Remembering the Kanji volume 3
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CONTENTS
PREFACE by Tanya Sienko 5
INTRODUCTION 7
PART ONE: WRITING
1 New Primitives & Kanji Primitives 15
2 Major Primitive Elements 28
3 Miscellaneous Kanji 144
4 Western Measurements 160
5 Phonetic Characters 162
6 Old & Alternate Forms 165
PART TWO: READING
7 Old Pure Groups 177
8 New Pure Groups 203
9 Semi-Pure Groups 236
10 Mixed Groups 264
11 A Potpourri of Readings 299
12 Kanji with Japanese Readings Only 344
13 Readings of Old & Alternate Forms 355
14 Supplementary Kanji 359
INDEXES
INDEX 1 Number of Strokes 371
INDEX 2 Keywords and Primitive Meanings 389
INDEX 3 Readings 418
INDEX 4 Primitive Elements 487
Layout of Frames for Part One 490
Layout of Frames for Part Two 491
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 493
Preface
Tanya Sienko
WHEN I FIRST contacted Dr. Heisig with a proposal to add a third vol-
ume to Remembering the Kanji, I somehow left the impression that it
was my rather esoteric needs as a scientist that left me hankering for
more kanji than the 2,042 I had learned with his method. Actually, it
was not the technical prose of Yukawa and Tomonaga on ³eld theory
that were causing me my biggest headaches but ordinary Japanese nov-
els. Having read mystery novels to polish my reading in other languages,
I was disappointed to ³nd that the “essential” or “general-use” charac-
ters were simply not enough to gain entry into the Japanese thriller.
After just a few chapters, my maiden voyage ended on the rocks. So
much for “basic literacy,” I thought to myself. And so was born the idea
for this book.
During the time of the American Occupation, the Japanese writing
system underwent a complete overhaul, which saw the number of
Chinese characters to be learned during the years of compulsory educa-
tion reduced to a bare minimum of 1,850. The idea was to simplify the
system and facilitate literacy by removing rarely used kanji from circula-
tion. What the reformers did not count on in their long-range plan was
the resistance of the general public to the disappearance of many kanji
customarily used for names. Families reacted by continuing to name
their children with “traditional” names, but the government refused to
register the kanji. This resulted in the bizarre situation where a number
of Japanese were growing up legally nameless. In 1951 the Ministry of
Education grudgingly backed down and approved another 92 “legal”
characters for names, followed by another 28 in 1976. In 1981 the
number of “general-use” kanji was increased in 1,945 and in 1990 the
6 PREFACE
kanji approved for use in names was increased to 284. This is the situa-
tion at present.
Of course, there were still numerous kanji outside the list that contin-
ued to be used in place names, or that appeared in books published
before the educational reforms and were impractical to update. Over the
past twenty years many of these exiled characters have migrated back
into daily use. Advertisers often prefer the compactness and precision of
older kanji to their phonetic equivalents. Increasing competition has
induced universities to include more and more “unof³cial” kanji in their
entrance examinations. And popular novelists, as always, cling tenacious-
ly to their cache of little-known glyphs as a mark of the trade. Finally,
the ubiquitous word processor has turned the distinction between what
is “allowed” and what is “disallowed” into something of an anachro-
nism.
For the foreign student who has landed in this mess, there have been
only two alternatives: either you adhere to the of³cial list, or you stum-
ble about blindly trying to improve your knowledge as best you can.
The idea behind the present book was to offer a third choice: supple-
mentary kanji to lay a solid basis for contemporary Japanese.
In addition to the method of selection explained in Dr. Heisig’s
introduction, I myself checked the ³nal list against Edward Daub, et al.,
Comprehending Technical Japanese (University of Wisconsin Press,
1975), which used frequency lists to determine the 500 kanji most used
in technical writings. With the exception of characters speci³c to one
³eld, this list is represented in the pages that follow.
Of the many people who assisted me in this project, I would like par-
ticularly to thank Ronald D. Mabbitt for help in the cross-referencing
and for his many useful suggestions on the structure of the book; and
Kanda Yumiko P,ÆË{ for checking some of the more obscure com-
pounds.
