しあわせ

漢字学習ステップ８級 published by: 日本漢宇能力検定協会

Another book to prepare for the kanken test. This time it is an official book published by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. It is a textbook for Japanese people, completely in Japanese and requiring a vocabulary beyond that which the kanji might suggest. Maybe it’s for grade school children but I’m certain parts of it are intended for their parents.
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Adanami Shobo Brewer Street

There’s no signage, in fact it still has the signs from the dry cleaners who once owned the shop. And it’s not a temporary thing as they’ve been there well over 2 years now. This small shop is crammed with Japanese books and manga.
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漢字練習ノート・小学２年生　author: 下村昇 published by: 偕成社

Inspired by the upcoming Kanken test in June I went looking for some Kanji texts in JP Books yesterday. This workbook is one of the two books I bought. It is a companion volume to a more comprehensive yet small book 漢字の本2年生

As I wanted to use it more for revision I decided to skip the main book and just use the workbook. Also the main text being entirely in Japanese (as is the workbook by the way) needed more concentration than I really wanted to give to it. However I think once you reach a certain level it’s very useful and satisfying to work in an all Japanese environment.

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English words made only from twenty-six characters? Are English a bit lazy or what? We have fifty thousand characters in Chinese

— A Concise Chinese - English Dictionary for Lovers — Xiaolu Guo

On Sunday 22 June at SOAS in London the 11th Kanji Aptitude Test in the UK will take place.

There are 12 levels ranging from level 1 with 6000 kanji, Genius level! to Level 10 with 80 kanji, primary school level. Each test takes 1 hour. The pass mark is a relatively high 70% or 80%.
Pretty much the real deal.
You can find details of the levels here.
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よつばと！ 著:あずまきよひこ

More “Feel Good”-ness from しあわせ！

Yotsubato is a manga from the creator of my favorite anime “Azumanga Daioh“, Kiyohiko Azuma. It is about the day to day existence of a pre-schooler living in Japan with her adoptive father. (Yotsuba may not be Japanese herself). The manga’s subtitle is “Enjoy Everything”; which Yotsuba-chan surely does as only a five year old can. And so the look of delight on her face as she laughs ははは！never fails to cheer me up.

There are 7 volumes available. (I got mine while in Japan and via Amazon.jp In London you can get them at JP Books in Mitsukoshi.) Yotsuba always speaks in kana, sometimes mispronouncing words too. The adults speak in Kanji, but it all has furigana so it’s good for learners. The artwork is very clean and detailed line drawing that gives a good sense of Japanese life. — check out 第9話 「よつばと復讐」[Yotsuba and revenge] here.