By Jonathan Fisher

Read Real Japanese Essays.  Edited by, Janet Ashby (Kodansha International 2008).

Rating: ★★★★ 

Many of my recent reviews have dealt at least indirectly with the problem of remaining motivated to study Japanese, as this is a problem that I have been struggling mightily with recently. Having come to Japan with the admittedly vague goal of one day being able to read Japanese literature, I still find it difficult to find relevant-seeming texts written at or near my Japanese ability level. Adding to that the often daunting chore of looking up all the unfamiliar kanji and vocabulary in the dictionary as I read, more often than not, I find that I am talking myself out of practicing reading the few interesting Japanese texts that I do find. One remedy I have found is reading online with the aid of Rikaichan (previously reviewed). But for longer trips away from the computer, or when I would just prefer not to stare at a monitor, one solution I’ve found is Kodansha’s Read Real Japanese Essays collection.

I was somewhat skeptical of Read Real Japanese, in no small part due to the fact that living in Japan, I feel as if I am constantly surrounded by and forced to read real Japanese. What’s more real than a train schedule or nutrition information labels, right? It seemed like a ploy, a catchy but meaningless title. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I found that Read Real Japanese Essays included an audio CD for listening practice (easily transferable to my mp3 player!), concurrent translations and explanations of difficult passages within each essay, its own text-specific Japanese-English dictionary, and even furigana (kana transcriptions) of every kanji used in the text. I was able to jump right in to the first essay (“White Lies” by Haruki Murakami) with confidence, and without the use of any supplementary texts or dictionaries. Read Real Japanese Essays is self-contained and, as such, is convenient to take with you anywhere you go.

Given the comprehensive explanations of passages, furigana, and relevant dictionary, Read Real Japanese Essays is a great book to use for Japanese reading practice. The content of the essays it contains is generally light, and the essays progress from easiest and shortest to longest. It is rather subtly done, but in the midst of reading what could easily be a “best of” anthology of some Japanese variety magazine, you can really focus on the grammar and constructions which come together to form typical Japanese writing. The authentic feel of these collected writings is, to me, its strongest point. Many of these authors are not likely people you have heard of before if you’ve only been living in Japan for a short time, but as a reader you can rest assured that they are popular authors, making this book a gateway to further Japanese practice when you bring it up in conversation with the native speakers you know. To be sure, there are cheaper resources out there, and it can still be very difficult for even beginning intermediate Japanese readers to jump into a book like this. But the structure of Read Real Japanese Essays makes it easy to focus on absorbing the way Japanese is typically written, making it a great gateway to increasing the amount of reading you do in Japanese.

Hiroshima-ken JET Jonathan Fisher reviews various tools for learning Japanese, including books, websites, flashcards, podcasts and more. Tools are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 5 being the best.

By Jonathan Fisher

White Rabbit Press Kanji Flashcards

Rating: ★★★★ 

Tuttle Kanji Flashcards

Rating: ★★★ 

Tuttle Japanese Vocabulary Flashcards

Rating: ★★★★ 

Your Own Hand-Made Flashcards

Rating: ★★★★★ 

So far, the majority of reports in this column have focused on two areas – the very high-tech (web sites, electronic software and hardware), and the old-fashioned comfort of books – but there is a great deal of ground to cover in between these two technological poles.

Flashcards are a fantastic device, particularly for those students who find themselves in the tactile/kinesthetic spectrum of learning styles. The basic structure of flashcards – decks and stacks of linked information – is not only useful for learning, it is also a very efficient, mid-tech model of data organization, which finds expression in much more complex systems like the Internet. Indeed, some of the best applications for learning language to be found on the Internet are merely large, computerized stacks of multimedia flashcards, in some cases having other functionality built into them as well.

But for the purpose of this article, I will focus on plain old cardboard flashcards, the type you’ve likely dealt with coming up through primary and secondary schools, as well as even post-secondary school. Instead of historical facts and dates, or organic molecules and nomenclature, flashcards for learning language generally contain a word or phrase, along with its translation or definition. The Japanese language flashcards which are available are no different, and are generally divided into three main categories: those used to study vocabulary, those used to study kana, and those used to study kanji.

