Bücher von Roger Lake

This book is based on our belief that the most enjoyable and efficient way to learn to read in Japanese is to dive in and start reading almost immediately, learning new kanji with the help of memory aides as you go. In order to make this approach workable, we introduce new kanji at the beginning of each chapter and then ask you to take a quick pre-test on theirpronunciations before you start to read. The practice reading material in each chapter includes only kanji characters that you know or are in the process of learning, and we provide immediate feedback about your reading accuracy in the form of same-page romaji equivalents and translations. The book is designed for students who are at least somewhat familiar with the 1,528 kanji that were introduced in Learn to Read in Japanese, Volumes I, II and III. Like the first three books, this volume includes at least three practice sentences for each new kanji, for a total of 912 sentences. We introduce 8 new kanji in each chapter of the book, and we group the new kanji by chapter in the Core Kanji catalogue, which is sold separately, so that it is convenient to study them in groups of eight before starting a new lesson. In addition to providing sentence reading practice, we include more than 3,800 Japanese words and phrases for vocabulary reading practice. We introduce a total of 560 new kanji in this book. In addition, our Core Kanji catalogue, which is sold separately, describes all of the kanji that wereintroduced in the first three books, for a total of 2,088 This book is designed to teach new kanji in five steps: StepOne. Core Kanji Catalogue. Before you start a chapter, turn to the Core Kanji catalogue and take some time to review the eight new kanji that are listed in the New Kanji table at the beginning of the chapter. Your aim should be to acquire the ability to recognize each kanji and associate it with its pronunciations. StepTwo. Pronunciation Pre-Test. Next turn to the chapter that you are about to start reading and take the "Pronunciation Pre-Test." To do this, lookat the New Kanji table and try to voice each of the pronunciations for all eight of the kanji in the table. Use the table at the bottom of the page tocheck your accuracy. Repeat this test several times until you feel ready to start reading. Step Three. Vocabulary List. Next start reading the Vocabulary List, being careful to cover the "answers" on the right side of the page with a piece ofpaper or your thumb. You will have a chance to practice reading each new kanji multiple times in different words. You will also see more than 3,800 mnemonics for the words that appear in the Vocabulary Lists. Step Four. Practice Sentences. Next read the Practice Sentences that are provided in each chapter. Again, be sure to cover the text on the right side of the page as you read, but don't hesitate to uncover it if you aren't sure about kanji pronunciations or when you don't know how to translate the Japanese text. Step Five. Supplemental Reading. We have identified some fascinating Japanese language articles online that use only the kanji that you have learned up to this point. These articles are available from "News in Slow Japanese." We sincerely hope that this book will help you as you learn to read in Japanese.

If you want to learn to read in Japanese, it's best to make an effort early on to become at least somewhat familiar with all of the kanji that are most frequently used by Japanese people, which we call the "core kanji." Once you have developed a basic acquaintance with those characters, you can turn your attention to reading practice, which will naturally strengthen your knowledge of the kanji. Our goal is to help students to achieve basic Japanese reading fluency as efficiently as possible, and to that end we have produced four other volumes titled Learn to Read in Japanese, A Japanese Reader, in which we attempt to demystify and systematize the kanji-learning process and where we provide a large number of memory aids, as described below.This book is a companion to those four Japanese Readers, and it functions as an efficient tool for the memorization and retrieval of 2,088 core kanji. It lists the characters that we believe you need to know, together with the basic information required to get started reading. For each kanji, this information consists of 1) The pronunciations that you are likely to encounter for each character; 2) The meanings of the character;3) One or more sample Japanese words for each of the character's possible pronunciations;4) A memorable description of the character, to help you to recognize it more easily in the future; such descriptions often focus on differences between the current kanji and other similar ones;5) A brief sentence that contains retrieval cues (or mnemonics) for each of the character's possible pronunciations; 6) Comparisons between the character and other similar kanji; and7) Kanji groups, in which kanji with similar traits are assembled.The book includes all of the files that you will need to learn to use Kanji ID, our innovative technique for identifying kanji that you encounter in your reading. These files include a kanji catalogue listing 2,088 kanji as described above, instructions for using Kanji ID, a Kanji Table to use for practice as you learn Kanji ID, a Kanji Group Index listing kanji groups, and a Kanji Trait Index in which you can look up characteristic traits for individual kanji that you encounter.Long before you have become fully acquainted with all of the core kanji, you should begin to read Japanese text that is keyed to your level of knowledge. In other words, you should practice reading Japanese sentences that are accompanied by readily accessible romaji (or alternatively, hiragana/katakana) equivalents plus English translations and which include only kanji that you have already learned or are learning. In our four Readers, we provide a large number of such sentences at every point in the curriculum: 4,200 sentences in Volume 1, 1,660 in Volume 2, 912 in Volume 3 and 1,620 in Volume 4. In addition, the four books contain 6,500 vocabulary terms that are formatted for reading practice, together with mnemonics to aid in their memorization. We wish you great success in your kanji study.

Since each kanji character in the Japanese language is associated with its own unique vocabulary, the study of kanji unavoidably requires that students learn many new Japanese words. To help you organize and keep track of the new words that are introduced in our four Learn to Read in Japanese books, we have assembled this companion glossary.The glossary lists more than 9,300 Japanese terms that are used in the four books, and it provides definitions and memory aides for nearly every term. The memory aides are of two types: explanations which describe how the listed terms are derived from other known Japanese words, or when such explanations aren't possible, mnemonics to help you to remember the terms' definitions and pronunciations. The glossary also identifies more than 10,000 synonyms (or at least "related terms") which make it possible for you to compare similar words side by side.This glossary cannot replace a good Japanese dictionary, but it includes thousands of explanations, mnemonics and synonyms that you won't find in a standard dictionary, and it focuses precisely on the terms that you will encounter in the four Learn to Read in Japanese books. We think that it will help to make your Japanese study easier and more interesting.