But longtime readers of Nihonshock by now have probably figured out that I love learning and exploring all of these you-don’t-really-need-to-know-this-but… areas of Japanese. After all, if you’re in Japan long enough, sooner or later you will come across them.

Where are shorthand kanji used?

By their nature, they can only be used in hand-written Japanese (you can’t even get most of the shorthand forms to appear on a computer). And since they’re considered incorrect forms, you’ll find them mostly in extremely casual correspondence or in note-to-self types of writing.

The primary reason to use them is for speed. As a learner, I’m sure you know that writing kanji can be a time consuming process. The Japanese are well-practiced and can write it significantly faster than most of us gaijin, but still have the same problem. Many (most?) kanji are just plain inefficient.

So who might benefit from the ability to write things quickly? That’s right, a student! Taking lecture notes is a situation just begging for writing shortcuts. And as you will see, many of the less mainstream shorthand kanji are ones that would be useful in exactly that situation.

But first, let’s start with some of the most major/useful shorthand forms:

Obviously, all of these kanji save the writer quite a bit of time, effort and ink. 第→㐧 is one of the most accepted shorthand forms and according to the wikipedia article on shorthand kanji is used on some traffic signs. I personally have never come across it.

The reduced form of 門, however, I have come across quite a few times. It’s extremely useful because it can also be used in any kanji that is based on the 門 radical (like 問 or 間). You may also see it with two vertical strokes across the top bar instead of one.

The reduced form of 曜 is a personal favorite of mine, although surprisingly not as frequently used by Japanese as some of the other shorthand forms. Beginners to Japanese know (and fear) this kanji well, as it’s the most difficult one that you have to learn at their level. The problem is how commonly the kanji is needed; it’s used in all the words representing a day of the week (for example: Monday = 月曜日). I really hope the Japanese come to their senses and make shorthand a Joyo kanji someday, but I’m not holding my breath.

The shorthand for 前 is interesting because it’s part hiragana, a kind of Frankenstein-kanji.

The shorthand for 個 is a nice one to have and I’ve actually encountered it before in my boss’ telephone memos.

The image of the shorthand for 雪 illustrates the reduced form of the rain radical, which is another favorite of mine. You can use that reduction in any rain radical kanji (雷, 霧, 霜 etc.). Sometimes the rain radical is reduced to 両, but that doesn’t strike me as being a whole lot easier.

㐂 is actually is actually not a reduction of the original kanji 喜, but instead comes from grass-script (basically a kind of calligraphy or cursive writing). Seven is an auspicious number in Japanese too, as you can see.

The shorthand for 選 isn’t commonly used, but is close enough to the original that a Japanese reading quickly might not even notice it’s a reduced form. I’d also be in favor of making this Joyo, but hopes are about as slim as they were for 曜.

These are a couple of my favorites. The kanji 風 has two different shorthand forms (pictured above), use whichever you like. I’ve seen this one only once, though, on a restaurant menu in the word 和風. I presume it was employed for a stylistic effect.

The word for library (図書館) also has two possible abbreviated forms. I don’t know who came up with these, but I want to track them down and give them a very big hug. This is the kind of progressive vision our world needs! (okay, I’m probably exaggerating a bit, but I do think it’s really clever)

Combining kana with kanji

These are some examples of using katakana for certain elements of a kanji. They’re not exactly standardized, but the basic concept is still a great way for anyone to invent a shorthand on the fly. Usually, the katakana is based on the reading of the kanji.

As to why the shorthand for 藤 has a completely different radical, I’m sorry but I have no idea.

Shorthand kanji in specialized fields

It makes sense that if there’s a particular difficult kanji that you have to write a lot, you’re more likely to create or use a shorthand for it. The above kanji show instances where this has happened. None of these a really for general consumption but…

If you’re a chemist, you might like to use the shorthand form of 濾, which is used in words such as 濾過 (filtrate). If you study medicine, you might be interested in a quicker way to write 薬 and if you are going to law school, 権’s shorthand form might come in handy.

The last one is a convenient shorthand used by some residents of Niigata ( 新潟) prefecture.

Conclusion

Shorthand kanji are an interesting and potentially useful tool for anyone who has to actually hand-write Japanese. I just hope you won’t try to use them on your Japanese tests, job applications in any other context where you really should be writing “correctly.”

If you liked this post and want to know more about shorthand kanji, check out the wikipedia article, and here’s a nice shorthand compilation on a Japanese-language site. Also, I’ve compiled all of these and more shorthand forms on the Kanji Cheat Sheet which is a part of Nihonshock.com’s Japanese Cheat Sheet Pack. Click the link for more info.

