There are so many interesting websites dealing with kanji learning, but let me just list a few of what I consider the most important and useful ones, especially for people interested in learning kanji through component analysis.
Kanji Clinic
This is unarguably the best overall resource for learning about kanji, especially learning kanji through component analysis. Mary Sisk Noguchi, the one behind this website, has written a series of articles for the
For an excellent introduction to some kanji-learning issues, I recommend you read, for example, articles #1-#10 in the “Previous Columns” section.
For Japanese teachers of Japanese, I highly recommend the article 「漢字の効果的な教え方：構成要素分析」 (An effective way to teach kanji: component analysis), an eloquent and persuasive argument for using component analysis to teach kanji.
And for those who are already fans of James Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji, Adventures in Kanji-Land: James W. Heisig and the Birth of Remembering the Kanji is a fascinating account of how this highly influential and controversial book came to be written.
You must see this website.
Jim Breen's Japanese Page
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html
It is hard to overestimate Jim’s contributions to Japanese learning through computing. There are dozens, if not hundreds of learning and dictionary applications, including my own, that use the kanjidic and edict dictionary files that were created by projects he started. There is also a gigantic list of links to things Japanese, organized by category. If you’re looking for something in particular, there is probably a link to it here.
Remembering the Kanji
As I write this in May, 2007, Remembering the Kanji books 1 and 2 are in the process of being reprinted, this time though the
You can read about Remembering the Kanji books from
http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_1.htm
http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_2.htm
http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/Remembering_the_Kanji_3.htm
Personally, I think these books are fantastic and represent the best way to study kanji, but there are plenty of students and teachers who simply cannot accept the unorthodox methods of these books. Therefore I suggest you look at the reviews on Amazon to get both positive and negative opinions before buying your copy. And besides, you can try out the system using the sample on the link above first anyway. You can learn 276 characters from the sample before you have to get the actual book. That should be more than sufficient to figure out whether or not this system is for you.
Reviewing the Kanji
I recently heard about this site from Mary Noguchi herself. For people progressing through Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji Ｉ, this website allows you to review your kanji on an optimal schedule using virtual flashcards. There is also a forum where users can write their own (private or public) mnemonic stories for the kanji, and see what others have shared. This is especially helpful if you hit a wall when Heisig weans you off his stories and makes you come up with your own. It is still important to be able to come up with your own stories, but it is nice to have help from friends too.
Kanji Alive
http://kanjialive.lib.uchicago.edu/main.php?page=overview&lang=en
If I were teaching an introductory class on kanji right now, I would make all of the students read the Introduction to Kanji pdf on the Kanji Alive website. It gives just enough background information about kanji to make studying kanji interesting, and then systematically explains all the fundamentals of kanji, including the six ways components combine to make kanji, types of strokes, rules for stroke order, and even an extensive list of radicals, classified by position.
The main feature of the website however is a kanji look-up tool with lots of features especially useful for students, including cross-references to textbooks, stroke-order animations, etc.
Kanji Kentei (漢字検定)
http://www.kanken.or.jp/index.html
The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a test with four levels intended to test foreigners’ overall Japanese language ability, especially for non-native speakers who aspire to enter a Japanese university. Kanji Kentei, on the other hand, sometimes referred to as Kanken (漢検), is primarily intended for native Japanese speakers, with 12 different levels, from level 10 which tests the 80 kanji Japanese first graders learn, to level 1 for which test takers are expected to know and correctly use more than 6000 kanji. (Good luck with that!)
While Kanken may not be as well known as the JLPT among foreigners studying Japanese, two and a half million people take it every year, so everyone has heard of it in
The test is given all over
KanjiGymLight
http://www.kanjigym.de/main/cms/cms.html (click on the Union Jack to get the English)
If you are working your way though Remembering the Kanji I (in English, German, Spanish or French), this free software application for your PC or PDA lets you review kanji (keyword à kanji). You can try drawing the kanji on the screen and then compare it to the correct answer. You can make and save notes for future reference, and you can even view animated stroke orders. As it is the “light” version there aren’t too many options, but you can’t beat it for price, portability and for the fact that it works for all of the languages Remembering the Kanji is available in.
Rikai.com
Rikai.com is the brilliant work of Todd Rudick. This page is great for practicing reading real Japanese without spending all of your time looking up the kanji you can’t read. You can use this page to view any text in Japanese – either by typing in the URL of a web page, or by cutting and pasting your own text – for example from an e-mail. The text is displayed in Japanese with no hints on meaning or readings until you hover the cursor over the word you want help with. Then a pop-up window appears with pronunciation, meaning and individual kanji information.
I truly believe the best reading materials for practicing your Japanese are those that have content that is relevant and interesting to you. And with this tool, you can choose to read anything you want, as long as you can view it in a browser.
Hiraganamegane
This is another website that can help you with kanji readings. Just like with Rikai.com, type in the URL of a website you need help reading, and this page will reformat it, putting in its best guesses for the readings as furigana over all of the kanji. With Rikai.com it is easier to resist the temptation to rely on the furigana, but if you wanted to print out the webpage with furigana and read it offline, this would be the only option. I think both are useful – you decide which you want to use!
Outline of Japanese Writing System
Jack Halpern is one of the foremost authorities on kanji and the author of a number of excellent dictionaries, including my favorite kanji dictionary, NTC’s New Japanese-English Character Dictionary.
You can learn more about his various dictionary projects on at http://www.kanji.org.
Furthermore, for those who are interested in a fuller introduction and history of kanji than that on KanjiAlive (see above), check out the “Outline of Japanese Writing System” at the following link:
http://www.kanji.org/kanji/japanese/writing/outline.htm
Introduction to the Types of Kanji
A quick introduction to the Types of Kanji can be found on Jim Breen’s website, here:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanjitypes.html
This information may seem a bit esoteric for the casual student of Japanese, but for someone embarking on a study of kanji using component analysis, reading this brief explanation will give you a bit of insight by which to organize the information about the various kanji you are learning. After you have studied kanji for a while, come back to this article and read it again, and I’m sure it will make even more sense to you then.
Good luck with your studies!!