Why have I created this website?
It is my belief that for adult non-native speakers, the best way to study Japanese writing is to study about the writing system, not just studying one character at a time. That means studying kanji systematically. Through this website, I hope to improve the way kanji are taught to non-native speakers, to enable more non-native speakers, especially those from non-kanji backgrounds, to become proficient in Japanese, including reading and writing.
Purpose of this website
The website has two main purposes. The first is to host the software, kanpeki. Kanpeki is kanji learning software and kanji look-up software intended to help students learn kanji through component analysis and to help their teachers teach through component analysis as well.
The second purpose of the website is to provide a forum for exchange of ideas and opinions about kanji learning and teaching. While the forum portion of the website is still under construction, please feel free to write your questions or comments about anything related to studying or teaching kanji.
Note about language used on this website
To the extent possible, I hope to put all content on this website both in English and Japanese. There are many books and websites about learning kanji through component analysis in English and other languages, but I have come across very few in Japanese. I hope to act as a catalyst to encourage the Japanese language teaching community in
Because the great majority of Japanese language teachers are Japanese native speakers, if as I believe, teaching kanji by component analysis is indeed a more effective, more efficient way to teach kanji to non-native speakers, it is the community of native-speaker Japanese language teachers who must learn and use these teaching methods, so it is natural to have that discussion in Japanese.