For the present Alice in Kanji Land is only available from Amazon. This is the US link; the book is also available from Amazon sites in other countries.
Alice in Kanji Land gives you a new, fun, and scientific way to learn kanji.
Up until now kanji books have used methods dating back centuries.
Alice in Kanji Land brings kanji learning into the 21st century, teaching kanji in the form of a narrative structurally linked to an SRS deck (included free) that will cement the kanji into your long-term memory with an algorithm based on the brain’s learning process.
Enjoy a sample of Alice in Kanji Land right now.
It also teaches kanji not as abstractions but as part of the organic whole of language, making them easier to grasp and retain.
Using Alice in Kanji Land in conjunction with the deck (about 15 minutes per day) you will not just learn all the kanji needed for JLPT level 5 (all first-grade kanji and a substantial portion of second-grade kanji) together with quite a lot of vocabulary.
You will also learn
- The radicals and underlying construction principles that will make it far easier to learn more kanji in future.
- The ways in which kanji fit together in themselves and the ways in which they align with other kanji and kana to form words.
- The principles behind the ways they are pronounced in different circumstances.
Learning kanji not as abstract isolates but as part of an organic whole turns an exercise in brute-force memorization into something more logical and easily graspable.
And if this all sounds a bit abstract β well, actually it’s fun. This is an Alice book after all…
Kanji as Character and Adventure
The age-old technique of making kanji into story-pictures is brought up to date by integrating it with an Alice in Wonderland storyline that makes encounters with the Kanji memorable and engages the emotional responses as well as intellectual ones (extremely important for memory).
We chose Alice not just because she’s cute. Also because the crazy logic and punning nature of the Alice books is exactly suited to the kind of thinking needed to make kanji mnemonics.
Enjoy a sample of Alice in Kanji Land right now.
Alice Plus SRS
You can read the story without putting too much effort into memorizing the kanji.
Because the Alice in Kanji Land SRS deck will handle memorization for you.
The back of each card has extensive reminders of the story’s mnemonic elements in the notes after the answer. So you can refresh your memory by reminding yourself of the story as often as you need to.
After a while the story will drop into the background and the words will become second nature.
In accordance with our philosophy, there are no “abstract kanji” cards. The front of every card is a real word that has been introduced in the book, incorporating one or more kanji also introduced in the book.
The back of the card gives you the meaning and pronunciation of the word on the front. The word is spoken aloud by the card (well, you know how cards are in Alice) as well as being written.
Below the meaning and definition are notes reminding you of the mnemonic elements of the story. You can use these as much or as little as you need them.
Dear CD: I wanted you to know that when I clicked on the link to “Look inside the book” it loaded a PDF that looks like MORE than a sample.
Your fan, Ken
Ok, looked again- I see it’s not the whole book π
Thank you for telling me about this. Actually, as you realized it is a sample – though I wanted to include quite a substantial sample so that people can get a good idea of whether the book is suitable for their needs or not. I do appreciate your looking out for me like this though.
Reading the first part of the sample reminded of this Arisu haha
https://i.imgur.com/XM4mrmQ.gif
Kawaii GIF! Yes my Arisu can be a bit like that at times!
Hello, your contact form is broken. I’m not sure how to get a hold I accidnetally bought the book twice. Can you cancel one of the orders?
Receipt number: 83D98269DL418691N
Thanks
The form seems to be ok now. Don’t worry. We will cancel one order. If we ever get two identical orders from the same person we would check to make sure they really intended to buy the same thing twice.
I bought this book and love it so much! I didnβt have any doubts that it would work but itβs still amazing to see how easily and quickly I can recall Kanji and pronunciations now!!! π
Thank you so much for making it! Do you plan on making a sequel with more Kanji? Or maybe a βgrammar bookβ that takes you from zero to lower intermediate? I know about Unlocking Japanese but thatβs more like various grammar tips instead of an actual course (EXTREMELY helpful tips, donβt get me wrong.)
Your YouTube videos are amazing but Iβd personally love to have them in a book as well (easier to reference and reread certain parts.)
Thank you for commenting. I am so happy that the book has been helpful to you.
I left the door open to more Alice books (because I loved doing this one so much) but I actually don’t recommend learning kanji in the abstract after a starting-base (which Alice is intended to provide) but learning them as words from immersion context (obviously I stick to the principle of learning them as words in Alice too, but it is aimed at a pre-immersion stage of learning).
As for a proper grammar (or as I tend to call it “structure”) book – yes. I am definitely planning on that. You are right about Unlocking Japanese. Ut was intended as a corrective for people who already knew some conventional “Japanese grammar”. Only later did I start on the much bigger project of teaching the structure from scratch (via video lessons).
A book is definitely needed and I plan to do it. It’s a big job though!
Hmm I guess I got carried away. It’s just so satisfying to see how easily the meanings and pronunciation of the kanji stick and how quickly I can recall them by barely trying! But you are right, learning in context as soon as you’re able to is the best thing.
I’m so looking forward to the grammar book! After watching one of your videos I take notes so I will have my own mini booklet once I’m done watching them. Your book will be an instant-buy though, no matter how much grammar I’ll know by the time you publish it!
Thanks so much for your amazing work! I never would have imagined that I could learn all the JLPT N5 Kanji in less than a week π
Hello sensei, I’m a little heartbroken, because I can neither order Alice in Kanji Land from your web shop nor on Amazon, as I’m based in Germany and shipping from the latter β due to the Corona situation I assume β is restricted, at least at the moment. Is there any other way to get my hands on it? A kindle version would be much appreciated, I see, that your other publications are available there. Arigatou in advance, keep up your great work!
I am so sorry to hear this. We really want a digital edition of Alice in Kanji Land but there have been a number of technical problems (particularly concerning digital reproduction of radical elements of kanji). We are working to overcome this but sadly it will take time.
Mh, that’s unfortunate. Do the difficulties appear due to a certain font that is used? In the sample everything seems to be just fine. I might be able to help out, if you’re interested.
Other than that ordering from Amazon did work now after all. Shipping is gonna take for ever, but in about 14 days I shall own a physical copy π
I am glad you were able to get it. No Kindle books are font independent. That is really the problem I think. It would depend on whether the font used by the device included the non-standard characters that are not used in actual Japanese text at all. Some do but some don’t.