Hiragana Book Review

Title: Remembering the Kana (Part one: Hiragana)
Author: James W. Heisig
Rating: ***** 5/5 stars














This book is amazing. I cannot stress how much Heisig helped me learn hiragana. And you know what? It only took 2-3 hours! Maybe more with a few extra notes I looked over, regardless Heisig promises you will learn the hiragana within 3 hours in the beginning.

It's interesting the methods he uses to help you memorize that kana, but by far the most useful. Instead of mindlessly copying down the hiragana over and over. He gives you both key words and components connected with imagery to remember the kana and strokes. What makes this help is he continues to use the same image components when the shapes reoccur. Interesting things like puppy dog tails and daggers. It is much better than simply associating the individual hiragana with individual images such as I have seen in other author's works. It is easy to mix up the shape later on that way.

Another interesting approach Heisig conducts is the idea the hiragana should be memorized in a different order rather than the standard dictionary way. The pages and hiragana are all in order of a Japanese dictionary, but as you progress you jump pages in what he thinks is an easier and better way to learn. And that it is. Heisig also asks you to keep track of how long it takes to complete each lesson, and at the end you add up all the minutes. That's how I found I that I memorized the hiragana within 3 hours like he promised.

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. For I know officially can read and write the hiragana, and it only took 3 hours spread out within 3 days.