Tuttle and White Rabbit Press both make several great sets of flashcards, which can be used to study vocabulary, kana and kanji. As of yet, White Rabbit does not make a set of flashcards specifically geared towards Japanese vocabulary learning. However, their kanji cards are superior to Tuttle’s on two counts. First, the White Rabbit cards include information on bushu radicals, the “building block” pieces that comprise each kanji character. As Heisig, in his important book on learning kanji (previously reviewed) describes at great length, knowing the radicals makes learning the kanji they comprise much, much easier. Second, the White Rabbit Cards are organized based on the guidelines of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), rather than along the lines of Japanese public school curriculum. So, while it is interesting to note what kanji native Japanese speakers are learning at what point in their education (1st through 12th grade), using that information as an organizational scheme for non-native Japanese learners is not so wise. Thus, White Rabbit Press has created a set of kanji flash cards which conforms to the existing infrastructure for learning Japanese as a foreign language, and as a result is much more convenient and easy to use.

The Tuttle vocabulary cards (“Japanese in a Flash” series) are far more useful than their counterparts intended for learning kanji. As I shuffle through some of the example sentences given, though, I am reminded that, while they may not look so tantalizingly crisp, or be printed so neatly, your own hand-made flashcards are often the best choice for learning vocabulary quickly. Perhaps this is an obvious point, but the time that you spend selecting example sentences, writing them down, and carefully checking them in order to create your own set of flashcards, is time incredibly well spent committing important linguistic structures to memory. It’s the time you essentially skip over when you decide to buy a set of pre-made flash cards. True, for some people, myself included, there is a motivational factor that comes along with the prospect of studying with a shiny, neatly printed set of commercially produced flashcards. However, for the true kinesthete or tactile learner, it will be difficult to surpass the experience of creating your own personalized set of flashcards, particularly when trusted guide books such as Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji are available to help you along the way.

The more I study language, the more appeal flashcards have for me, whether they are the scraggly, familiar paper flashcards of our youth, or some slick new flashcard application available on the Internet (see Anki or smart.fm). Using flashcards has even caused me to wonder if the structure of our minds is not just some big, mysterious, neuro-biological stack of flashcards. But I suppose that’s the beginning of a different article for a different publication.

By Jonathan Fisher

Japanese Phrasebook:  Making Out in Japanese, Revised Edition by Todd & Erika Geers.  (Tuttle 2003)

Rating: ★★★ 

Phrasebooks — there may already be more than one of this variety of brief, purportedly handy, thematically organized guides on your shelf in Japan. They’re often printed in travel guides and other country-specific introductory materials that you likely received prior to your arrival here. These have always been kind of an impulse buy for me, Making Out in Japanese being no exception. It’s kind of nice I think just to pick up one of these cheap pocket-references if the thought of traveling to some foreign land ever crosses my mind (and it does and has often). The real value of foreign language phrasebooks for actually learning foreign languages, however, is questionable. Though most phrasebooks like to pretend some high degree of comprehensiveness, there is often little in the way of alternative examples, grammatical explanations, or even useful indices to aid in language retention.  In this respect also, Making Out in Japanese is no exception to the phrasebook norm. While this phrasebook’s 14 chapters and introduction offer a whole array of useful phrases organized thematically from “Chapter 1: What’s Up?” to “Chapter 8: Curses and Insults,” to “Chapter 13: Lovers’ Language,” it is often necessary to thumb through several pages of phrases you don’t need in order to find the one you are looking for. There is no index, and the chapter headings are fairly vague, such that, to find a fairly common phrase like すけべ (vulgar, lewd) you might have to search through the chapter on insults, and possibly “Chapter 4: Say What?” before finding it in the chapter on street fighting.  (Yes, there is a chapter dedicated to street fighting.)

With all of the above criticism in mind, however, I would strongly urge that the next phrasebook you purchase be from the Making Out In… series. If nothing else, the Making Out phrasebooks are great to leave around the apartment for parties. And they can be a great ice-breaker for parties where native Japanese speakers are mixing with native English speakers. I might even go so far as to recommend toting a copy along to your next work party (assuming your coworkers are fairly easy-going people). One of the best parts about Making Out in Japanese is that it is easily reversible — it can be used by Japanese people to memorize English phrases as well. But, again, as the chapter headings warn, this is not a phrasebook for the faint of heart. It contains some genuinely offensive language, which probably ought not be used at your workplace or in other polite company.

