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

the long version

"The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course is an innovative and highly effective system for learning and remembering kanji, or Sino-Japanese characters. The book contains 2,300 character entries, including all 2,136 Joyo Kanji ("regular-use kanji") plus 164 of the most useful non-Joyo Kanji. It offers learners a sophisticated, pedagogically sound method for remembering the basic meaning of each character, conveniently summarized in concise keywords to facilitate memorization. Each kanji is accompanied by an explanation of how to remember its meaning clearly and distinctly. These mnemonic explanations teach learners to associate each kanji's graphical form with its unique range of meaning, often using visualization and concrete imagery to simplify complex characters and make their meanings immediately recognizable in their graphical forms. An outstanding feature of the course is the special attention it gives to the challenge of learning each kanji in a differentiated way. This allows learners to associate the meaning of each character with the features that distinguish it from graphically similar characters"--