---
product_id: 7062924
title: "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters"
price: "€ 48.44"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.pt/products/7062924-the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course-a-step-by-step-guide
store_origin: PT
region: Portugal
---

# The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters

**Price:** € 48.44
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters
- **How much does it cost?** € 48.44 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pt](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/7062924-the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course-a-step-by-step-guide)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

Kodansha's widely acclaimed Kanji Learner's Course (KLC) is a complete guide to mastering all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese. It anchors a comprehensive kanji learning system, supported by the KLC Graded Reading Sets, the KLC Green Book, the KLC Wall Chart, and keystojapanese.com (a user-support website for forming study groups, exchanging tips, and tracking one's learning progress with points and level ranks). The KLC is also cross-referenced for convenient use with Kodansha's companion volume, the Kanji Learner's Dictionary. THE FOUR ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS FOR KANJI LEARNING The 2,300 entries of this main textbook adeptly integrate the four essential elements for mastering kanji meanings: (1) Accurate keywords. Each character's core meaning is encapsulated in a concise, easily memorized keyword. The keywords for all 2,300 entries have been carefully chosen to be semantically accurate and to integrate the character's various senses into a core idea. (2) Vocabulary to illustrate the keywords. The concept captured in each keyword is illustrated with up to five sample vocabulary items, carefully selected to clarify how the kanji is used in building typical words and phrases. (3) Mnemonic aids for remembering the keywords. Each entry contains an original mnemonic aid that is carefully designed to help learners remember the character's core meanings. Mnemonic aids pay special attention to helping learners immediately recognize each kanji and distinguish it from lookalikes. (4) Rational learning sequence. The course's widely praised sequence represents a breakthrough in kanji pedagogy. It aids learning by introducing kanji components step by step, grouping related kanji together, and building vocabulary progressively - all while teaching kanji in rough order of importance. A SELF-GUIDING, SELF-REINFORCING COURSE The course arranges all the information needed to master 2,300 characters into a streamlined, self-guiding, and mnemonically self-reinforcing curriculum. Sample compounds include only such kanji as have previously been learned, ensuring that learners are able to understand and use each compound, and providing a built-in review of all the kanji already studied. THE ULTIMATE KANJI LEARNING RESOURCE * Provides a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the core meaning of each kanji, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization. * Introduces the meaning and usage of each grapheme the first time it appears, helping learners seamlessly acquire new kanji based on a sound understanding of their component parts. * Innovatively uses concrete imagery to simplify complex characters and make their meanings immediately recognizable in their graphical forms. * Teaches characters in a pedagogically effective sequence, presenting graphically related characters together to help learners give significance to their contrastive features as they learn them, and thereby avoid having to re-learn them later. * Helps learners actively apply each character's principal meanings and readings using key vocabulary words, carefully chosen to illustrate the character's uses and to help learners employ it in everyday reading and written communication. * Helps learners differentiate among graphically similar kanji by showing how to remember the characters in a mutually contrastive manner that connects their graphical distinctions to their underlying semantic differences. Along the way, the course introduces nearly 800 pairs of easily confused kanji. * Helps students learn to write kanji accurately, by indicating each kanji's stroke order and placing careful emphasis on distinctions among graphically similar characters. * Includes all the kanji needed for genuine literacy in Japanese, including all 196 characters added to the official Joyo Kanji List in 2010.