Introduction
THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER William James once wrote that a great idea
goes through three stages on its way to acceptance. First, it is dismissed
as nonsense. Then it is acknowledged as true, but insigni³cant. Finally, it
is seen to be important, but not really anything new. Time and again
history con³rms the wisdom of James’s observation, but it also reminds
us that the very same bias that resists the invasion of novelty also serves
to swat away many a µea-brained idea buzzing about for attention.
In this connection, I must admit I am of two minds about Remem-
bering the Kanji and its companion volumes. I have always had the sense
that there was something µea-brained about the whole project. Its
reception by students of the Japanese language across the world has
been as much a surprise to me as to the publishers, the Japan Publi-
cations Trading Company. We had expected no more than a short buzz,
followed by a ³rm whack into oblivion. From the start I was convinced
that if there was anything important in the method, it surely was noth-
ing new. All I had done, after all, was to put some semblance of order
into what students of the kanji had always done: trick their minds into
making easily forgettable shapes more memorable. The sales of the
books, as well as scores of letters from readers, has convinced me that
this is in fact the case.
On the one hand, the method seems to have proved itself a natural
one suited to large number of students motivated to study the kanji on
their own. On the other, it remains virtually useless for classroom
instruction. This is hardly surprising, since it aims to do something the
classroom cannot do, namely to tap the imagination of the individual at
the individual’s own learning pace. To the native speaker of Japanese
trained in the traditional school system and trying to teach the Japanese
writing system to those whose primary education was outside of the
“kanji curtain,” it can only appear a distracting gimmick. For one who
does not know from experience the question behind the method, the
answer—even if it works—makes no sense. Whatever the merits of
8 INTRODUCTION
Remembering the Kanji as a learning tool, then, its demerits as a teach-
ing tool are beyond redemption. This is probably for the best. To force
the expectations of the textbook on the method would probably only
end up frustrating everyone—teachers and students. The saving grace of
the books is that they are simply too µea-brained to run the circuit of
“course work.”
Letters from readers have combined expressions of gratitude with
more good ideas for improvements than I could ever assimilate into sub-
sequent editions. The misprints that had slipped in along the way,
thanks again to alert readers, have been periodically corrected in later
printings. For the rest I have let the books stand as they are, reckoning
that their unpolished edges encourage the very kind of participation that
makes them work in the ³rst place.
The one most common request that has haunted me over the years
has been for a supplementary volume that would pick up some of the
more useful kanji outside the lists propagated as standard by Japan’s
Ministry of Education. The request always seemed reasonable enough.
When I myself had worked through the of³cial list of kanji, I was left
with much the same feeling: learning to write the characters is so sim-
ple—now if there were some list that could guide me into learning more
of them…. The only solution I could see was to learn new characters as
they showed up in reading. Unfortunately, I kept no records, and could
only reply to readers that they, too, let their particular reading habits
guide their acquisition of new kanji. But I always knew it was not quite
the right answer to an important question.
Then, about a year and a half ago, Tanya Sienko, a theoretical physi-
cist from the United States employed at Japan’s National Institute of
Science and Technology Policy, persuaded me that something concrete
could be done. Her idea was for a volume that would aim at raising
pro³ciency to the level of 3,000 kanji, based on the methods of volumes
I and II of Remembering the Kanji. The present book is the result of our
combined efforts.
The initial decision to aim at a list of 3,000 characters was not based
on any established measure of “upper-level pro³ciency,” but simply out
of the need for some parameters within which to begin working. As the
selecting of new characters progressed, the decision justi³ed itself and
was left to stand.
The choice of which kanji to include and which to leave out was far
from simple. In 1990 the Ministry of Education published a revised list
of characters for use in names, 284 in all. Kanji from this list that had
INTRODUCTION 9
not been covered in volumes I and II were added ³rst, together with all
their readings.
