January 14, 2004
The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary
[This is a book recommendation I originally published April 10, 2003 on my other blog. I no longer maintain that blog, so I've decided to move most of the substantial articles to this blog to consolidate the materials - Russell]
I'd meant several weeks ago to post this recommendation of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary", but am only now getting around to doing it. I can claim a good excuse for not having done so, however: for those weeks, I've been busy heavily using this dictionary in Japanese classes.
You can check out the detailed recommendations of the book on Amazon.com; I won't echo them here. I will say, however, that I wish I'd had something like this - because there is nothing else like this available from another source - when I started studying Japanese 10 years ago. This book is truly useful... and an outstanding example of the publisher's art. Everyone to whom I've shown this book, including native Japanese speakers with whom I do regular language exchange, has expressed admiration and astonishment.
I have a goal in the medium-term future: take and pass the 1-kyu level Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken (the Japan Foundation's Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Every step along the way, I plan to have this dictionary at hand. Assuming the book survives the journey, I'll keep it in my bag for a long time thereafter.
Posted by Russell Whitaker at January 14, 2004 4:32 PM | TrackBack