Review: The Best Book so far for Kanji - I rarely post a review, but when I do, it's because the book really deserves it. This book is a fantastic resource for anyone who is serious in learning Japanese, but why you ask? What it has to make it different from other similar books? PROS You actually learn vocabulary in this book. The best way to learn on/kun readings is definitely learning the vocabulary with the kanji, what is more, this book always give you about three to five words/sentences for each kanji you learn, making this a super valuable tool for learning. The title of the book may be humble in its way, because it doesn't teach you 2300 characters. It teaches you much more than that, including the 2300 characters plus around a 6000 to 9000 words vocabulary to learn (rough guess, I didn't count). The vocabulary is taken from "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary: Revised and Expanded", another great asset in combination with this book. To learn Kanji, this book have some things that makes it much more easier to learn than most books out there (believe me, I have several books for Kanji, and this is my favorite one so far), the order of characters is very well implemented and yes, the order you learn is really important, because you have to fortify the memories from what you learn. The best way to fortify your memories is through mnemonic, short stories or phrases that makes you learn and retain the Kanji. This book tries to follow a solid, concrete aspect, so you can distinguish between similar Kanji and meanings, although, of course with so much mnemonics in the book, a few of them may be not so helpful for you, in that case, you can think of your own story or mnemonic to complement the Kanji you are having difficulty. Aside from Kanji meanings/readings and Vocabulary, you can also learn the Kanji stroke order - very useful to learn to write them; and the traditional Kanji (probably used in specific literature books) which can be useful for advanced learners of the language. CONS The only thing I would change in this book, which would be great in my opinion, is to add the type of each word presented to you. For example, noun, verb, adjective, etc. It has sometimes distinction for vert transitive and intransitive. Problem is, this is a flaw from the Kodansha Kanji Dictionary itself, not this book itself. What happens is this book takes the vocabulary from there, therefore it doesn't include the type of the word nor any indication of what type of word is that vocabulary coming from. A simple example would be like this: 二倍 (nibai) double, 倍にする (bainisuru) double. One is a noun, and the other is a suru verb (to double), but as Kodansha Kanji Dictionary doesn't have indications for type of words, the new learner may have a difficulty time figuring out what the word really means. This was just a simple example that can cause confusion, but most of times you will never know if the word is a verb or noun if you are a beginner, so it's a good idea to use other dictionaries to pair up with this book. COMPARING WITH - Remembering the Kanji - by James W. Heisig I studied and completed the book Remembering the Kanji 1 - by James W. Heisig, and I have to admit, while Heisig does a good job on teaching the meaning of the Kanji, I personally dislike how the RTK book is lazy with stories and mnemonics. In the introduction, it says you need to create your own stories and mnemonics using the keywords of each Kanji, but in reality, the learner just wants to learn, and most of the time he/she won't have the time to create everything for each Kanji. This book on the other side is much more complete in that sense, because it gives you more stories, more phrases, and more content to build your memory with, without the need to waste time being super creative with tons of characters. You clearly see that this book loves more the Kanji than RTK or other similar books. Other problem is that RTK does not teach you the vocabulary in the same scope as you are learning each Kanji. This book here shines in this aspect, because you are learning the Kanji, and you are also learning common words that uses that Kanji, what is more, in a cumulative way. You won't see strange Kanji in the vocabulary until you learned them. SUMMARY This book is definitely the best book released so far to learn and memorize the Kanji and useful Vocabulary as extra. The only downside is the source - "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary: Revised and Expanded" which doesn't teach you the type of the words - if it's a noun, verb or adjective.
Review: Effective building block approach, plus uses appropriate (visual/radical/etymological) aids based on individual kanji - I know Japanese up to the lower intermediate level (three college classes; ~1,000 words), and I really wanted to continue learning the language on my own, with a preliminary goal of reading shounen manga in their native tongue. Alas, every English speaker learning Japanese knows the huge hurdle that kanji represent when it comes to reading. I needed a method to pick up kanji effectively, so after reading the reviews and book descriptions, I selected this book because it was highly rated and, most importantly, because it includes all of the 2300 basic kanji (most books only include several hundred up to a thousand, requiring you to inconveniently jump ship to another book when you finish). I've been using this book for just over a month, having made a New Year's resolution to learn 4 kanji per day, a goal I set using the book's layout of 4 kanji per page. This will allow me to begin my dive into native materials before the year's end. I have found that compared to my experience studying kanji from textbooks (e.g. Genki, Tobira), Kodansha offers a much more intuitive experience. The basic Japanese textbooks just throw kanji at you and tell you to memorize them. They do not explain radicals, which can really simplify the learning and association process; they do not use visual mnemonics or etymological backgrounds; and they do not introduce kanji in an order conducive to learning. As two examples of many, Genki teaches the character for "road" (道) without ever first explaining the character for "head/neck" (首); or, Genki teaches the character for mother (母), without telling you that this represents breasts (turned sideways)...trying forgetting the character now! This isn't to fault the textbooks, as such explanations are beyond their scope; it's merely to point out the textbooks are a rather ineffective way to learn all of the kanji, particularly complicated ones. Kodansha, fortunately, uses a multi-dimensional approach focused on one thing: making the kanji stick in your mind. Depending on what is useful for an individual kanji, the book explains the kanji's meaning using the appropriate and salient selection of radicals, visual mnemonics, or etymological backgrounds, or any combination thereof. I like that this book (unlike others) does not force awkward or ill-fitting visual mnemonics or complicated and obscure etymological backgrounds on kanji where it doesn't work; the book uses only what relatively simple learning aid makes the most sense for each individual kanji. Furthermore, the book introduces kanji in a building block order, allowing you to utilize what you have already learned to simplify the learning of new kanji. For example, kanji are often introduced as combinations of kanji you have already studied; as conceptually related groups tied around a similar radical or idea; or as contrasting groups where similar appearing kanji with different meanings are compared by the stroke to emphasize what makes them visually different, explaining how to interpret that visual difference to underscore the different meanings. It achieves this without becoming dull and repetitive. Each kanji includes several, typically 3-6, example words. The example words are strategically selected to use kanji previously covered in the book, which helps reinforce what you have studied. Per the book's own recommendation, I find it most effective to learn each kanji in the context of the example words (instead of just associating the sounds to the single kanji), selecting 2-3 vocabulary that cover at least two (where two or more exist) of the kanji's pronunciations. As suggested, I write the new words at least 10 times each, reading aloud (or in my head) as I write, associating sound to character. Sometimes the words will be familiar -- you knew the word, just not how to write it. Sometimes, the word is new, so you increase your vocabulary. Using this method, I have not only expanded my kanji knowledge base, I have expanded my vocabulary. Additionally, each day, before I begin to study my 4 new kanji, I return to the previous day's kanji to write them, and then I will select 2-5 kanji (often ones I struggled with) from even earlier pages. Over the past month or so, I have comfortably learned ~150 kanji (I up to kanji #188, but already knew some of the kanji introduced). The book's main negative is its lack of context: it does not use example sentences for the words. I understand, however, that this is a space issue (the tome would be enormous were this included for all 2300 kanji), and furthermore, this is a kanji book, not a vocabulary or grammar book. And it succeeds at teaching kanji quite well. Particularly for new verbs, I use a dictionary to get an idea of the verb's usage. With a quick search on my phone's Japanese dictionary app, I do not even have to close the book while I look up example sentences when needed. Thus, I do not feel inconvenienced by the lack of examples. Granted, this is the first book of its kind that I have purchased, but I am convinced that there is not another book on the market to beat it for teaching non-native speakers kanji quickly and effectively.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #72,386 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #128 in Foreign Language Instruction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 481 Reviews |

