Alice in Kanji Land: Kanji as Characters and Adventures

by Cure Dolly

This book combines the cute and crazy world of Alice in Wonderland with a scientific method of learning (SRS) to introduce you to a wide range of basic kanji (all first-year Japanese school kanji, all JLPT N5 kanji).

You'll learn how kanji are constructed, how they fit together to make bigger words, how they are pronounced, and much more, in a form that makes them uniquely memorable-a story in which the kanji themselves are characters and adventures.

Genres: Japanese Literature

204 pages, Paperback

Published November 25, 2017

Reviews

[Robina Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully whimsical story with lots of word play. Alice herself has a ton of character. She is a little girl who loves Japanese and has learned all the kana – then on her way to Japan she falls into Kanji Land where she meets living kanji, talking animals and many others who explain the "origins" of the kanji in funny ways that make them stick in the mind. Examples of the kanji characters are Sen, who doesn't always act his magnitude, Ko the lively schoolgirl and Kuchi the great actress. There are also characters related to the other Alice books like the White Rabbit and Baron Cheshire. The kanji are BIG so you can see the parts easily.

It's written by the Cure Dolly who has the splendid Japanese-teaching KawaJapa channel on YouTube – who would think the serious teacher could be so playful? I'd recommend this book to anyone beginning to learn Japanese (especially as an Anki deck is available to go with it), and I think lots of other people would enjoy it very much.

[Jesús Salas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing, it should be mandatory to anyone learning Japanese. If you're struggling with your first hundred Kanji give this one a try, it's well worth it. The story is cute and the mnemonics are clever and memorable. Often times I catch myself remembering good chunks of the story when I'm trying to recall a certain Kanji, and it helps tremendously!

Granted, this will not magically make you a pro at Kanji, you still need to put in the work. But the book, paired with the included Anki deck has allowed me to know (or at least be familiar with) around 150 Kanji in under a month! I will continue to review the Anki deck regularly for the foreseeable future to make sure the Kanji are firmly locked in my long-term memory.

I always thought Kanji were these random scribbles with no real logic behind them, but after reading this book I can now see that they're extremely logical and make a lot of sense. Once you understand these first building blocks you start to realize that even complex-looking Kanji are mostly made up of other parts or kanji you might already know, allowing you to grasp their main meaning.

I cannot praise this book enough, I just wished there were sequels for the next thousand Kanji.

A must-read if you're learning the language.

[Sharifaharfah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came highly recommended from the online Japanese language learners' community, so I bought this from bookdepository last year to help me with my Japanese lessons.
The narration centres around Alice, who encounters various kanji characters during her journey in Kanji Land.
The method of concocting various tales around each kanji character, as well as the use of mnemonics, is inspiring me to create my own way/stories to aid me with learning Japanese.

[Em's Adventures · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the moment I first picked up my first Japanese book at the library I fell in love with Kanji. This book is such a lovely way to cement them into your head. I realized that they are all kanji that I already know so I can't say whether this is helpful for beginners or not, but it is fun and I am impressed that it comes with a free Anki deck! I almost wish that I was just starting out again so that I could learn the kanji from this book and the flashcards!!!

[Philippe Fanaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome approach, but I feel very disappointed by it not going one step beyond it and using the kanji for the expressions it writes in romaji.

[Ruth Bogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had my doubts about a kanji tutorial disguised as an Alice in Wonderland take-off. Well, doubts allayed. The book is charming, humorous and exactly what the author promises, a serious kanji-learning experience.