I am the type of person who works best with printed materials, and that goes for learning as well (I really like books). Therefore, I was searching for some books to learn kanji .
I know that wanikani is one of the greatest app for learning kanji and vocab, but I also know that using paper and pen will help me do better. I did my own search and found that book " Kanji From Zero ". I am studying grammar using JFZ books, so I already know that the author is quite skillful in grammar stuff, but I don’t know about this kanji book.
Does any of you ever bought this book? If yes, do you recommend it?
If you know any other books that is good or better, please tell me about them.
Thank you!
I have the book, I bought it before I found out what wanikani was. I never really used it but looking though it seems to be a okay book. Only covers 200 kanji I think so thats about level 8 I think in wanikani, maybe level 9 but 200 kanji is not that much in general. It does teach stroke order and some vocab, overall not a bad beginner book and I am sure it meant to go along with Japanese from zero series.
Remembering the kanji (RTK) Is one the most pouplar textbooks for kanji, and there are multiple covering lots of kanji. The downside is it does not teach the readings or vocab but there are lots of guides and info online on making your own anki decks and using RTK to learn vocab and such.
I am not a textbook person and wanikani is s lifesaver to me, If I had to learn kanji by textbook I would know far less and hate having to learn kanji.
Wish you the best of luck
Do you want a workbook? I practice writing (drawing? ) the kanji I learn on wanikani on actual paper, it takes a lot of time, but it helps me retaining. To answer your question though
Thank you both. I will search more about these books you gave me
@Frosty-san
is it possible to compare Kanji From Zero book with WK ?
I mean what I really like about WK is that they give a good amount of Vocab for each kanji with their readings and meanings (I do like other things about WK), so does the book do the same, or it just give few and insufficient number of vocab for each kanji?
@Cristina-Z
and yes, your idea is good about practicing on papers >>>>>>> I will make it my last resort (in case I didn’t get convinced in any of the kanji textbooks)
Kanji in Context is a really great series of books. There is a kanji book to learn them, and then you practice the kanji in sentences in the workbooks.
When I get home later I can check again but I think it teaches like 4 or 5 vocab per kanji.
On amazon it advertises you learn 240 kanji and 1500 vocabulary
Btw, it DOES teach the readings - it just makes you learn the kanji themselves first, then all the readings afterwards (Vol. 1 is kanji + keywords only, vol. 2 is kanji + readings only, vol. 3 is an appendix containing additional kanji - first half kanji + keywords, second half kanji + readings).
Ah good to know. I have not used it myself. Though there seems to be a debate between wanikani and RTK and ive seen most people complain about the readings, or at least no vocab with RTK.
Its the cheaper option for sure though it works differently, maybe in a better or worse way depending on how you learn.
I have it sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust. For me at least, WK works a lot better. If only because it has vocab and an automagical SRS system (learning kanji from a book must be really hard to manage - keeping track of all the learned and problematic kanji, making manual review intervals etc.)
I find I’m better able to distinguish between similar kanji when I’m able to write them, so I have continued with the books, but I agree that WK’s SRS does facilitate more efficient learning.
Almost forgot, sorry for the late reply.
Here are screen shots from Kanji from Zero which shows pretty well how it works. mainly you read the section and practice writing it. There is also a “workbook” type sections for practice.
I just create practice sheets myself. Create a Word document, choose a nice font, insert a table, change color of the first column to black and the remaining columns to light-light gray and paste the kanji you want to practice into cells. You can use the stroke order font for the first column if you like. This way you get the practice sheets for free and can practice the kanji you want instead of whatever the authors selected.
In terms of free resources for writing practice, there’s a site called ちびむすドリル, which has a bunch of pre-made printouts intended for use in schools. I haven’t used them, but I would assume they cover all the joyo kanji. I feel like I found these originally through some post on the forums, but I can’t remember who or when…
) the kanji I learn on wanikani on actual paper, it takes a lot of time, but it helps me retaining. To answer your question though
