Tuttle Learning Japanese Kanji. Glen Nolan Grant

      INTRODUCTION

      This book can help you greatly reduce the time and effort involved in learning to read Japanese. It does so by introducing a method that is both effective and easy to use in memorizing the meanings and pronunciations of kanji, the array of characters that are used in the language to symbolize everything from abstract ideas to concrete nouns.

      Learning any of the kanji, you will find, is a two-step process, requiring that you remember both the visual aspect of a character (so you can recognize it when you see it) and the aural aspect (so you will know how to say and, thus, read it). The method presented here will show you how to tackle both of these aspects from the outset, and by so doing enable you to immediately get down to the practical (and fun!) business of recognizing and reading kanji on everything from street signs to newspapers. By the time you finish this book, in fact, you will be able to boast of a Japanese vocabulary numbering in the thousands of words.

      Kanji and the Japanese Writing System

      Kanji (literally, “Chinese characters”) arrived in Japan along with Buddhism and other aspects