On a side note, I even used some kanji as shorthand in my English note-taking when I was in college. Writing 人 is much easier than “people”, for example. Others I recall using were  才 (years old), 年 (year), 中 (inside), 上 (up/top), 下 (down/under). So kanji aren’t always our enemies

Indeed, learners will have no problem passing even the N1 level of the JLPT without knowing that 氵 is called さんずい or that 疒 is やまいだれ. However, in my personal experience communicating with native Japanese speakers as well as other Japanese learners, I’ve been thankful to know the names of some common radicals, and regretful that I couldn’t name more. Kanji radicals aren’t required for Japanese proficiency, but ignorance of them is a shortcoming nevertheless.

With that said, this article intends to explain the basics of kanji radicals (as well as their quirkiness), and also introduce to the reader a good beginning vocabulary on the subject.

Why radicals suck

If you’re an intermediate or advanced learner, you probably have a kanji dictionary of some kind. It probably organizes kanji by radicals, which are grouped by stroke count. And it probably has a section for kanji with no apparent radical. This is the most intuitive and effective way to get the job done.

Unfortunately, although the basic idea is the same, the real radical system used in Japan is far less intuitive than you might think. For one thing, there is no such thing as a kanji without a radical.

Even the lowly 一 (いち) has a radical (or rather, is a radical), which by the way is used to classify these guys: 三七上下不丁世且丙丑. Oddly enough, although 一 is the radical for 三, it is not the radical for 二. 二 is a different radical altogether (classifying: 五互井亜云于). I think you can see how this gets out of hand rather quickly. That’s why your learner’s dictionary uses a simplified system.

In many cases it’s impossible to tell for certain what a kanji’s radical is just by looking at it. For example, most Japanese learners would start searching for 歴 under the 厂 radical. Logical enough, but guess what: the actual radical is 止. How about 聞? Would you say 門? Nope, 耳 is the radical. And how about 巡? Think it’s 辶 ? Sorry, it’s 巛, which is also the radical for 川 and 州.

And 巛 leads me to my next gripe; single radicals have multiple forms. 火部 (かぶ: the “fire” radical) can become 灬 (not to be confused with 㣺, which is a form of 心部 (しんぶ). 水部 (すいぶ) is another shape-shifter that can become 氵or 氺. In Japanese, the meaning and origin matters just as much as the shape itself.

Your kanji learner’s dictionary has probably also invented some radicals that (although logical and helpful) don’t actually exist! Those dots at the top of 営 and 学? Sorry. How about the two dots and long stroke on 前, 美, 首? Also imaginary radicals.

Don’t despair!

Even native speakers–unless they’re actively studying kanji–don’t know radicals very well either. To get to their level you basically just need to have a general idea of how the system works including some of its quirks (like those explained above), and also remember terms for a few common radical forms.

So, let’s move on to some vocabulary! Actually, once you get the basics, most of the time you can come up with these terms on the spot. For example; 偏（へん） is the word for a radical on the left side of a kanji, so 松 is 木偏（きへん）, 銀 is 金偏（かねへん), 地 is 土偏 (つちへん) , and so on.

First, a quick note: while each kanji has only one  部首 (ぶしゅ), or radical, which is used for classification purposes. Kanji are usually made up of  multiple components (要素: ようそ). Various kanji components are also referred to as “radicals” (especially in English), which in the strict definition of “radical” is incorrect. Even so, the following terms are still useful for description and communication. For example, the 部首 of 聞 is 耳, but you can still describe the kanji with the word 門構え(もんがまえ).

In this list, I tried to cover common but not obviously-named radicals. Here’s a link (Japanese) to a much more complete collection if you’re interested. The Japanese Wikipedia article on radicals is also packed with detailed info. The English Wikipedia article isn’t so shabby either.

Most radicals can be classified in one of seven types, depending on their position in the kanji.

Table: Basic Radical Vocabulary

This table gives the names of various components (in hiragana), and several example kanji for each. If I thought clarification was helpful or necessary, I added the kanji on which the component is based in parenthesis after the hiragana reading.

A couple other quirks

There’s a couple radicals that appear identical, but are actually considered different. Look at the these two characters:

服 肌

See that 月? Well on the left, it’s the moon radical (月). But on the right it’s the flesh radical (肉). The too components look and are written exactly the same, but if the meaning of the kanji has anything to do with the body, it’s the 肉 radical.

So in 服 the component is called つきへん but in 肌 it’s called にくづき.

Next, look at these:

今 全

The radicals of these kanji are also written and look the same, but differ according to what kanji they are based on. 今’s radical is 人, and this form is called 人屋根（ひとやね) . 全 is 入, and in this instance is referred to as 入頭 (いりがしら).

