Rating: 
Summary: Don't be afraid of Kanji anymore!
Review: This book is nearly perfect. It's very complete and comes in a very handy presentation. You can quickly find the 2000 most used kanjis and learn how to write them correctly. Besides a kanji's core meaning, you learn frequent combinations with other kanjis, which helps a lot for context interpretation. The layout invites you to read on, even after you found what you wanted, it's beautiful! My fear to kanjis is gone. I learnt to break them down in pieces and now I remember them easier. I just wish that this dictionary had kana instead of romaji in the meanings part. There's also a lot of "wrongly-counted" kanjis (for those of us who still don't master the SKIP system) that somehow ruin the layout, although is very considerate and helpful from the editor to give us a shorcut instead of going like "you have to learn how to count strokes first before using this dictionary"! For those of you who find this book incomplete, I tell you, you can always go to its daddy, Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Let's learn kanji!
Rating:
Summary: Very useful, but not without issues
Review: This dictionary is an excellent tool if you are a student of Japanese language who has a strong grasp with hiragana and katakana, but still a bit shaky when it comes to kanji. But after using Halpern's KLD, the fears of not knowing where to look up kanji will melt away.In addition, this dictionary is also great for advanced students (3rd year university level Japanese or native speaker). In many entries, Halpern includes technical words from other disciplines. While flipping through the dictionary I have found words that related to chemistry and physics that I didn't expect to find. The organization of this reference is beautiful. It's not just black and white like dictionaries that most people encounter. Jack Halpern color codes the 1000 most frequently used kanji in red and includes the other 1000 most frequently used kanji in black. In this way, students can identify the more essential kanji to learn first. When searching for random kanji found in newspapers, you can choose from three different methods. If you know any of the Japanese pronunciations (on or kun readings), you can look up the kanji in the on-kun index. Or, if you know the first several strokes of the kanji, you can use Jack Halpern's SKIP method which is very easy to learn if you have trouble with the other two methods. Lastly, if you know the radical for the kanji, look it up in the radical index. I highly recommend this reference! However, if you feel that ~2000 kanji isn't enough for you, I recommend Halpern's companion NTC's New Japanese-English Character Dictionary.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for Intermediate to Advanced Japanese Language
Review: This dictionary is an excellent tool if you are a student of Japanese language who has a strong grasp with hiragana and katakana, but still a bit shaky when it comes to kanji. But after using Halpern's KLD, the fears of not knowing where to look up kanji will melt away. In addition, this dictionary is also great for advanced students (3rd year university level Japanese or native speaker). In many entries, Halpern includes technical words from other disciplines. While flipping through the dictionary I have found words that related to chemistry and physics that I didn't expect to find. The organization of this reference is beautiful. It's not just black and white like dictionaries that most people encounter. Jack Halpern color codes the 1000 most frequently used kanji in red and includes the other 1000 most frequently used kanji in black. In this way, students can identify the more essential kanji to learn first. When searching for random kanji found in newspapers, you can choose from three different methods. If you know any of the Japanese pronunciations (on or kun readings), you can look up the kanji in the on-kun index. Or, if you know the first several strokes of the kanji, you can use Jack Halpern's SKIP method which is very easy to learn if you have trouble with the other two methods. Lastly, if you know the radical for the kanji, look it up in the radical index. I highly recommend this reference! However, if you feel that ~2000 kanji isn't enough for you, I recommend Halpern's companion NTC's New Japanese-English Character Dictionary.
Rating:
Summary: A "Must Have" for the serious learner
Review: This is a great selection for a learner. I have been studying Japanese for a very short time, and it is quite difficult to read a newspaper, letter, or anything other than children's books (due to the large number of kanji symbols found in normal text.) As a beginner, the most useful tool in this book is five pages of the most commonly used kanji symbols used in Japanese text. 2000 kanji symbols, ranked by frequency of use, are listed in an easy to use table. This table references the location of detailed kanji information. Subsequent investigation of the symbol will show the exact method of handwriting the symbol. The book goes into advanced knowledge (which I have yet to actually use) that the more advanced student will appreciate. This book is truly a useful tool for beginners as well as the more advanced person. I was told by my Japanese tutor that this book is the most complete American version of a Japanese kanji dictionary she had ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Look up any Kanji in two minutes
Review: This is an incredibly good way to learn kanji. It shoves the radical system aside (which I hope I never have to learn), and uses Halpern's SKIP (System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns) method. At first, I fumbled with the system, but I have made almost no errors with practice; it took me two weeks to get consistent results. The entries are good (even though they use upper and lower case romaji instead of katakana and hiragana to differentiate kun and on readings), and the concept of the kanji gets through first--so you'll be able to partially grok a kanji compound even if you don't get the precise meaning/don't know the reading. Also, compounds are listed with the character at any position in the compound--not just compounds where the kanji is first. In short, I love this book--it is my constant companion to Japanese class, and while browsing Japanese web sites. Purchase and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: The Kodansha, my review......
Review: This is pretty helpful. You almost need to know a little Japanese before hand. It's extremely thorough.
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly balanced
Review: This is so well-designed, it is a joy to use. (I'm in my second year of learning Japanese [Japanese for Busy People series], first term of real attention to Kanji.) The SKIP system is just one of five ways of looking up kanji; I've used them all now (even the frequency-ranking one). It's nice but just one facet of the dictionary. "Little things" like the layout, the indices, the introductory explanations, the paper, the font, the size are all so good that one doesn't even really notice them, they just seem natural, like a good tool should be. Now other dictionaries (like the complete Nelson which I have and respect and still use when necessary) seem awkward, if not ugly. The keywords in red and the organization of the definitions really do help give (to this novice anyway) a feel for the core meanings. Plus, for computer use, the Unicode numbers are given which is a big time-saver (for me anyway). It's hard to imagine a more perfectly balanced kanji dictionary for the beginner.
Rating:
Summary: Reading Japanese just became a viable possibility
Review: Tracking found kanji compounds is still not always the quickest thing to do (I can still mis-count numbers of strokes, etc.,) but with some patience it is possible with this dictionary to find virtually any kanji you set out hunting for. And when you find it, that's where the real value is--core meanings, rankings according to frequency of use, stroke order diagrams, and most of all a wack of compounds containing the kanji in question, regardless of where it appears in the compound. You're sure to feel empowered in your running battle with the outrageous number of kanji to be reckoned with in this nutty language. Gotta love it.
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