What's new

Kanji assessment

eeky

先輩
8 Jun 2010
2,431
22
48
Hi,

I would like to identify which, if any, of the following kanji are obscure in modern Japanese, outside of proper names. A native speaker's common-sense perception of "obscure" ought to be fine. Use in a single well-known word is enough to make a kanji non-obscure for my purposes. For example, if 蝋燭 is a well-known way to write ろうそく, then this suffices to make both the kanji non-obscure even if they are scarcely known anywhere else. (This is just an example I invented. I don't know if it is true.) I would like to ignore use in proper names. If a kanji is used in one or more well-known proper names, but is otherwise unused or hardly used, then that would count as obscure for my purposes.

I hope there aren't too many characters. I figure it will be fairly easy for a native speaker to zip through them.

佇, 劈, 卿, 叩, 吊, 吠, 呆, 呑, 呻, 咳, 唖, 唸, 喧, 嗄, 嘘, 嘩, 嘴, 噂, 埃, 堵, 塔, 奢, 尖, 掻, 撒, 撥, 撫, 攣, 曰, 棍, 樫, 樽, 歪, 毯, 涎, 溢, 滲, 漕, 濡, 灼, 焚, 煤, 燭, 牢, 狡, 狼, 猾, 疼, 痙, 癇, 癪, 眩, 睨, 禿, 秤, 穢, 窺, 筍, 糞, 絨, 耽, 聳, 肱, 脾, 舐, 艘, 苺, 蒼, 蔦, 蛙, 蝋, 蝶, 螺, 褪, 覗, 訝, 躓, 軋, 轟, 這, 鉤, 錆, 錫, 鍮, 鍾, 鎧, 靄, 髷, 鷲
 
According to your definition, 劈, 嗄, 肱, and 髷 fit into "obscure".

I can't read the first three characters.
肘 is far more common for ひじ.
I thought was ひげ() at first, then I got it's まげ. The word まげ is rarely used nowadays in the first place (I think it's basically used only in sumo wrestling).
Also, I have to admit that I confused with かすみ().
 
Thanks for taking the time to go through all those Toritoribe....

When you say that you can't read the first three characters, do you mean that something has gone wrong with the display of them on your screen, or that you don't recognise them at all or know what they mean? In case the former, see:

2mzf952.jpg.png


By the way, on the subject of kanji, do you recognise the character that looks like 又 on top of 八 in boxes C and D of this?:

2a8lzfb.jpg
 
The latter. I couldn't recognise what they mean.

The upper character is 又, whereas the lower one is the katakana ハ. It's または, i.e, "or".
 
Btw, I've seen 嗄(か)れる and 靄(もや) several times in novels and games. Still, they're quite rare - it might help to know what your purposes are.
 
The latter. I couldn't recognise what they mean.
Gosh, they must be really obscure then? This is a bit of a surprise to me because all the characters come from the Harry Potter books, which shouldn't be advanced reading. I would have input most of these characters phonetically from the accompanying furigana in the book, so it's not completely impossible that I made one or two mistakes and chose a wrong kanji from the list. I did not keep a track of the location in the source text, so I can't go back and check now. However, the local contexts were:

佇む (たたずむ)
劈く (つんざく)
ヴォルデモート卿 (Lord Voldemort)

Still unfamiliar?
 
it might help to know what your purposes are.
I learn kanji by rote (this is the way I prefer to do it; it's not my intention to start a debate here on the subject). I am trying to compile a list of non-obscure non-Joyo kanji that I ought to learn along with the Joyo list. At my level, I do not want to waste effort learning obscure characters.
 
I don't think it's surprising to find more obscure kanji used with furigana in text - if the furigana is there it's not really a barrier to reading. That's what it's there for - so kids with sufficient vocabulary but who don't know all the kanji will be able to read without having to look up the words in a dictionary. (To be honest I find it often difficult to recognise single kanji removed from context - I recognise 蝋燭 but might not get 蝋 if it was in the middle of a list).

You could cross-reference with the 85 "joyo candidates" (the ones that were considered for the new joyo and then removed):
叩 噓 噂 濡 笠 嬉 朋 覗 撫 溜 鷹 揃 頷 摑 翔 喋 嚙 洩 禄 栗 馴 駕 鴨 淵 駿 蘭 胡 蘇 狼 蝶 搔 惚 蒼 腿 菩 吊 雀 樽 壺 祀 卿 歪 棲 磯 桶 鷲 媚 寵 秤 套 醬 疼 賤 顚 糊 誼 截 綬 庄 毅 揆 躇 躊 憐 狽 萌 撥 謳 蔓 捏 饉 倦 屛 恍 斡 膠 疇 謗 乖 誹 蒙 聘 憚 哨 諜

(Also 糞 is pretty much a must- have, wwwww)
 
By the way, on the subject of kanji, do you recognise the character that looks like 又 on top of 八 in boxes C and D of this?:

Hmm that label contains mainly 旧字体。戰前、歷史的假名使ひと共に使はてゐる字體で迚も煩雜です。Back in those days, the use of kanji was much more consistent between China Japan and Korea. 障碍者 智慧 and hey even veges like 馬鈴薯 and Japan made an effort to translate foreign ideas instead of just katakana it, 電話、哲学 etc.

However the old kana usage was a little crazy. Ended up that most kana didn't really read what they represented. Would be a living nightmare for learners today and they have to learn 4 extra kana.
 
I am trying to compile a list of non-obscure non-Joyo kanji that I ought to learn along with the Joyo list.

When I read something and I encounter some kanji (I don't know), I consider that enough of a reason to learn that kanji, as by my definition I ought to learn what I'm going to need, and I've seen pretty all the kanji you gave at least once. But as it has been pointed out above, some kanji are used only for a few (or even a single) word, so it might help to learn them as well (テ・Kテ・Nツ、ナ禿愬督ェツ、テ?テヲテ?テ淞、テァSテァOツ、テヲテクテァWツ、ヒ弋窶昶? etc.)

When a kanji dictionary contains that word to explain its meaning, it's a good sign you are dealing with a two (Chinese) syllable word that thus written with one semantic and two phonetic elements (eg 窶氾壺?版セ).
 
The context is another key. I can read relatively easily 嗄, 肱, and 髷 in sentences such like 声が嗄れるまで叫んだ, 椅子の肱に手をついて立ち上がった or 髷を結ったような髪型 even without furigana. 劈く is different at least for me. I wouldn't be able to read it even in, for instance, 闇を劈く叫び声. I would say I've never come across this kanji through my whole life up until now.
(As for 髷, "it's basically used only in sumo wrestling" also means "it's still used in sumo wrestling" at the same time. Even children know this word, not kanji, of course.)
 
You could cross-reference with the 85 "joyo candidates" (the ones that were considered for the new joyo and then removed):
叩 噓 噂 濡 笠 嬉 朋 覗 撫 溜 鷹 揃 頷 摑 翔 喋 嚙 洩 禄 栗 馴 駕 鴨 淵 駿 蘭 胡 蘇 狼 蝶 搔 惚 蒼 腿 菩 吊 雀 樽 壺 祀 卿 歪 棲 磯 桶 鷲 媚 寵 秤 套 醬 疼 賤 顚 糊 誼 截 綬 庄 毅 揆 躇 躊 憐 狽 萌 撥 謳 蔓 捏 饉 倦 屛 恍 斡 膠 疇 謗 乖 誹 蒙 聘 憚 哨 諜
Thanks nekojita, yes, I have a note of these from when you kindly provided them in an earlier thread of mine.
 
Back
Top Bottom