Finally, I want to mention the kanji 書. Ever thought it strange that the kanji for “writing” had the sun radical? Yes, the 日 on the bottom is the radical. But it’s not 日. It’s actually derived from 曰 (いわく). Look closely: 日 曰. 曰 is a pretty rare kanji/radical that means “to speak”.

The bottom piece of 書 is still written as 日, but just know that the kanji isn’t actually classified that way.

Kanji is the most common stumbling block for Japanese learners. It’s easy to see why: there are 1,945 Joyo kanji, hundreds more non-Joyo kanji that are still very commonly used, and yet hundreds more kanji that are used in people’s names. And each of these intricate little characters has a specific order in which the strokes must be written, probably has multiple readings, might have multiple meanings, and can be mixed and matched with many other kanji to create compound words (熟語 : jukugo).

Basically, there is a reason that Japanese students are still studying kanji even in high school, and that reason is that kanji are as difficult as they are many.

There are many different ways to go about it, but I decided to learn kanji the old fashioned way: relentless and unforgiving old-school rote memorization. Just pen and paper, sweat and blood, with a focus on efficient reviewing.

Why the hard way? There was just too much information to absorb any other way than to sit down and pound each character one by one into my brain. At least, not any way that was possible in the short time frame that I gave myself (two years from start to finish). Brute force was just the best tool for the job.

I believe strongly in the power and effectiveness of rote memorization for learning kanji, but I’ve taken care to write this article as an account of my own successful strategy and not as a “how to” article that tells you to do this or not do that. Everyone’s brain works a little differently, everyone has different circumstances they need to work within, and everyone has different goals and priorities for their learning, so naturally the same approach will not be best for everyone. I just hope that by sharing my own (successful) experience and method, readers will get some insight, ideas and options that they can apply to their own study. Okay, let’s get started…

The tools

The Learner’s Kanji Dictionary

I can’t emphasize enough how helpful this dictionary was in my quest to learn kanji. It has all the Joyo Kanji and name kanji, and a very good helping of non-official but still widely used kanji, including stroke order, old forms, and for each kanji it lists all common jukugo that contain it.

I used this dictionary probably several times a day for 2-3 years, as evidenced by the filth on the pages. Best $20 I ever spent.

Finger grime: evidence of a well-used book.

Check out reviews and buy this book on Amazon.com: The Learner’s Japanese Kanji Dictionary (Bilingual Edition).

A good notebook

A hard-cover notebook was really necessary since I ended up carrying these books around for literally years. A regular $1 notebook would not have survived. I also don’t think spiral-bound would have been able to do it either, the wire would have gotten all bent up eventually.

The notebooks I got were 96 sheets each, and I eventually filled 5 of them.

My notebooks

By the way, the duct tape you see on the binding was to attach a bookmark-ribbon to the spine so I could easily keep track of my page, not because the notebook was falling apart (these books are the toughest notebooks I have ever come across).

I was surprised to also find these exact same notebooks on Amazon.com: Blueline Business Notebook, Black, 192 Pages, 9-1/4 Inches x 7-1/4 Inches

The method

Now, I’m a computer guy, but learning kanji had to be done in analog. Actually writing down the kanji with a pen and paper was really helpful for learning it (and remembering the stroke order), and this way I had a notebook that I easily just toss in my bag and take with me on a bus or to Starbucks. Plus, it was highly rewarding to have an actual physical sense of how much I had learned (and of course it was great for showing off to people!). I enjoyed being able to look at my books (which eventually numbered 5 altogether) and think “Wow, all of that is in my brain!”

My objective was essentially to transfer all the information contained in the Learner’s Kanji Dictionary into my brain. To do this, I literally transcribed nearly everything from the dictionary into my notebook and reviewed each word hundreds of times over.

If that sounds tedious, difficult, boring, repetitive and perhaps even emotionally scarring to you, well, you’re right, it was. Once, I even went on an all-day study rampage where I just transcribed kanji after kanji from the dictionary to my notebook from morning until late at night… and after 14 long hours I had filled 37 pages, had an unearthly headache and throbbing, trembling fingers that could no longer hold a pen.

The reason behind transcribing was twofold. First, the act of actually writing the kanji a few times is great for retention. Second, I needed to have all of this information streamlined for maximum reviewability, which was the key to the strategy. I suppose you could think of the process of kind of like snatching up every word one by one from dictionary and putting the little buggers into your head, and then using the notebook to take roll call every once in a while to make sure everyone is still where they’re supposed to be.

The page format

Here’s a sample page from the kanji dictionary and a scan of from my notes to show you how I formatted my notebook based on the information in the dictionary… (no laughing at the bad handwriting!)

The format for each line goes something like: A – B – C _________ D

• A: The word in kanji form.
• B: The word in hiragana (pronunciation).
• C: The English translation/explanation.
• D: The kanji form again in the right margin.

Pretty simple, right? One line for each word, information on the left and just kanji in the right margin. One line left blank between different kanji groups to make the pages easy to scan.

To review, I would simply go from page to page, top to bottom focusing on each word in the right margin in turn, recalling its meaning and pronunciation before moving on. If I couldn’t remember a word or its meaning, I would quickly check the information on the left.

Sometimes I would pretend to write the kanji on the tabletop or my leg or wherever just with my finger as I went through the list. I was pretty strict on myself, so if I forgot one word on a page I would keep going over the whole page before moving on. I made an effort to review a whole book every day, but especially once the notebook started to get past 40 pages or so I didn’t always have time.

For me (and I suspect for many others as well) 90% of learning is simply not forgetting. So the “secret” to my method (if you can call it that) was to make the act of reviewing as comprehensive, simple, easy, and quick as possible.

How did I choose which compounds to list?

This is important. I made a point to write ALL the jukugo for each kanji IF I knew the other character(s). If it was a compound with a character I hadn’t studied yet, I ignored it (the same word would come up again when I got to the unfamiliar kanji). By following this rule, I never had any duplicate words in your notebook, all the words I was learning were reinforcing previous kanji I had learned, I never confused myself by learning words with kanji that I didn’t yet know, and this way not a single jukugo gets left out.

How did I choose which kanji to learn next?

Of course it’s a good idea to focus on easier and more common kanji first, but since my ultimate goal was to learn ALL (useful) kanji, I was never picky about what kanji to study next. I’d flip to random pages in the dictionary to find kanji, scan jukugo lists, go through my textbook or some manga, look up kanji that I had seen somewhere else and wanted to know, whatever.

Very often I would be writing the jukugo for one kanji and find a word that I wanted to learn but which was using another kanji that I hadn’t studied yet, so kanji, in a way, introduced me to their friends as I was learning. (on the example notebook page above, you can see how I decided to learn 殊 after seeing it when I was going through the jukugo list for 更)

The only thing I was really picky about was filling each page, so I’d often start off with a common kanji that took up quite a few lines, and end with whatever kanji I found that could fit in the space that was left. The fish/sushi kanji, while for the most part non-Joyo, are particularly well suited to filling one or two extra lines at the bottom.

Anyway, if anyone wants to follow my example, start with any JLPT Level 4 kanji you don’t already know (check out my Japanese Cheat Sheet for a list), but after that there’s really no “wrong” order to learn kanji in, so just do whatever you want (as long as you don’t end up procrastinating all the harder and more boring kanji).

What did I do about writing?

Since my focus was on learning how to read moreso than to write, I really only added in a writing method as an afterthought. And actually my logic for including it at all was that if I could write it, then I was much more likely to never forget how to read it. Anyway, I’m glad I did include it, even if I have slacked off and forgotten how to write most of them…

I did this: after I had finished a book, I would type up a big long list of English cue words for all the kanji in the book, in the same order as the kanji in the book. I would then print the list and tape it securely to the back cover… take a look at the picture to see.

Cue words taped to the back cover

To practice writing, I would go one by one through the list of cue words and write the corresponding kanji on a piece of scrap paper. The only reason this worked, of course, was because I had already been reviewing the kanji in the same order for weeks or even months. Even with that preparation however, it was hard to recall which kanji I was supposed to write for each cue word, so I’d go column by column initially, looking back to cheat whenever I needed to. Usually it only took a day or two of practice before I could write out every kanji from the notebook in the correct order just from using the list of cue words. After that it was just a matter of keeping in practice so that I wouldn’t forget.

Unfortunately I don’t have any images of the old scrap papers that I wrote kanji on to show everyone, but when I went practicing kanji I would always come away with a half sheet of paper or so of just solid kanji. Anyone who saw me studying must have thought I was a madman!

I could have used both sides of the paper, but…

I only used the right-side pages, so theoretically I could have put two times more information in each notebook. But I didn’t do this for a few reasons…

1. It was much easier to just scan one side of the book as I flip through doing my review; no need to go back and forth. I know it seems like just a little tiny detail, but this made reviewing much easier on my eyes.
2. On the left-side page I would occasionally put random interesting sentences or other word collections that I wanted to remember (Japanese isn’t all about kanji, you know)
3. Leaving breathing room, even if it was on the opposite page from the one I was reading, really made everything feel less cramped.
4. There’s no way I could have fit twice as many cue words on a sheet of paper for the writing review.
5. I wanted each page to be nice and clean, with no ink seeping through from the other side.
6. Going through pages faster makes it feel like your studies are progressing faster! Yeah, it’s a mind trick but who cares if it can keep you motivated.

Final thoughts

Learning kanji is a truly massive undertaking that cannot be accomplished without a very strong will and long term dedication. I may not have met those requirements when I started, but I did by the time I was finished.

My study of kanji was the first and perhaps only thing in my life so far that I’ve really put my heart completely into. At times, I questioned if it would ever end and if it was really worth it, but always somehow found the strength to press on. In the end, not only was it the most challenging project I’ve ever approached, but it was the most rewarding as well.

Other study methods

I’d like to complete this article with a list of links to other kanji study method articles around the internet, so if anyone knows of any, please drop me a line!

Well, today I’m going to hopefully answer that question for everyone once and for all.

As a disclaimer, I’ll just say that the information in this article is largely based on what I found on the following two Japanese pages. I did however do some research of my own at the Nagoya City Library and found a few more noteworthy kanji that I will add to the tale.

• 画数の多い漢字
• 画数の多い漢字たち

The most strokes

In this article I will basically follow the same format as the articles I pointed to above which provided the bulk of the information I’m using. That is: we will start by looking at the Japanese elementary school 1st year kanji with the highest stroke and work our way up year by year, level by level and eventually dictionary by dictionary until we reach the top.

Elementary school year 1

Stroke count: 12

The 1006 kanji Japanese children learn at elementary school are strictly regulated, so all students learn all kanji in the same order. Year one starts pretty easy, the kanji for forest takes #1 with a stroke count of 12. Not so bad when you consider you’re just putting 3 tree (木 ) characters together. Easy as pie.

Elementary school year 2

Stroke count: 18 each
In year 2 things have gotten quite a bit more difficult already. This year students will have to come to terms with two kanji that require a hefty 18 strokes to pen, and they’re a quite a bit more complicated than putting three identical characters together.

Elementary school year 3

Stroke count: 18
Another 18 stoke kanji takes the crown in the 3rd year of elementary school.

Elementary school year 4

Stroke count: 20 each
4th grade ups the top count to 20 strokes, with a tie for first place.

Elementary school year 5

Stroke count: 20
Year 5 keeps chugging along with another 20 stroke champion.

Elementary school year 6

Stroke count: 19 each
Year 6 students can take a bit of a breather since they’ll only have to work with this pair of 19-strokers. But they can’t breathe for long since things are going to get harder real soon.

Secondary education level

While there are strict rules for the kanji that Japanese students learn in elementary school (教育漢字 – EN), in middle school and high school there is no definite progression so each school and instructor varies slightly. So, we shift our focus now to the well known 漢字検定 (kanjikentei, often just called kanken) test. Level 4 of this test is approximately the same in difficulty as the 1st year of Japanese junior high school.

Kanjikentei level 4

Stroke count: 23
A mighty debut into the realm of 20+ kanji, this is where you’ve got to make sure your thinking cap is on right. This character means “mirror” or “to look back”

Level 4 of the Kanken covers approximately 1300 characters.

Kanjikentei Level 3

Stroke count: 21 each
A couple steps back in stroke count though not necessarily in difficulty. Although you’ve probably only come across 顧, which means “to reflect” or “to observe“, if you’ve been studying the language for a while, 魔, or “demon” is one most people already know because it’s used so often in comics, on tv, etc.

Level 3 of the Kanken covers approximately 1600 characters.

Kanjikentei Level 2

Stroke count: 21
Keeping the same stroke count as the previous kanken level, this kanji refers to a large military ship or battleship.

Jouyou kanji

Level 2 of the kanjikentei examination marks the completion of the widely recognized Jouyou kanji, which total 1945 characters altogether. Thus, weighing in at 23 dashes of ink, 鑑 is the stroke count champion within this important group.

Characters for use in names

Stroke count: 24 each
In addition to the Jouyou Kanji, Level 2 of the kanken also requires knowledge of the 983 (until recently there were only 285) kanji officially recognized for use in names . The highest stroke counts in this group are 鷹, which means “hawk“, or the 麟 from 麒麟 (kirin), which means “giraffe” (or a different mythical animal) and is the name of a Japanese beer brand.

