University trio revises standard Japanese language text
Published by the Communications
and Development Department
28 October 2003
The University of Canterbury’s
strength in the teaching of Japanese has been recognised by international
publisher Tuttle Publishing.
For more than four decades, Tuttle has published A Guide to Reading
and Writing Japanese, a student guide to the Japanese writing system
by Florence Sakade. Since it was first published in 1959 the book has
been “the bible” for Japanese students around the world
selling millions of copies. Despite its popularity the book had not
been updated since 1961.
Last week, the third edition of the book was released thanks to revisions
by Associate Professor Ken Henshall (Asian Studies), Dr Christopher
Seeley, former head of Asian Studies, and PhD student Henk de Groot.
“It is one of the classic reference books in Japanese and one
of the top half dozen in the world,” Professor Henshall said.
“It is known to almost all students of the language.”
Professor Henshall said it was a great honour that Tuttle regarded the
Canterbury trio as world authorities.
Revision of the book was long overdue. The original edition listed 1850
officially approved general use characters but in 1981 the list was
extended to 1945. The latest edition includes all 1945 characters broken
into two sections — the 1006 essential characters taught during
the six years of Japanese elementary school and a further 939 characters
adopted by law to be used in publications for a general readership.
Each character is listed with their readings and definitions, and in
the case of the essential characters also a stroke-order diagram demonstrating
the proper way to write it.
Professor Henshall said Japanese was regarded as most complex writing
system in the world. Research shows it takes around 1500 hours of study
to become proficient in the language in all four skills (speaking, listening,
reading, writing) and for western students the biggest obstacle is learning
the script.
“It is not too difficult as a spoken language but unless you can
read and write you can’t reinforce what you are learning.
“There is a great need for books that teach character recognition.”
Professor Henshall said revising the book was a massive logistical exercise
yet the end product was simple to use. “It is what students want.”
Despite the complexities of the written language — where one character
can have as many as 17 readings — Japan enjoys the highest literacy
rate in the world. Professor Henshall credits this to the system of
rote learning in Japanese schools.
Professor Henshall has written a number of Japanese script-related books
including A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters and A
Guide to Learning Hiragana and Katakana, both published by Tuttle.
Dr Seeley is the author of A History of Writing in Japan and is currently
completing a second book on the Japanese writing system.
For further information contact
Associate Professor Ken Henshall
School of Languages and Culture
University of Canterbury
Christchurch
Ph +6 43 364 2228
Email ken.henshall@canterbury.ac.nz