This is a book which, while not comprehensive by any means, may be another step in keeping you motivated to learn Japanese. It could provide the missing link that will complete your social life as a foreigner in Japan. It may even help you find the man or woman of your dreams. But while it will certainly add some spice to your duller private conversations, it probably will hopefully not be the only reference guide you use to learn Japanese.

By Jonathan Fisher

Yookoso! Kanji-a-Day and Grammar-a-Day Mailing Lists

Rating: ★★★ 

Sometimes you just have to trick yourself into studying Japanese. And if you check your email fairly compulsively (as many of us do), signing up for one of the Yookoso! Kanji-a-Day or Grammar-a-Day mailing lists could be just what you need to boost your study time. This fairly simple method, which I’ve seen applied fairly effectively to boosting native vocabulary with so-called “word-a-day” lists, is as easy to sign up for as it is to use. You just type in your email address, select the leveled lists of kanji and grammar points you’d like to read about and you begin receiving quick, one-off study pages in your mailbox everyday.

Each email is full of links to relevant sites, and chock full of example words and sentences. Of course it’s up to you how thoroughly you engage with these emails. If your study habits are like mine, some days you’ll spend half an hour on one kanji, reading through all of its uses and example words, its component radicals and its stroke count, whereas other days you’ll just mark the email as unread and save it for a less busy or more boring day.

I suppose the beauty of these emails is precisely their shortfall as well: they come every single day. It’s easy to get swamped if you are away from email for vacation, or you get into the habit of instantly archiving or (as I have done recently under the guise of “better organization, less clutter”) creating a separate inbox folder for all of my daily Yookoso! mails. Receiving these emails is passive, like having the TV on in your apartment while you’re cooking dinner; it takes an effort, however slight, to pay attention, but until you put forth that effort it’s only background noise. Then again, what do you have to lose from a free service, which may end up being just the pressure you need to get back on top of your studying?

By Jonathan Fisher

The JET Programme Japanese Language Course (Beginner and Intermediate),  published by The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR) released a major update and revision of its JET Programme Japanese Language Course in the 2009-10 school year. I think this deserves some notice. These materials are free for all JET participants, they are easy to navigate, and they are a comprehensive, versatile tool for Japanese self-study. And with the current revision, the CLAIR Japanese course is even more attractive and easy to use.

One of the first things I noticed comparing the stack of CLAIR course books from years past to my quickly growing collection of updated editions is that the layouts are radically different. In addition to a sleeker design, that actually appears to have been produced in the Internet-age, there are many more helpful appendices from “How to Use This Book”, a mainstay of textbooks of all stripes, to “How to Input Japanese Characters”, indispensable for individuals who may be unfamiliar with using foreign language computer operating systems. Likewise, the index of vocabulary is now much more comprehensive and, thus, useful. With this new edition of the JET Language Course textbooks, CLAIR has clearly set its sights on creating a universally useful resource for its target Japanese learners.

Among the highlights of the new course materials content are the excellent leveled kanji workbooks, which was a conspicuously absent element in the previous course materials, and much more clearly delineated grammar notes. Because of the dramatically increased level of organization and clarity of presentation of the grammar points in the CLAIR textbooks, this resource is rapidly becoming an integral part of the core of my grammar study. Grammar points are clearly and consistently presented in bold face with gray borders and illustrated with plenty of examples. Combined with the listening and writing exercises provided (and supplemented with some extra real-world practice) it is difficult to imagine a better system for learning Japanese grammar.

The only way that the CLAIR Japanese course falls short is in its somewhat stubborn reliance on pencil and paper testing. Perhaps in another five years or so CLAIR will be able to move some of its excellent course materials online. Until that time, I suppose, those who are keen can use iKnow or Anki to fill in the gaps.

Canon Wordtank V80 electronic dictionary

Hiroshima-ken JET Jonathan Fisher reviews various tools for learning Japanese, including books, websites, flashcards, podcasts and more. Tools are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with 5 being the best.

