総合漢字学習コース

• As a kanji learning tool, the Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course has no peer… Absolutely essential for all students of Japanese! – R. Nagell
• I am convinced that there is not another book on the market to beat it for teaching non-native speakers kanji quickly and effectively – C. Cameron
• A tremendous book – I can’t imagine a better means of learning to read Japanese, whether you aim to build vocabulary for speaking and listening purposes or you are a scholar looking to access written texts over your career. Conning’s extraordinarily thoughtful approach clearly reflects careful examination of the learning process; a lot of value-added. – Dr. Darin Bellisario (CEO of Assist.AI)

Available on Amazon

Kodansha’s widely acclaimed Kanji Learner’s Course (KLC) is a step-by-step guide to mastering all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese. Together with the KLC Graded Reading Sets, this course forms the most powerful Japanese reading comprehension program available today.  Its self-guiding, self-reinforcing curriculum allows you to acquire a native-like understanding of kanji meanings, a vast kanji-based vocabulary, and the capacity to read a diverse range of authentic Japanese texts.

The KLC’s comprehensive kanji learning system also includes the KLC Green Book (a writing practice workbook) and the KLC Wall Chart, a sequential mosaic of all 2,300 KLC characters and 4,400 key example words.

The Four Essentials
The KLC’s 2,300 kanji entries adeptly integrate the four essential elements for mastering kanji meanings:
1.  Accurate keywords. Each character’s core meaning is encapsulated in a concise, easily memorized keyword. The keywords for all 2,300 entries have been carefully chosen to be semantically accurate and to integrate the character’s various senses into a core idea.
2.  Key vocabulary to illustrate meaning and usage. The concept captured in each keyword is illustrated with up to five usage examples, carefully selected to clarify how the kanji is used in building typical words and phrases.
3.  An unparalleled system of mnemonic aids. Each entry contains an original mnemonic aid that is carefully designed to help learners remember the character’s core meanings. Mnemonic aids pay special attention to helping learners immediately recognize each kanji and distinguish it from similar ones.
4.  A rational learning sequence. The course’s widely praised sequence represents a breakthrough in kanji pedagogy. It aids learning by introducing kanji components step by step, grouping related kanji together, and building vocabulary progressively – all while teaching the kanji in rough order of importance.

A self-guiding, self-reinforcing curriculum
The course arranges all the information needed to master 2,300 characters into a streamlined, self-guiding, and mnemonically self-reinforcing curriculum. Sample compounds include only such kanji as have previously been learned, ensuring that learners are able to understand and use each compound, and providing a built-in review of all the kanji already studied. The goal throughout is to offer pragmatic, timesaving solutions, and to remove every barrier that stands between the user and the unique pleasure of reading authentic Japanese.

The ultimate kanji learning resource
• Provides a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the core meaning of each kanji, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization.
• Introduces the meaning and usage of each grapheme the first time it appears, helping learners seamlessly learn new kanji based on a sound understanding of their component parts.
• Innovatively uses concrete imagery to simplify complex characters and make their meanings immediately recognizable in their graphical forms.
• Teaches characters in a pedagogically effective sequence, presenting graphically related characters together to help learners give significance to their contrastive features as they learn them, and thereby avoid having to re-learn them later.
• Helps learners actively apply each character’s principal meanings and readings using key vocabulary words, carefully chosen to illustrate the character’s uses and to help learners employ it in everyday reading and written communication.
• Pairs with the KLC Graded Reading Sets series, allowing learners to master kanji and kanji-based vocabulary through extensive reading of comprehensible material, rather than rote memorization devoid of context.
• Helps learners differentiate among graphically similar kanji by showing how to remember the characters in a mutually contrastive manner that connects their graphical distinctions to their underlying semantic differences. Along the way, the course introduces nearly 800 pairs of easily confused kanji.
• Helps students learn to write kanji accurately, by indicating each kanji’s stroke order and placing careful emphasis on distinctions among graphically similar characters.
• Includes all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese, including all 196 characters added to the official Joyo Kanji List in 2010.
• Includes convenient indexes that allow learners to find a kanji with minimum effort, using its reading, radical, or stroke count. Extensive cross-referencing allows learners to easily find the entries of lookalike kanji, as well as all kanji appearing in the sample compounds.

Essential companion resource:
The KLC Graded Reading Sets Series
30,000 reading exercises graded character-by-character