índice único de cada uno de estos kanji a partir del número de trazos que requieren.

Very compact and useful. Not just a dictionary: can be carried anywhere, and study kanji with it. The result is a far more efficient way to learn kanji, as, due to it's small size, can be used to study while on the train, bus, bathroom...anywhere.Very recommended.

I bought this book for the first time when I was 19 yrs old, an art student, obsessed by everything Edo period Japanese and at the time of two Great Japan exhibitions in London. Roll on to 58yrs old and with a much softened obsession I realised I’d given away my copy years ago. I had to get another for research and what was once easy to buy had suddenly become hard to find. This book really is essential for classic, formal brush drawn Kanji and indispensable if that’s what you need to research.

It's a very handy reference book. Don't mistake it for a standard dictionary though. I use the more of a means to ensure I'm using the correct reading of a kanji then I'll go online to read more in-depth if necessary. It can seem really confusing if you're still very early in Japanese studies, I bought it about 3 weeks after I began and thought I'd wasted my money. However after about 6-7 weeks I pick this book up everyday now I'm (very slowly) replacing Hiragana readings with kanji.I would like if it had modern word processor prints exemplified larger than just in the example readings.

Really useless in the modern age, the text of the Kanji is prsented in a hand written font which is useless in this day and age where you will be mainly looking/interacting with kanji printed or presented in a digital font format, makes learning and recognition more difficult, the book is practically useless if your trying to learn Japanese