Advice sought

[Mike Noel]

Gents

 

Can any body offer any guidance on learning how to read inscriptions. I am prepared to put the time in but find myself trying to match pictures of translated Kanji to the script I am tying to read obviously not ideal. 

 

Regards

 

Mike

[Brian]

 

[robinalexander]

Mike, also have a look at the NMB main page....go to Nihonto Info and then Research.... lots of good starters there including Nihonto Kanji Pages and Markus Sesko's (very good) Nihonto Compendium.

 

Better than the game called 'Concentration' 

[Mike Noel]

Thanks for that Brian

 

Exactly what I am looking for

 

Regards

 

Mike

[Mike Noel]

Thanks for the info Rob appreciated

[Peter Bleed]

Mike, 

Let me suggest that you might find it useful to go back to some of the OLD sword literature. Take a look at the books by John Yumoto and B. W. Robinson. These were written when the audience was very naive, so they offer basic information. To be sure you will ahbe learn some kanji, but I STILL! find value in Robinson's kanji chart. It is a very useful way to learn stroke counting and BASIC kanji. Once you have the names, you can go to lists - like those presented in Hawley, to address the whole mei. You will have a lot of fun!

[Bazza]

And don't forget the internet for swordsmith and oshigata searches and image tracking.  Powerful stuff.  https://nihontoclub.com/ mei search is good if you have a partial kanji reading.

 

BaZZa.

[Mark S.]

There was some good advice in this thread as well: