Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese: Third Edition

A clear & simple book on the learning of Japanese script.
I cannot recommend the works of Tuttle Publishing enough in language learning, be it Chinese or Japanese, they always make learning an enjoyable routine.

The book contains two major parts. The first part contains the "1,006 Essential Characters." For all of these, there are stroke orders, a few of the ON and KUN readings, some meanings, as well as sample compounds. For example, for the character chuu (as in chuugoku, China), there is the number of strokes, step-by-step instructions for writing the character, the ON (Derived from Chinese pronunciation) reading chuu, the kun (native Japanese) reading naka, the meanings are middle, within, inside. Below these are three sample compounds that the character chuu is a part of, such as the word for middle school (chuugakkou). At the back of the book, there is an index of readings that enable a reader to look up a character.

All of these make for a useful dictionary. However, there are some flaws. The features I have noted above are limited only to the 1,006 Essential Characters. After the 1,006th character, one comes to a section titled "The 1,945 General Use Characters." This section is very minimal. It contains--I assume--all of the 1,006 Essential Characters as well as an additional 939 characters. These 939 characters are not accompanied with detailed explanations. They have readings and definitions, but no stroke-order explanations or sample compounds. The only clues for writing these characters can be found in the number of stroke orders, which are given, as well as within the user's own knowledge of stroke-order.

There is another flaw which, while being a small one, is worth pointing out. For the ON readings, vowel extensions are marked with a bar (or macron) over the lengthened vowel. For example, the ON reading for chuu is written as CHU (with a bar over the letter U). This is no problem for the most part, but when one comes to a character like too (the kun reading of the character for the number ten), it is spelled as to (with a bar over the o). If one wanted to spell this reading out in hiragana, one would not know whether to spell it out as too or tou. Like I said, however, this makes no real difference (except to the perfectionist).

This is a solid tool, despite its flaws. Nonetheless, one should look elsewhere. I highly recommend Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary, as it is much more comprehensive than this book. I would consider the Essential Kanji Dictionary as an "upgraded" version of A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese. Stroke orders are given for all 1,945 Jouyou kanji, the pronunciations are exclusively in hiragana and katakana, and some of the characters have dozens of compounds listed beneath them. One feature that A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese doesn't have at all is what I would call the "radical aid feature." At the back of Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary is a chart that contains all of the radicals of the 1,945 characters. This enables one to find a character that one doesn't know the reading of. In fact, unlike in the other book, the characters are organized by radical sections. At the beginning of every section, there is the radical used, as well as its reading and meaning. If one knows the meaning of a radical, one would know the category that a character using that radical would fall into. Also, the book has its own index of readings. The only useful feature that A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese has that the Essential Kanji Dictionary doesn't have is that with the former, students know which characters are the Essential ones, thereby being able to make them a higher priority as they study the 1,945 Jouyou kanji.

Overall, A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese is a helpful tool, despite its limitations. Nonetheless, an alternative such as Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary is superior to this book in almost every single way. My rating: 6.9/10

Whatever your reasons are for wanting to study Japanese, you'd do well to learn hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Some people go for the spoken-only approach, but I've found that learning hiragana, katakana, and a lot of the kanji has definitely improved by retention of Japanese vocabulary. Many Japanese words include kanji (for example, the word "nihon" for Japan is the combination of the kanji for "sun" and the kanji for "origin"), so knowing what the words literally mean will help increase your understanding of Japanese overall.
After learning hiragana and katakana (the syllabaries of Japanese; much simpler than kanji, these are sound-based rather than meaning-based), you'll want to integrate kanji into your study of the language. That's where this book comes in. The 1,006 Essential Characters are listed by grade (1st through 6th). Each of these kanji entries includes: the stroke order, Japanese pronunciations, meanings in English, and three examples of the kanji contained in Japanese words. The 1,945 General Use Characters are listed by stroke-order (1 through 23); this includes all of the kanji of the 1,006 set plus those other general use characters not taught in 1st through 6th grade. A hiragana and katakana chart is also included, as well as an index sorted by pronunciation in the back.
This book makes a great reference for teaching yourself the kanji. Of course, you shouldn't expect to end up using this book alone for learning the kanji; it's more helpful for review and reference. There are plenty of resources on-line and several other books that would be helpful to use in conjunction with this book. For example, Kanji Pict-o-Graphix encourages mnemonic, visual memorization and Japanese For Everyone focuses on both written and conversational Japanese. However, this book serves the purpose it was created for: to provide clear and succinct entries for the Joyo kanji so you can learn how to write and understand them. It is an essential reference that every Japanese-language learner should own.

I purchased this book. Unless you have a) photographic memory or b)a pretty good handle on the 1006 + 1945 characters already and just need a review every now and then, this book will be useless to you. It will be difficult to actually learn the kanji in such a way that you can recognize and write them at will, because this book is more like a dictionary listing terms and definitions.

Even if you have a lot of time, there are smarter ways of learning Kanji. The Jorden-Harz books "Reading Japanese" for kanji and "Japanese The Written Language" for kana and kanji, are much better tools.

Also, you can check the excellent "Kanji in Context" books from www.amazon.co.jp This series includes 2 workbooks and a better reference book. While it costs more to go this route, you save on time which is more precious in any case.

It's not a bad book. The "Guide to" part of the title is deceptive though.

I am so glad I got this book! It is by far the best book that I have found for a comprehensive study of kanji. I would recommend this book to any and all who are looking to better their Japanese!