By Jonathan Fisher

Electronic Dictionaries: Canon Wordtank V80

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

I am hesitant to pronounce this a dead technology. Many high schools in Japan require students to bring them to their English classes. They can be incredibly convenient in the absence of consistent Internet access. They are certainly compact, and their contents are fairly comprehensive. I imagine that one day, I’ll be trekking across a central Asian desert in Mongolia or Kazakhstan somewhere, wanting to bone up on my Japanese in my spare time — and then, I imagine my Wordtank will come in handy. But with the growing popularity of handhelds like the iPhone with convenient interfaces, the proliferation of free translation and dictionary software applications, and ready Internet access almost everywhere, highly specialized technology like Canon’s line of electronic dictionaries seems likely to go the way of the laser disc sooner rather than later.

That said, if you are dead set on purchasing an electronic dictionary, as I was when I first arrived in Japan a year and a half ago, here are a few more points to consider. Most electronic Japanese-English Dictionaries are manufactured it seems, primarily for the use of native Japanese speakers. Dictionary menus and key pads (particularly if you are buying in Japan) are likely to be in Japanese. When you buy, I recommend asking specifically for an English Language instruction manual. These should be readily available, but are likely not the default. Also, keep in mind that you will likely be paying for a lot of technology that you may not be capable of using right away. The Wordtank V80 actually contains a Japanese-Chinese dictionary in addition to the Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionaries. Using the stylus for kanji input can be extremely frustrating if you aren’t familiar with basic stroke order rules, or are a slow writer (as many beginning Japanese learners tend to be). And finally, it is important to know that nearly all electronic dictionary function is duplicable for free given access to the proper Internet sites (e.g. the WWWJDIC). So, I’m afraid that the best thing I can say about electronic dictionaries is that they’re not quite dead yet.

Do you have an electronic dictionary? Leave a comment and tell us what you think about it.

By Jonathan Fisher

AMICA Intensive Japanese Language Course

Rating: ★★★★ 

If you are a JET, you have likely skimmed over an announcement for an intensive Japanese language course in one of your recent National AJET news emails, squeezed in between advertisements for international banks and notices of volunteer opportunities in Japan and abroad. The announcement offers special rates for JET participants who wish to join special five-day classes offered at convenient times of the year — usually summer vacation, Golden Week or the winter holidays. But who has time to study Japanese during the holidays? And even with the discount, 30,000 yen is a lot of money to spend to sit in a classroom for 15 hours. Who goes in for this type of thing, anyway? Joining such a class may look like a risky proposition, especially given the dearth of information provided on AMICA’s website about course content. Who goes in for this sort of thing? Well, last December, I did. And I’m pretty happy about my decision.

In the research I did leading up to applying for this class, I found little more than the few sentences AMICA itself provides as a description of its classes.

“You will be interviewed on the first day. We will listen to what you want to accomplish. We are very serious about helping you achieve your goals. Based on the result and your needs, we will decide the method and materials best suited to you. We can do that with our systemized theory of language instruction and experience.”

It seems straightforward enough. If anything, I thought, perhaps it sounds a little too simple. But sure enough, when I arrived in Tokyo on the first day, I was met at the train station by a friendly Japanese man and woman (two AMICA teachers) who led me on the short walk to the school’s office, just a few blocks away, with an awesome view of Tokyo Tower, which made me feel happy about spending half of my winter vacation in the big city.

I was lucky enough to have been paired with another JET of intermediate Japanese abilities. If a class has only one student sign up, or they can’t match any other students to your Japanese level, then you must pay the same price for fewer hours of private lessons. Most of AMICA’s students appear to be true beginners. And actually, I think beginners are likely the individuals who stand to gain the most from this style of intensive instruction.

That is not to say that I did not benefit a great deal from my 15 hours of intermediate instruction. In fact, I likely gained a good deal more from the class than my classmate, a JET from Hyogo Prefecture, whose comfort with speaking and knowledge of Japanese grammar was significantly higher than my own. The pace of the course was indeed vigorous, and there was plenty of time to ask questions as well as make valuable mistakes. Most of our time was spent doing transformation drills in a sort of hypnotic dialogue, with the instructor stepping in from time to time to make a correction or clarification. It was a mentally exhausting, and by noon, when our three-hour class was over, I was always ready to go back to the hostel for a nap before my supplementary night time activities in the city. What intensive foreign language course is complete without the chance to practice what you’ve learned during the day at bars and dance clubs each night? In many respects the AMICA course resembled a private, smaller scale version of the Hiroshima Prefectural Japanese Language Camp that JETs are required to attend, with better nightlife.

