Book recommendations on deciphering kanji/calligraphy

[PietroParis]

Hi All,

 

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime"

 

Suppose that I want to learn the minimal amount of written Japanese that is necessary to decipher signatures, NBTHK certificates, and so on. Is there a magic book that I should buy to get started?

 

Thanks in advance for any input,

 

Pietro

[Peter Bleed]

Pietro,

The magic books will be revealed to you - - later.

To begin, I STILL think it is useful to get and study the table presented as "Appendix E" of B. W. Robinson's Arts of the Japanese sword. John Yumoto's treatment of kanji is also broadly useful. And it would help if you can get someone to explain stroke counting. And get a set of Grey Doffin's flash cards.

Peter

[Rich S]

Try these sites:

 

http://www.jssus.org/nkp/index.html

 

http://www.jssus.org/nkp/kanji_for_tsuba.html

 

http://meiboku.info/guide.html

 

Lots of stuff on translating Kanji for swords and tsuba

 

 

Rich

[Grey Doffin]

Hi Pietro,

I use The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary (make sure it is New Nelson) and Japanese Names and How To Read Them by Koop & Inada.  And thanks Peter for plugging my cards.  https://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/books/b109-kanji-flashcards

Grey

[PietroParis]

Thanks for all the suggestions! For Koop-Inada, I also found this:

 

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/22476-Japanese-names-and-how-to-read-them-koop-inada/

 

Cheers, Pietro

[Guest]

I agree regarding New Nelson and Koop & Inada, but if you have an iPhone, or iPad, the Imiwa App is extraordinary.

 

It has a search facility plus all the various ways of finding a character, including by SKIP pattern, Multi Radical, Chinese Radical etc.

 

Also shows real time stroke order for a character.

 

And its free.

 

http://www.imiwaapp.com/

 

[kissakai]

I use Jisho - free

[kissakai]

PS

Greys cards helped me only yesterday!

They are drawn kanji rather than typed so much nearer to true kanji