Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary - Revised and Expanded Paperback – Illustrated, 15 Oct. 2012

So long as you have learnt your hiragana and katakana before moving onto kanji, this book is AMAZING. It's so easy to look up kanji (by stroke count and shape) but also massively useful to learn as it has a list at the back with the 1000 most commonly used one. It even directs you to the correct entry if you counted strokes wrong, has stroke diagrams, tells you when you would learn them in school, and has an index at the back where you can look up the kanji based on the sound, e.g. say you know a work is "jou" you can look up all the kanji that sound like that. I have managed to memorise all the first year kanji shapes and english meanings (not the reading/sounds yet) in less than a week using this book and the stroke order really ingrains them in your memory to the point where the only errors you might make when reproducing them is how long a line should be. I HIGHLY recommend this book but also in order to make the most of it, I recommend making a spreadsheet of all the entries with the key information you want to sort by so you can list the kanji the way you want and tick them off as you learn. I sort them by: english meaning, number in the dictionary, frequency ranking (how often they are used), whether the have been marked in red ink in the dictionary (important characters you learn in school or top 1000), and when you learn the kanji in school. Very good purchase!

As a dictionary it's easily the best I've come across. Pretty comprehensive - even with a special interest subject - I have yet to catch it out, and it has as much as needed - the kana (with each Kanji and their sounds in an reference section), radicals reference, table of frequently miscounted strokes - and how to use their "pattern" classification system. It gives On and Kun readings and lists of useful compound words/Kanjis. Plus it gives progressive diagrams of stroke order for those learning. Well, it gives more information than I could put in a review.It's based on the idea that Kanjis follow 4 basic patterns. Once you recognise the pattern you count the strokes of the key part of the pattern, then count the remaining strokes....then look it up. Down the margin of each page the possible "key shapes/pattern keys" are listed so you can flip though to find the one you want - then look at the entries for the (remaining) stroke count. So, for instance, for pattern 1, you might have 4-7 - the key by which you identify the pattern has 4 strokes while the remaining strokes add up to 7. (There's a slight variation with the last of the patterns but it's easy to work out). So, under that pattern (top corner of page so easy to find) you look up 4- then flip through to the right shape for your 4, finally go to the -7 (i.e. 4.7) and find the Kanji.The secret is counting the strokes correctly. If you practice drawing a few Kanji with a pencil or whatever you soon get the hang of it.

3.000 Kanji characters in such a small book? What do you want more? If you're learning Japanese I strongly recommend that you grab this one. There another edition from this book, a 'little lighter' but I would go for this one. It might be a little harder in the beginning but you'll get the benefits a few weeks later.

Excellent dictionary. Very understandable stroke look up system. No romanji so no bad habits. The basic pronunciation uses katakana for on-yomi and hiragana for kun-omi so you need to know both katakana and hiragana to get the pronunciation correct.

Much better than the Kanji course, and shows stroke direction to boot.Excellent supplement once you know 500-1000+ kanji.

I had a previous edition but found a few kanji missing from that dictionary in some of my reading material, I found those missing kanji in this new edition. The thing that is majorly different between the editions is that this new release uses kana in both the character descriptions and kun index, whereas my previous edition used romaji. This can make the lookup both in the kun index and reading the character descriptions a little slower for myself. As this dictionary is for English readers I believe using romaji of kana would be better, however it does help to improve my kana reading speed, which can only be a good thing.

One of the most useful things ever, extremely handy index.

This dictionary is very complete and easy to use. It explains the order of the brush strokes, as well as the various meanings of the kanji. Really helpful.

Muy completo para su tamaño y sobre todo el precio fue exclente

I dizionari online sono comodi e rapidi ma a volte non specifici e ricchi come questo Kodansha. I punti forte a mio avviso sono: significato "core" e lista di composti e derivati di ogni kanji, ordine dei tratti per moltissimi kanji, sistema di indicizzazione e ricerca molto intelligente e ordinato a tre cifre. Non lasciatevi spaventare la prima volta che cercate un kanji, la procedura non è difficile. Si tratta di individuazione della "forma" del kanji (vi darà la prima cifra da 1 a 4), conteggio dei tratti del radicale (seconda cifra) e infine numero dei tratti restanti (treza cifra).Per esempio se cercherete 猫 lo troverete sotto 1-3-8. 1 perchè 1 identifica la forma dei kanji composti da una parte destra e una sinistra, 3 perchè 3 è il numero dei tratti del radicale e 8 perche 8 sono i tratti della parte restante a dx). Acquisto molto consigliato per gli studenti di tutti i livelli.

Este dicionário foi escolhido pelo meu filho que quer aprender japonês. Ele fez uma pesquisa na internet para ver qual seria a melhor didática para aprender e vários sites sugeriram este dicionário. Ele ainda está se ambientando com a metodologia de busca, no entanto já fez muitos progressos.Deste modo, penso que é um bom dicionario para quem quer ter um contato mais aprofundado com a língua. O dicionário também está sendo útil para o aprimoramento no inglês, mesmo ele sendo quase fluente, tem contribuído para um novo vocabulário.

Good

j'ai commencé à apprendre le japonais il y a quelques mois, je trouve avec ce dictionnaire un complément très intéressant pour approfondir mes apprentissages indépendamment des cours.