Japanese language reference material

On this page various files that I have created primarily for my personal use can be found. If they are useful to you, then please go ahead and utilize them. If you have any suggestions for future additions, or enhancements, then please mail me, but bear in mind that any update may take a long time, if not forever...

My reviews of Japanese language learning/reference materials can be found here.

Kanji grids

My romaji-handwriting is pretty appalling, so imagine what my kana and kanji are like... To try to force myself into producing some sort of legible pages, I produced the following Kanji grids. All except the smallest have furigana boxes, although as there are only 3 furigana boxes per kanji box, you might have problems spelling out the name of the author of the Tale of Genji.

The grids were produced completely 'by hand' in the PostScript programming language, as understood by all self-respecting laser printers. If you don't possess such a printer, then via a tool such as GhostScript, you should be able to get them converted into a format you can output.

Windows users may need to download a utility such as PrintFile to allow PostScript files to be printed directly to a PostScript printer.

These grids are designed to fit A4-size paper.

Shin Nihongo no Kiso Kanji Books I & II Kanji Lists

Tables of the 600-odd kanji covered in these two textbooks. Only the kanji themselves are listed, no readings, meanings, compounds etc. are given.

List in Word 2000 format
List in JWP format
List in EUC format
List in NEC format
List in new JIS format
List in old JIS format
List in shift JWP format
(Can you tell I was playing around with the save options in JWP? :-)

The Bushu

A table of the 214 bushu (Kanji radicals). This was done a long time ago, so I would not be at all surprised if there are errors. Also note that the bushu are listed in their original forms, rather than the condensed/changed forms that they appear as in most kanji.

List in JWP format
List in JIS format
List in Unicode format

Kanji used in family names

Although this does include the most common kanji found in family names, some others listed may be relatively uncommon. From personal experience, trying to learn kanji used in names is a worthwhile endeavor; while there are other areas that will prove more useful in passing exams, being able to read or write their name correctly seems to impress a lot of people :-)

I might compose a similar file for given names, but as they are a lot more varied (at least to my mind), don't hold your breath...

List in Word 2000 format


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