Jouyou kanji (including old forms)

Stroke count: 25
Many kanji used today are simplified versions of more difficult kanji that were used up until the end of World War II. If we include the old versions for these characters, the new leader of the Joyo kanji becomes 廳. The simplified form of this character used today is 庁.

Kanjikentei level semi-1

Stroke count: 29
Moving up to the 2nd highest level of the Kanjikentei, we are now in the realm of what a highly educated adult Japanese can read (but probably not write). 鬱 is a Japanese character famous for its high stroke count and complex composition of elements. It means “depression“, which seems appropriate… it’s depressing that you have to work this hard just to write a single character.

JIS 0208 Kanji

Stroke count: 30
JIS 0208 (Japanese Industrial Standards) specifies 6355 kanji for “exhange of information.” This specification is the what Japanese character sets in computers are based on (more or less).

One of these characters is 驫, which is comprised of three horse characters and means–not surprisingly–many horses. Apparently there’s an unstaffed train station in Aomori prefecture where you can find this character. The station is named 驫木駅 (todorokieki).

鸞 is slightly less obscure. It’s found in the name of the founder of the Joudo Shinshuu (pure land) sect of Buddhism. Shinran (親鸞)was the guy’s name.

Kanjikentei level 1

Stroke count: 33
Kanjikentei Level 1 is the holy grail for kanji lovers. It covers every kanji you will ever need to know and far too many more that you won’t. It also requires you to know highly obscure readings for all the kanji which you oh-so-mistakenly thought were easy (ie. Did you know that 両人 can be read as futari?).

With a 14% success rate even among actively studying, intelligent, adult Japanese applicants, there is no higher honor of nerdiness to be bestowed than to pass this test. And the highest stroke count you’ll find here is a dazzling 33 strokes,  made up of 3 characters for deer pushed together. It means “rough” and is typically simplified to just one deer character when it is actually used (it appears in some 4-character compounds).

Note: This character is included in the JIS 0212 kanji set (less widely supported than JIS 0208).

The Twilight Zone

To the best of my knowledge, the 33 stroke 麤 is the highest stroke count that can be rendered on (most) computers (it’s in the MS Gothic font with Windows XP and higher, and perhaps earlier versions too). But wouldn’t it be all too easy if kanji stopped there. No, no my friend, it does not. This is actually where the real stroke count games begin.

Once you’ve mentally prepared yourself for the carnage of ink on paper you’re about to witness, scroll over these images I’ve prepared (computer fonts as far as I know don’t include these characters and if they do the display will be unreliable) and gaze in awe at the top stroke count kanji from the major Japanese kanji dictionaries. Remember that these are each intended to be a single character only, that is… written between two lines on a sheet of paper.

Monsters, aren’t they? Okay, now it’s time to look at the big daddy of all dictionaries. The 大漢和辞典 (daikanwajiten). It spans 12 volumes (plus 2 supplements and and index book) each big enough to make the Bible look like an easy read. At the library where I checked the kanji for this post, the daikanwa took up an entire shelf. Talk about overpowering. It contains, get this… 51,109 kanji characters.

How many kanji do you learn each week at university? 10? Let’s say 20. At 20 kanji a week… you would need 50 years to learn all of these kanji. And that’s without summer vacations.

But I digress, there’s no reason to waste your life learning kanji that nobody knows when somebody has already written the dictionary for you. Let’s just look at the highlights, shall we?

So in the daikanwajiten, the mother of all kanji dictionaries, there is a tie for 1st place. How are we to resolve this dilemma?

But wait, there is another. That’s right, a kanji that’s not in the daikanwa. And for that matter, a kanji that’s not even in any historical Chinese records.

Behold….!

According to a 2002 newspaper article from Kumamoto, somebody in Japan was apparently using this as their personal name as recently as the 1960s. The kanji has been included in the most comprehensive computer-based dictionary software available (the konjyakumojikyou).

Otodo has made several appearances on Japanese variety TV shows, where Japanese ooh and aah at how “difficult” it is, but really this kanji is just a pain in the a#$. You write cloud three times and under it you write dragon three times. When you’re done your hands and eyes hurt and you’ve got what’s basically a black spot on a piece of paper.

Personally, I don’t think this is even a legitimate kanji. It was probably some guy’s idea of a joke, and because of one loser’s strange sense of humor now everyone wants to rewrite history. Kind of an anticlimax, really. But, despite its origin, it’s gained a place in history and so in a sense it has become a real kanji.

The nihonshock award for most strokes goes to…

Now I get to add my two cents on the issue. Take a look at the 84 stroke kanji again. Yeah that’s a lot of strokes, but what we’ve really just done is written cloud and dragon three times each and called it one kanji. The number of unique strokes or the number of strokes that you actually need to know in order to write the character is actually just 28 (雲 = 12 + 龍 = 16).

