The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters cover

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters

by Andrew Scott Conning

"The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course is an innovative and highly effective system for learning and remembering kanji, or Sino-Japanese characters. The book contains 2,300 character entries, including all 2,136 Joyo Kanji ("regular-use kanji") plus 164 of the most useful non-Joyo Kanji. It offers learners a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the basic meaning of each character, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization. Each kanji is accompanied by an explanation of how to remember its meaning clearly and distinctly. These mnemonic explanations teach learners to associate each kanji's graphical form with its unique range of meaning, often using visualization and concrete imagery to simplify complex characters and make their meanings immediately recognizable in their graphical forms. An outstanding feature of the course is the special attention it gives to the challenge of learning each kanji in a differentiated way. This allows learners to associate the meaning of each character with the features that distinguish it from graphically similar characters"

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?