## Images

![The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61CAk0uj-lL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Best Book so far for Kanji
*by Y***Y on August 23, 2015*

I rarely post a review, but when I do, it's because the book really deserves it. This book is a fantastic resource for anyone who is serious in learning Japanese, but why you ask? What it has to make it different from other similar books? PROS You actually learn vocabulary in this book. The best way to learn on/kun readings is definitely learning the vocabulary with the kanji, what is more, this book always give you about three to five words/sentences for each kanji you learn, making this a super valuable tool for learning. The title of the book may be humble in its way, because it doesn't teach you 2300 characters. It teaches you much more than that, including the 2300 characters plus around a 6000 to 9000 words vocabulary to learn (rough guess, I didn't count). The vocabulary is taken from "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary: Revised and Expanded", another great asset in combination with this book. To learn Kanji, this book have some things that makes it much more easier to learn than most books out there (believe me, I have several books for Kanji, and this is my favorite one so far), the order of characters is very well implemented and yes, the order you learn is really important, because you have to fortify the memories from what you learn. The best way to fortify your memories is through mnemonic, short stories or phrases that makes you learn and retain the Kanji. This book tries to follow a solid, concrete aspect, so you can distinguish between similar Kanji and meanings, although, of course with so much mnemonics in the book, a few of them may be not so helpful for you, in that case, you can think of your own story or mnemonic to complement the Kanji you are having difficulty. Aside from Kanji meanings/readings and Vocabulary, you can also learn the Kanji stroke order - very useful to learn to write them; and the traditional Kanji (probably used in specific literature books) which can be useful for advanced learners of the language. CONS The only thing I would change in this book, which would be great in my opinion, is to add the type of each word presented to you. For example, noun, verb, adjective, etc. It has sometimes distinction for vert transitive and intransitive. Problem is, this is a flaw from the Kodansha Kanji Dictionary itself, not this book itself. What happens is this book takes the vocabulary from there, therefore it doesn't include the type of the word nor any indication of what type of word is that vocabulary coming from. A simple example would be like this: 二倍 (nibai) double, 倍にする (bainisuru) double. One is a noun, and the other is a suru verb (to double), but as Kodansha Kanji Dictionary doesn't have indications for type of words, the new learner may have a difficulty time figuring out what the word really means. This was just a simple example that can cause confusion, but most of times you will never know if the word is a verb or noun if you are a beginner, so it's a good idea to use other dictionaries to pair up with this book. COMPARING WITH - Remembering the Kanji - by James W. Heisig I studied and completed the book Remembering the Kanji 1 - by James W. Heisig, and I have to admit, while Heisig does a good job on teaching the meaning of the Kanji, I personally dislike how the RTK book is lazy with stories and mnemonics. In the introduction, it says you need to create your own stories and mnemonics using the keywords of each Kanji, but in reality, the learner just wants to learn, and most of the time he/she won't have the time to create everything for each Kanji. This book on the other side is much more complete in that sense, because it gives you more stories, more phrases, and more content to build your memory with, without the need to waste time being super creative with tons of characters. You clearly see that this book loves more the Kanji than RTK or other similar books. Other problem is that RTK does not teach you the vocabulary in the same scope as you are learning each Kanji. This book here shines in this aspect, because you are learning the Kanji, and you are also learning common words that uses that Kanji, what is more, in a cumulative way. You won't see strange Kanji in the vocabulary until you learned them. SUMMARY This book is definitely the best book released so far to learn and memorize the Kanji and useful Vocabulary as extra. The only downside is the source - "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary: Revised and Expanded" which doesn't teach you the type of the words - if it's a noun, verb or adjective.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Effective building block approach, plus uses appropriate (visual/radical/etymological) aids based on individual kanji
*by C***N on February 9, 2016*