The same goes for both 64 stroke kanji from the daikanwa, and the 52 stroke from the koukanwa and the 48 stroke from the koukijiten. They’re all just pushing clouds and thunder and dragons together and calling it a character. Hogwash, I say!

I don’t know what the Japanese think but I call that cheating. So I opened up the daikanwa myself and found the character with the most unique strokes.

And the winner is….!!!

Congratulations to sei! Now that’s what I call a kanji.

However, I have to admit that even this method ended in a tie, because there was another 44 character kanji in the daikanwa which met the requirement of having entirely unique parts. A (small) round of applause for the runner up, please!

Why runner up? Well, look at it. It’s lots of strokes, but the right half is like the other disqualified kanji, just sticking easier ones together. The only difference is it’s squishing different kanji together instead of multiplying the same one. Boo! The bottom left is a triple wing (unique, but hardly difficult). Really the only trick to this kanji is remembering that top left bit.

Other people may have their opinions and research on which kanji is really #1 and I welcome all comments. There’s a lot of information in this article so I probably made some mistakes even. Let me know if you spot anything.

On a final note I just want to say that for a variety of reasons, stroke count and difficulty are not the same thing. Not even close. But since there’s no way to really measure how difficult a kanji is, I’ll probably never get around to writing that article.

Supplement

Just for kicks, here’s a short list of some words that look really hard, but which Japanese people read all the time (just don’t ask them to write it).

THE NEW VERSION IS HERE

Alright, I so started this blog about a month ago. Posts are starting to build up and I’m starting to feel at home here lately. I decided it was time to start dishing out some real content, otherwise I’m just another ranting Japanophile. So for the last week or so I’ve been hard at work on a top secret project, and now it’s done!

I present to the world The Nihonshock Japanese cheat sheet!

What is it?

First things first: this cheat sheet is intended to be a supplement to your Japanese studies, not a replacement. The information here has been condensed, minimized, abbreviated, and generally beaten to tiny pieces with a sledgehammer in order to get as much as possible onto just two pages. This cheat sheet will be most useful for helping you to recall information after you have already learned it.

That said, even if you haven’t yet learned a lot of the grammar and words appearing on this cheat sheet, you may still find it useful as a road map to new information, and to help give what you have learned some different and perhaps better context.

How to use

Download it, print it (2 pages/1 sheet of paper front and back) and keep it in your notebook, textbook, on your desk or wherever else you need it. You can use it in it’s digital from, but owing to the small text size be prepared for lots of scrolling and zooming.

Information contained

The guide is built into the following sections:

Page 1

• Polite Verb Forms
• Casual Verb Forms
• Neutral Verb Forms
• Conjugating Verbs (RU vs U verbs and the irregular verbs suru and kuru)
• Forms of de aru (the being/equality verb)
• Adjective/Adverb form guide
• Hiragana and Katakana charts
• JLPT Level 4 Kanji Chart

Note: The katakana chart includes an aside detailing four easily confused katakana, with a stroke direction guide.

Page 2

• Core Particles with explanations and example sentences
  • wa, ga, o, ni, to, de, mo, ka, e and ya
• Assisting Particles with explanations and example sentences
  • yori, hodo, kurai, dake, bakari, demo, shika, kara and made
• Common grammar patterns with example sentences
  • hazu, beki, wake, tame, tsumori, dake de naku, no hou ga, wake ni ha ikenai, ~EBA ~U hodo
• Regular and polite verbs of giving and receiving

Example sentences for particles are color coded to help make their parts more readily understandable. Note that the distinction between a “core” particle and an “assisting” particle I have made is not exactly the classification used in Japanese (although it’s close), but I found this grouping to be the most expedient and understandable.

Formatting notes

Paper Size

Because I imagine most people will be printing this, I’ve made two versions: 8.5×11 inch for the USA/Canada and A4 size for basically everywhere else.

Hepburn Romanization

Since this cheat sheet is targeted toward beginner to low-intermediate learners, everything is in romaji (except the katakana/hiragana/kanji charts, of course). I may release a version using the “official” romanization method in the future, but right now I’ve just made everything Hepburn (revised), because I believe it’s better for learning and the way most people will prefer. However, I have romanized long o sounds as ou instead of ō.

Serif Japanese

I’ve used a serif style (MS Mincho) Japanese font for on page 1 for the hiragana, katakana and kanji because it shows stroke direction and type better than sans-serif style (ie. MS Gothic). In this respect they can be considered a better representation of the written form.

