Write Your Name in Kanji

Rating:
Summary: great!
Review: a very useful book to have if you are studying japan and want to know what peoples names mean or how to write your name in japanese, especially if your an american manga artist like me.

Rating:
Summary: A unique, fun look at Japanese
Review: I'm trying to teach myself Japanese, got this book as a present, and love it. It exposes the reader to written Japanese while doing so in a non-threatening way.

I keep it aside for days when I need to practice Japanese but I can't stand to look at another kanji textbook... I'll pick it up, flip through, and have fun laughing at some of the (purposefully) sillier name-translations while still seeing Japanese characters. My name, Christina, came out to 'serene Christian beauty' for the 'serious'-meaning name, but there are lots of other less elegant ones. ;)

Overall, it's a great supplement that can make Japanese seem more fun and personal while still exposing the reader to the actual written language.

Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: If you're studying Japanese, this is a great book to have. It helps with learning kanji. For example, if you're trying to memorize the kanji for "pearl", look at its readings (let's pick "SHU", the onyomi) and think of someone you know whose name has that syllable when pronounced the Japanese way. Let's say your friend's name is Ashley (not one of the 300 names already done for you). The Japanese pronounce it "A-shu-ri-i." So what you do is find the kanji for these syllables. (There's an index at the end.) I found "beauty-pearl-village-good". From looking at the way the kanji in other names are arranged, you can deduce that this would be read "A good, beautiful pearl of the village," because this book also shows how kanji are arraged in Japanese words and names.

However, I must warn you: The author takes a lot of liberties with mispronouncing American names. He freely lengthens vowels ("Megan" can be pronounced "Mei-gan" or "Me-ga-an" in addition to "Me-gan," which is how the Japanese pronounce the name), and he changes sounds ("Alice" can be "A-re-su", "A-rei-su", "A-a-rei-su", etc., in addition to "Arisu"). DO NOT buy this book unless you have a book with information on at least the 1,945 general-use kanji, or better yet, a kanji dictionary.

Despite its faults, however, the book is a very useful tool for learning kanji, which, as you probably know, is very important when you're learning Japanese, because if you don't, you won't be able to read anything in Japanese except children's books. Therefore, you will need all the help you can get. I recommend this book to anyone studying Japanese.