I know Japanese up to the lower intermediate level (three college classes; ~1,000 words), and I really wanted to continue learning the language on my own, with a preliminary goal of reading shounen manga in their native tongue. Alas, every English speaker learning Japanese knows the huge hurdle that kanji represent when it comes to reading. I needed a method to pick up kanji effectively, so after reading the reviews and book descriptions, I selected this book because it was highly rated and, most importantly, because it includes all of the 2300 basic kanji (most books only include several hundred up to a thousand, requiring you to inconveniently jump ship to another book when you finish). I've been using this book for just over a month, having made a New Year's resolution to learn 4 kanji per day, a goal I set using the book's layout of 4 kanji per page. This will allow me to begin my dive into native materials before the year's end. I have found that compared to my experience studying kanji from textbooks (e.g. Genki, Tobira), Kodansha offers a much more intuitive experience. The basic Japanese textbooks just throw kanji at you and tell you to memorize them. They do not explain radicals, which can really simplify the learning and association process; they do not use visual mnemonics or etymological backgrounds; and they do not introduce kanji in an order conducive to learning. As two examples of many, Genki teaches the character for "road" (道) without ever first explaining the character for "head/neck" (首); or, Genki teaches the character for mother (母), without telling you that this represents breasts (turned sideways)...trying forgetting the character now! This isn't to fault the textbooks, as such explanations are beyond their scope; it's merely to point out the textbooks are a rather ineffective way to learn all of the kanji, particularly complicated ones. Kodansha, fortunately, uses a multi-dimensional approach focused on one thing: making the kanji stick in your mind. Depending on what is useful for an individual kanji, the book explains the kanji's meaning using the appropriate and salient selection of radicals, visual mnemonics, or etymological backgrounds, or any combination thereof. I like that this book (unlike others) does not force awkward or ill-fitting visual mnemonics or complicated and obscure etymological backgrounds on kanji where it doesn't work; the book uses only what relatively simple learning aid makes the most sense for each individual kanji. Furthermore, the book introduces kanji in a building block order, allowing you to utilize what you have already learned to simplify the learning of new kanji. For example, kanji are often introduced as combinations of kanji you have already studied; as conceptually related groups tied around a similar radical or idea; or as contrasting groups where similar appearing kanji with different meanings are compared by the stroke to emphasize what makes them visually different, explaining how to interpret that visual difference to underscore the different meanings. It achieves this without becoming dull and repetitive. Each kanji includes several, typically 3-6, example words. The example words are strategically selected to use kanji previously covered in the book, which helps reinforce what you have studied. Per the book's own recommendation, I find it most effective to learn each kanji in the context of the example words (instead of just associating the sounds to the single kanji), selecting 2-3 vocabulary that cover at least two (where two or more exist) of the kanji's pronunciations. As suggested, I write the new words at least 10 times each, reading aloud (or in my head) as I write, associating sound to character. Sometimes the words will be familiar -- you knew the word, just not how to write it. Sometimes, the word is new, so you increase your vocabulary. Using this method, I have not only expanded my kanji knowledge base, I have expanded my vocabulary. Additionally, each day, before I begin to study my 4 new kanji, I return to the previous day's kanji to write them, and then I will select 2-5 kanji (often ones I struggled with) from even earlier pages. Over the past month or so, I have comfortably learned ~150 kanji (I up to kanji #188, but already knew some of the kanji introduced). The book's main negative is its lack of context: it does not use example sentences for the words. I understand, however, that this is a space issue (the tome would be enormous were this included for all 2300 kanji), and furthermore, this is a kanji book, not a vocabulary or grammar book. And it succeeds at teaching kanji quite well. Particularly for new verbs, I use a dictionary to get an idea of the verb's usage. With a quick search on my phone's Japanese dictionary app, I do not even have to close the book while I look up example sentences when needed. Thus, I do not feel inconvenienced by the lack of examples. Granted, this is the first book of its kind that I have purchased, but I am convinced that there is not another book on the market to beat it for teaching non-native speakers kanji quickly and effectively.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The best tool to learn Kanji for serious learners. Period.
*by A***S on August 6, 2021*

