A thousand characters, and posters in a bathtub

Educational kanji, the notes write, are the basic characters used to teach kanji as Japanese. Japan tries to let children meet characters early; to help with that, related posters have even been put up in bathtubs. Children grow used to the characters this way, and once they enter elementary school they can begin to study them in earnest.

Across six elementary years they learn about a thousand characters, called educational kanji or learning kanji. The notes add that Japanese kanji remain hard for learners; the reason they give is that educational kanji largely overlap 808 characters shared among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean writing, and are based on Japanese kanji readings. That account is left as they wrote it.

Two readings, and a title left as written

On-yomi and kun-yomi, they write, are important ideas for explaining pronunciation and meaning. They take as an example Hayao Miyazaki’s animation Spirited Away. The Korean title, they say, means not knowing where someone has gone, or the direction; the original title, by contrast, means that a child has suddenly become unseen, and in folk belief a goblin or the like has hidden the child.

As an example of the two readings, they say a character they write as cheon appears twice in the original title: the first, they write, is read as on-yomi they give as 人, and the second is read as 5, which they call kun-yomi. The same character, they stress, is sounded in two ways. Their wording is left as they wrote it, not silently rewritten as a different set of facts. They also attach a few other words to the same character, including a place name in Hokkaido, in lines that are not always clear; those lines are not forced into official spellings here. On-yomi, they say, means the pronunciation of the character as it was brought in, expressing the kanji sound.

When a reading parts from a meaning

The difference between the two readings, they write, helps one understand the relation among a character, its pronunciation, and its meaning. Through the animation they could understand various uses and differences of pronunciation. Kanji are widely used in Japanese culture; the two methods of reading are quite complex and varied, and differ from Korean, so learners have trouble memorizing and applying Japanese kanji readings. Still harder are the cases in which there is no relation between a character’s meaning and the Japanese reading.

The notes leave the account at that difficulty. CampusDown keeps the same Korean report in a longer form.

Sources

1. The notes, a student reading of a Japanese-kanji story: educational kanji, about a thousand in six elementary years, and posters even in bathtubs; an overlap with 808 shared characters, left as the notes give it; on-yomi and kun-yomi illustrated by a film title whose two readings they write as 人 and 5, wording left as written; and cases where a Japanese reading parts from a character’s meaning.

Last updated: 15 November 2026