In short, it was a vacation well spent. There is nothing extraordinary about AMICA’s methods. The teachers were knowledgeable and experienced and kind. The coursework was certainly challenging, though never overwhelming, and I think, well suited to my needs and desires. We even got to keep the photocopied course materials, which amounted to approximately half of a Japanese textbook’s worth of dialogues, examples, exercises and explanations. But perhaps the best part of the course for me personally was the motivational boost I received from the intensive level of practice. I left Tokyo much more confident in my Japanese abilities and much more motivated to continue studying on my own with the start of the new year. So, next time you see that advertisement for intensive Japanese in Tokyo, take another look. The next intensive course being offered is during Golden Week, March 29 through April 2.

By Joshua Zimmerman

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or have a social life with real people, you’ve probably heard about Apple’s crazy new product: the iPad. What is the iPad, you ask? It’s a 9.7-inch touch-screen tablet that lets you watch movies, listen to music, surf the Web, and read books. While all those other things are all nice and dandy, for those of us studying Japanese it may also turn into an amazing study tool. Those things are all nice and dandy, but what’s really exciting about the iPad is its potential to become an amazing study tool for those of us learning Japanese.

Here is how I see it. If you’re a hard-core learner of Japanese, you’ve probably got a bag full of study materials that you haul around everywhere you go. There’s your Japanese language grammar book, your kanji book, your electric dictionary, the Japanese children’s book you’re trying to read, your study notebook and journal, flash cards and note cards, and if you’re lucky also an iPod filled with J-pop music and maybe a Japanese movie you’re trying to get through. Now imagine you can replace all those things with an iPad. It’s not such a stretch.

Image from tofugu.com

First and foremost, Apple is trying to sell people on using the iPad as an eReader. Meaning you can download books from their store (just as you can download music from the iTunes store) and you read them on the go. Instead of carrying around four or five books you now just carry around a 1.5-pound iPad. The best part is you no longer have to decide which book to carry when you leave the house, because you’ll have them all with you.

The area in which the iPad will really shine is software. Since the iPad is running the same operating system as Apple’s iPhone, the iPad has access to any of the 120,000 iPhone applications that have been written. For example, all the Japanese learning tools outlined in this or this WIV article can be run on the iPad, no problem. What does this mean for you? Now you can leave behind your electronic dictionary, your flash cards and your notebook. The iPad can serve all these functions.

If that doesn’t thrill you, then how about watching videos and listening to music? You could download Japanese podcasts for studying, or put your favorite Japanese movies and music on your iPad. Plus, if you sign up for the Japanese version of the iTunes store you can have access to thousands of Japanese movies, TV shows, music and books to help you study. If you spring for the more expensive iPad (and a $30 wireless plan) you could use the always-on Internet connection to access any Web-based Japanese content you want.

While the iPad hasn’t been released yet in any country, it’s worth a look if you’re a frequent traveler and dedicated learner. And with an entry level price point of $500, it’s something that will be affordable to most people.

By Jonathan Fisher

All Japanese All the Time

Rating: ★★★★ 

When I began writing this column, I set out to review a variety of tools for learning Japanese language.  I defined “tools” very broadly — anything from books to websites, games, flashcards, reference guides and coursework. But one tool it hadn’t occurred to me to review, but which is actually becoming more and more common, is the language learning tools review!  That’s right; I’m convinced that merely by reading this article (or other articles like it) you are actively involved in learning Japanese. But before we go overboard congratulating ourselves for all of our hard work, I think it’s time to take a look at a well established website that is full of reviews like this one, as well as advice and a variety of other original methods for Japanese self-study: Khatzumoto’s blog, “All Japanese All the Time.”

“Khatzumoto” is the screen name of the self-styled host and creator of “All Japanese All the Time” (AJATT), a long running self-help guide of sorts for all those seeking Japanese fluency. Khatzumoto opens with his own story, at age 21. With almost no formal training in Japanese, he begins an 18-month total immersion course of his own design (with inspiration from others, to be named later), at the end of which he is able to apply for, interview for, and land a job as a software engineer in Tokyo. Khatzumoto, generous as he is, wants to share his success at language learning with the world. While his blogging style is at times rambling, and can border on obnoxious, his good points make up for these shortcomings. His aims are sincere enough, he is forthright and honest when he has received compensation for product placement, and his approach is largely based in the notion that learning Japanese can be entertaining and enjoyable for anyone who is actually interested in fluency.