Before this, I've used a couple of other methods such as WaniKani, RTK, and have been frustrated by them for one reason or another. And this book is working for me! How I use the book : I study 1 page (4 kanji and 6 associated vocab) every weekday and on weekends I spend time reviewing what I've learned the past week. I start by reviewing the Kanji I learned the last two days(8 kanji) and making sure I remember and am familiar with them. This generally takes about 10 minutes or less. Then I start by writing the the new kanji using the green book and getting the stroke pattern correct. Then I read over the mnemonic and look at any previous kanji or radical the explanation mentions. I really try to grasp the mnemonic in my head, and try to "visualize" the story. I repeat this for the 4 new kanji I am learning that day. This usually takes about 15 - 20 minutes. After this, I take the important vocabulary provided in the book and add that into an Anki deck and study the words. I never learn more than 6-7 words a day, so 6-7 vocab + 4 kanji is enough for me per day, as I also study Genki vocab and grammar. I generally spend about 45 minutes on Kanji each day, and never exceed an hour. I feel that this has helped prevent burnout. Anki is your best friend. There are a few anki decks available for this course, just use that if you are too lazy to make your own deck. Japanese is not an easy language to learn, and Kanji is the area where most learners give up due to the sheer number. As long as you are in it for the long haul, this book will work for you. It's not quick, it does not promise you things other courses do, but it will work if you are determined. Pros : - Mnemonics that work. The stories that the author provides for each of the Kanji are amazing and really help with memorizing and recalling the Kanji. It's strange how well this method works. - Order of the Kanji is amazing. Kanji that look similar are grouped together. The author makes sure to introduce you to the components of each Kanji before introducing the compound kanji. - Provides useful vocabulary words and circles the important ones. I personally find this very useful, as I only study the important vocab as I will surely pick up other vocab "in the wild". - The graded readers are a huge help. Each of the graded readers only introduces kanji you've learned before , this has not only helped me review the kanji and vocab, but it has also helped me become better at reading Japanese. Cons : - If you are aiming for some tests such as JLPT or are looking to learn in a specific order, this book may not be for you. The goal of the book is to teach you all the useful kanji, in an order that gets you there in the quickest and most efficient manner. - Introduction in the books is quite long, and is very tedious. I just ignored it after a few pages and have found my own way of studying that works for me. Overall, if you are serious about studying Kanji and aren't in a rush to meet some arbitrary deadline or goal, this book is the best resource you will ever find. It will help you learn Kanji, vocab, and meanings. Pair this with a great grammar book such as Genki, Tobira, Tae Kim and as long as you are consistent, you will see progress!

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering 2300 Characters
- The Kanji Learner's Course Green Book: Writing Practice Workbook for The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course (The Kanji Learner's Course Series)
- The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary: Revised and Expanded: 2nd Edition

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.pt/products/7062924-the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course-a-step-by-step-guide](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/7062924-the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course-a-step-by-step-guide)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Portugal*
*Store origin: PT*
*Last updated: 2026-06-13*