Kyouiku Kanji 1

皆さん、お久し振りね！　Hey everyone, long time no see! It’s been almost a month without a post O.O; , so we need to remedy that! ^_^

Today, i’ll be going over the Kyouiku Kanji 教育漢字. For those of you who don’t know, it’s an offset from the Jouyou Kanji (those 1,945 kanji needed for everyday use, such as for reading the newspaper). Kyouiku (きょういく) is basically ‘education’. Hence forth, Kyouiku Kanji is ‘education kanji’, or the kanji you learn during your education at school. It’s a little bit confusing, because technically *all* the Jouyou Kanji are done at school.

Kyouiku Kanji is learnt at elementary school. They are split up into groups and are taught from 1st grade to 6th grade. There are 1006 kanji in total, being split up into 80, 160, 200, 200, 185, 181 respectively.

The reason i’ve brought this up is because that’s one of the things I’ve been doing the past month. I’ve really been trying to get my language skills up, and one of the things that was lacking was my kanji reading and writing!

So, I’ve decided to go over the Kyouiku Kanji over some of the following posts and make a little series of them. How you learn them depends on how you learn best I suppose. There isn’t really any magical way to learn them, no short-cuts. In the end you still need the good old fashioned grind, but hey, whatchagonnado?!

Some people use the Heisig method, some use programs like Anki, some use immersion techniques, whilst others just read them and others write them out a kajillion times. What ever works best for you.

The 小学生 (しょうがくせい elementary school children) use the writing out many times way; it’s just installed into the school system. Yes, it sounds almost like torture. I know those of you who have been studying kanji already know how fiendish learning them can be. Heck, these are kids who’s ages aren’t even in double digits yet. But trust me, if you want to learn Japanese and go to Japan, then you have to put the effort in and learn Kanji.

The good thing is, it isn’t like running a marathon. Running a marathon only gets harder as you go on (legs get worn out, you’re out of breath, you ache all over). It doesn’t give up until you finish it. Learning kanji on the other hand, gets a lot easier as you go on. Now don’t get me wrong, I hear many a cry of (“liar!”) but it’s true. Sure, the further you go the more there is to learn, and some of the kanji can get a little complicated, but the more you work, the more basic kanji you learn, the easier it becomes.

Not only are you more efficient at learning kanji after the first 1000 or so, but you have enough basic core kanji, all those radicals, all those meanings that when the new kanji comes piling in, you start to understand more before you even start learning the ON /Kun readings. You see a lot of the new kanji is just made of old kanji. For example, 木 (き) means a single tree (or trees in general). What do you think two of those kanji together mean like so 林 ?

If you guessed something along the lines of a wood / woods or a grove, then you’re correct! Another tree symbolises a grouping of trees. So can you tell what three 木 are? –> 森

That’s right, it’d be a forest. It’s a much denser representation of trees! See, this basic logic happens in a lot of kanji and especially a lot in compounds. In fact, nearly all compounds use this logic.

Anyways, enough with the pep talk, let’s study! The first few that i’m going to teach you are from the 1st grade list, and they are the numbers! “But I know the numbers I hear you cry!”. Still, you might know the numbers 1-10, but do you know both readings? If you know ichi, ni, san, shi, go, etc do you also know hitosu, futatsu, mittsu? Many people learn a lot of the basics from guidebooks and the such, leading them to understand the basics, but lacking in the core knowledge. The ichi ni san reading is the ON reading, the Chinese reading. That isn’t to say thats how you say it in Chinese, it’s how the kanji were first interpreted from Chinese into Japanese. The kun reading is the natural Japanese reading.

Anyways, you’ll learn more about On / Kun readings in due time. First, the numbers!

　　　ON　　　　　　　Kun　　　　　　English

一　　いち、いつ　　　ひと（つ）　　　　One

二　　に、じ　　　　　ふた（つ）　　　　Two

三　　さん　　　　　　み（っつ）　　　　Three

四　　し　　　　　　　よ（っつ）/ よん　　Four

五　　ご　　　　　　　いつ（つ）　　　　Five

六　　ろく　　　　　　 む（っつ）　　　　 Six

七　　しち　　　　　　なな（つ）　　　　 Seven

八　　はち　　　　　　や（つ）　　　　　Eight

九　　きょう、く　　　　ここの（つ）　　　 Nine

十　　じゅう　　　　　 とう　　　　　　 　 Ten


If you’re a fan of the anime/manga series Bleach, you’d recognise these kanji from the back of the captain’s Haori (羽織 – はおり) [That white coat worn over the top of their kimono.] They were used to refer to what number squad (from 一 to 十三) the captains were from.

　^^^^^>
(ｃ^ _ ^ )
  /｜｜–o>—————- 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　バン－カイ！
o/｜｜\
/______\
　も　も

The numbers can be useful to remember, although nowadays Japan uses a lot of romanized numbers in dates and prices. Good practice though. The first three are easy enough to remember, and it gets a little trickier from then on. Still, they are all simple, single kanji. The hardest part is to memorise both the Kun and the ON reading associated with it. Some kanji have loads!

Enough for now, i’ll bring on the next lot up soon without a lot of the explainy talk getting in the way!

[ Photos edited from tdgct.com and jonesing1's flickr page - thankyou!]