At the heart of Khatzumoto’s curriculum are spaced repetition systems (or SRS) like those found at smart.fm (previously reviewed), which Khatzumoto prefers, as well as James Heisig’s kanji and kana memorization systems (previously reviewed). But what makes the AJATT system unique is its focus on sentences and on the individual creation of a full-immersion environment, wherever you live. Khatzumoto created such an environment for himself in Utah, where he was largely isolated from native Japanese speakers but had plenty of access to authentic Japanese media. And he utilized such Japanese media fully to create his own personal Japanese-only space. In addition to using the more traditional study materials he describes, Khatzumoto injected all manner of pop culture into his life, from Japanese music to streaming NHK video to manga to anime. He even gave his dog a Japanese name! But the point is — and the author of AJATT returns to this often — that this method works.

While it’s unlikely that we will all be willing to spare as much time and energy as Khatzumoto put into his own personal Japanese learning adventure, living in Japan gives us a major advantage and a quick way in the door, so to speak, when it comes to immersion in the language. AJATT can easily be overwhelming. All its emphasis on fun and entertainment, while it is ideally true, can just be frustrating to read at times. Then again, AJATT casts such a broad net that I think everyone, regardless of how much anime you can stand to watch, will be able to find something of use there. And the bedrock of Khatzumoto’s claims and methods are definitely solid. Finally, while the tone of AJATT can be like that of an angry drill sergeant, if you are ever lacking in motivation in the area of language learning, one of Khatzumoto’s inspired rants might be just what the doctor ordered.

Special thanks to Hiroshima-ken JET Darren Carter for recommending AJATT for review!

By Jonathan Fisher

Remembering the Kanji Vol. I: a complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters, by James W. Heisig

Rating: ★★★★ 

Learning kanji is one of the most challenging aspects of gaining fluency in Japanese because a certain amount of kanji learning must be achieved through rote memorization. It is only through extended, focused contact with the kanji that they will become an intelligible, useful, and interesting part of your life in Japan. Indeed, once kanji are mastered to a certain extent, they can enlighten your study of other aspects of Japanese, especially vocabulary.

It is with such an understanding of the central importance of kanji to Japanese language learning that James Heisig set out to craft a succinct method for memorizing the meaning and writing of all of the kanji. Volume 1 deals exclusively with those kanji known as joyo, or general-use kanji. Heisig’s method is more than impressive, it’s elegant. And it works. The author claims that in a month of dedicated, full-time study, a student using his method could learn the meaning and writing of each of the nearly 2000 general-use kanji. I have no reason to doubt the truth of that statement. I only wish I had the six to eight hours of daily study time that such a project would require!

The crux of Heisig’s method is what he terms “imaginative memory.” This is the type of memory that is engaged when we hear a friend tell an exciting story. Imaginative memory is full of sensory imagery — smells, tastes, bold sights, loud sounds, textures, and emotions. These are the memories we retain most readily, and these are the types of memories that Heisig requires his students to attach to each of the Kanji. In simpler terms, for each of the hundreds of joyo kanji, you tell yourself a story. But because the kanji can be broken down into identical elements, these imaginative stories are all interrelated. Remembering the Kanji is essentially a collection of bizarre fictions built around the meanings of Chinese characters.

When used mindfully, this book is fascinating, and adds an important dimension to the study of kanji and thus to the study of Japanese language generally. And yet, it has one major limitation. Strictly speaking, you will not learn any Japanese words by studying kanji through Heisig’s method. You will certainly learn what a variety of Chinese characters, which are important building blocks of Japanese, look like, and how those characters are written and what they mean. But there is no information about pronunciation in Heisig’s book whatsoever. He is very candid about this in the introduction. And it’s certainly not a cruel trick or a joke he’s playing. Anyone who has lived in Japan for any length of time knows that it can be useful to be able to recognize certain kanji without being able to pronounce them (男 and 女 come immediately to mind). Ingenious as Heisig’s method is for its stated purpose, it falls short of being a comprehensive language learning tool for someone interested in learning the kanji.

Never fear! Next month I will reveal the kanji learning resource, which, when combined with Heisig’s method, completes the meaning-writing-pronunciation puzzle.