I noticed after finishing the cheat sheet that page 2 currently uses sans-serif style Japanese hiragana. It’s a small detail and there’s no problem really, but I will probably make it serif in any future releases even if just for consistency’s sake.

What got left out

Of course I would have loved to put anything and everything on this guide (I certainly tried), but we’re talking about a whole language here, so some arbitrary unnatural selection took place. Here are some things I considered but which didn’t make the cut:

• Sentence ending particles: yo, ne, tte ba, etc.
• Some assisting Particles: sae, sura, tomo, koso
• Some verb forms: ~TE+shimau, ~E as a command
• Transitions and Conjunctions: dakara, shikashi, keredomo, tokoro de, etc.
• Honorific and Humble forms (keigo)

The particle の (no)

Yeah…. about that…..
well….. you see…..
umm…..
I kinda….
…forgot about it. (^_^; )

I’ll be sure to put it in future versions, because it’s one of the basic particles.

However, it’s also just about the easiest and most straightforward particle there is in Japanese, so its absence doesn’t really impact the overall usefulness of the cheat sheet.

Feedback

This cheat sheet will be an ongoing and evolving project for nihonshock. Although I’m confident even with the first release that this is already the best Japanese language cheat sheet on the internet, I realize it is not and probably will not ever be perfect.

So if anyone notices any mistakes, typos, inconsistencies, anything I may have forgotten, or anything that could be done better, please contact me or leave a comment and help to make this cheat sheet even better!

Compliments are also appreciated!

However, I do understand the plight of the Japanese learner (I was once one, too, and in all honesty I still am), and admittedly, unless you’ve studied them for a long time, it can be hard to understand kanji’s beauty and allure.

• There are too many of them.
• They’re unnecessary for communication.
• They’re too hard to write.
• They have several pronunciations.
• They have multiple meanings.

All of the above are common complaints made by Japanese language students, and each of them is quite true. But despite their fundamental shortcomings, you can’t learn Japanese without them, you can’t live (well) in Japan without them, and they aren’t going to just magically disappear.

So you need to push and discipline yourself, but once you learn them, you’ll learn to love them.

For this post I’ve collected 10 pairs of kanji that to untrained eyes might look almost or exactly the same. My intent is not to discourage learners by highlighting the difficult points of kanji (though there are certainly difficulties…), but rather to spark an interest in kanji by introducing just how subtle and delicate they can be. Hopefully reading this will also save Japanese learners a mistake or two down the line.

1. 人 vs 入

If all you had to rely on to learn these kanji was printed text, you might think that the difference between these kanji is the little spike at the top; you would be wrong. Computer fonts render the character this way, but the true difference between these kanji is which stroke becomes the smaller, supporting leg. (the numbers indicate the stroke order)

2.  千 vs 干

These two kanji highlight not only the difference in stroke direction, but stroke type. The top of 千 is a slash, you lift your writing tool as you end the stroke. The top stroke of 干 is a stop. You stop your brush/pen/pencil completely then lift it and move on to the next stroke. (arrow shows direction of the stroke)

3.  土 vs 士

Occasionally in Japanese the length of a stroke can change the meaning. This particular pair are often used as components of more complex kanji and should definitely be learned early, so that you can be conscious of which one is being used as an element in harder kanji (for example: 売る　圧力　志　堅い)

4. 未 vs 末

Like #3, this pair is also differentiated only by the comparative length of the strokes.

5.  辛 vs 幸

The difference is not quite as subtle as a single stroke direction or stroke length, but keeping this pair straight in your mind (especially when writing) takes some extra effort.

6. 比 vs 北

Like #5, the correct reading and meaning is typically easy enough to figure out from context, but be careful when writing.

7.  綱 vs 網

These two higher level kanji are tricky because the meanings of these two kanji are pretty close.  Exercise caution.

8. 瓜 vs 爪

The special shape of this kanji can lure you into a false sense of security with your knowledge. Make sure you know that there are two kanji like this, and which one you’re using.

9. 微 vs 徴

With high stroke-count kanji, there is a tendency to look just long enough to read it and move on. Remember to review this pair from time to time otherwise you will forget which is which.

10. 日 vs 曰

Okay, so 曰 isn’t even a Joyo kanji. But isn’t this amazing? In a nice clean, crisp font you can see a difference, but if handwritten (compare the additional “handwriting” style forms), there is no surefire way to tell them apart without context! Fortunately, 曰 is only used in very high level written Japanese and pretty much always followed by the hiragana く, so I don’t expect that you’ll ever have any problems with their similarity.

If there are any look-alike kanji that you find interesting/frustrating/puzzling, please leave a comment!