Kanji Pict-o-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics (Zzz)

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   どうやってみんな漢字を学んでいるのだろう？ 伝統的な方法は機械的反復、丸暗記である。日本の子どもたちは机に向かい何百回も漢字ひとつひとつを書いていく。そしてやっとモノにするのだ。しかし Michael Rowley は別の方法、連想記憶法を紹介する。連想記憶法は意味を引っ掛けておくフックを用意しておいて、漢字を目にしたとき意味を引き出せるようにするのだ。コンセプトはいたって単純。まず漢字がその意味する言葉や概念と一緒に出てきて（たとえば芝・竹・食・務など）、次に中国語と日本語の発音が続く。それに意味をなぞった絵や文字を似た絵を出す。漢字を見ればいつでもその絵が心に浮かんでくるというわけだ。

   Rowley の本は、「権力」「場所」「道具」「世界」「食物」「人間」「身体」といったテーマごとに章立てされており、部首を最初に学び、後から細かい意味を付け足した語を学ぶようになっている。たとえば、水を表す部首「さんずい」を Rowley は3つの水滴がはねたものとして描く。そうすると後になって、「湯」「浮」「沸」「泥」「浴」といった漢字がすべて「さんずい」を使って作られていることがわかるだろう。「湯」は「さんずい」と何本かの線でできているが、Rowley は誇張して湯気の巻きひげがぐるぐるしている様子に似せて描く。そして連想が役に立つのだ。記憶と関連をひとまとめにしつつ、単純だけど喚起する力のある絵が思い出すのにかなり助けになっている。

   Rowley はひらがな・カタカナの50音を、それぞれの文字と同じ音で始まる文字に少し似た素敵な絵で表している。つまり、「な／ナ」という文字は「ナット（結び目）」に似せてあり、「ぬ／ヌ」は箸で持ち上げられた「ヌードル」の絵になっている。そして「テレフォンポール（電柱）」を思い描けば、「て・テ」をもっと簡単に思い出せるのだ。

   Rowley の本を言葉で説明するのは難しい。というのも、視覚的要素がこの本のキモだからだ。洞察力・想像力・絵の旨さを混ぜ合わせた素晴らしい仕事を彼はしている。昔ながらの機械的反復学習法をはるかに越えて、彼は漢字学習を楽しく近づきやすいものにした。（Stephanie Gold, Amazon.com）

Product Description

Japanese written characters, or kanji, have their origin in a picture-language developed in ancient China. Over time this language evolved into stylized abstract forms that are difficult to memorize. This delightful book presents 1,200 kanji with readings, main definitions, standard printed forms, and visual and text mnemonics to make them easier to remember. Fully indexed and cross-referenced. Winner of several international design awards.

Amazon.com Review

How does one learn kanji, the characters of written Japanese? The traditional approach is rote memorization. Japanese children write each kanji hundreds of times at their desks, and eventually they are acquired. Michael Rowley offers a different way, a mnemonic-association approach that provides a hook on which to hang the meaning and retrieve it easily when the kanji comes into view. The concept is simple: each character is represented under the word or concept it stands for (such as turf, bamboo, eat, or duty), followed by the pronunciations of the word in Chinese and Japanese, and a drawing that captures the meaning and resembles the character enough so that it'll come to mind whenever the kanji is seen.

Organized thematically in chapters such as "Power," "Places," "Tools," "The World," "Food," "People," and "The Body," Rowley's book lets you learn the root symbols before teaching the words that add to them for further meanings. For example, the character for water is a splatter of three dashes that Rowley pictures as three splashing water drops. Later, you see that steam, float, boil, dirt, and bathe all build on the water character. For steam, there's the water character plus a series of lines that Rowley exaggerates to resemble swirling, vapory tendrils, and the association helps. Building on units of memory and relationship, recall is aided considerably by the simple yet evocative drawings. Rowley even manages to help with the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, providing appealing pictures that look a bit like the letters in question and begin with the same sounds. So the na letter looks like a knot, nu resembles Rowley's drawing of noodles held by chopsticks, and it's easier to remember which symbol means te when you picture a telephone pole.

It's hard to do Rowley's book justice with words, since the visual element is what makes it tick. He does a wonderful job, blending insight, imagination, and drawing technique, in a book that far surpasses the old rote method, making kanji learning both appealing and accessible. --Stephanie Gold