The next step was to consult a list of 3,505 characters published in
1963 by the National Japanese Language Research Institute.1 Since
1956 the Institute had been issuing periodic reports of research on the
frequency with which kanji appeared in various ³elds of study. Based on
some 90 academic and popular journals, a team of scholars turned up
3,328 characters, to which the Institute added another 177. Although
the list was not based on the Ministry of Education’s list of general-use
kanji (øä+°), it includes all the kanji found in the latter (latest revi-
sion, 1977) but, as you might suspect, does not include all the charac-
ters from the Ministry’s 1990 revised list for use in names. In any case,
all new kanji in the list with a frequency of more than 9 were selected.
The following chart shows the breakdown of the frequency and the
overlay of kanji used for names. The darkened areas represent the ³rst
two groups of kanji checked for inclusion in the present volume:
}
3,505 °
The next problem was how to sift through the remaining kanji to
reach a total of 3,000. The solution consisted in overlaying a completely
new system of classi³cation that has taken the world of Chinese charac-
ters by storm since the time of the frequency studies.
1978 marks a watershed in the story of the kanji and in the compila-
tion of frequency lists. It was in that year that the Japanese writing sys-
tem was converted into computer code, opening the way to the use of
the personal computer in Japan. There was never any question that
1
AêÖP£GY)uäBä°B C³C³BÓÁ‹³²D 22 (1963).
10 INTRODUCTION
Japan would march enthusiastically to the drum of the computer revolu-
tion. But to do so, some way had ³rst to be found around the obvious
impossibility of squeezing the Japanese writing system into the 7-bit
character codes that make up the American Standard Code for
Information Interchange (ASCII) character sets. In response to the chal-
lenge, the Japan Industrial Standard or JIS was born.
From the outset the JIS classi³cation has never wanted for critics, but
the complaints were largely mufµed by the sheer thrill of having a simple
tool to manipulate the Chinese characters. In the early stages, a ³rst list
of less than 3,000 kanji (JIS-12) was installed as standard in personal
computers and printers, while a second list of over 4,000 kanji (JIS-2)
was sold separately. Writers and specialists grumbled about characters
that had been left out of JIS-1 and relegated to the “second-class” status
of JIS-2. By the end of the 1980s, both character sets had been adjusted
and are now installed as standard in most computer equipment.3
The kanji that had been left out of both lists were another matter.
Nearly all word-processing programs have included utilities for creating
‘° or “excluded characters.” Eventually a third set, the JIS-supplement,
was devised. To date, it covers an additional 5,801 kanji. This supple-
ment is not yet standard in personal computers and printers, though
newer dictionaries include the code numbers that have been assigned.4
In the near future it is reasonable to expect that they, too, will become
standard equipment.
The control of language, which has been an important cultural
weapon in the arsenal of modern governments for the past four cen-
turies and more, has brought political complications to the computeriza-
tion of the kanji in Japan, often masquerading in the robes of scholarly
objectivity. Indeed, the more voracious the popular appetite for comput-
er access to kanji becomes, the more these issues come to the fore. The
Ministry of Education, for example, which seems to have felt slighted by
2 JIS-1 includes basic Roman, Greek, and Cyrillic characters, as well as a handful of gen-
eral-use typesetting symbols.
3 Meantime, the early 1990s saw the arrival of Unicode, a workable worldwide stan-
dard, based on 16-bit code, that would cover all writing and symbol systems. By that time
the Japanese JIS had already become a permanent ³xture, and adjustments were made to
assign it a place in the Unicode structure that would not conµict with Korean and
Chinese.
4 For an example of the most up-to-date kanji dictionary, which was relied on heavily
for the production of this book, see: à, ±%y[¨°Áq CØ+BnD (Tokyo: Taishðkan,
1992).
INTRODUCTION 11
the designers of the new computer standards, still make no mention of
the JIS ’s existence in their of³cial lists of general-use characters.
Meantime, efforts by the Ministry to regulate the number of kanji in
general use have been undercut by the very computers they use to com-
pose and print their regulations. There is no reason to think that the sit-
uation will change in the years to come.5
Most important for our purposes here, the wealth of characters seems
to have retarded research into standards of “upper-level pro³ciency.”
After its latest revision in 1990, the tripartite JIS list now contains a
whopping 12,156 characters but does nothing to address the problem of
frequency of use.
A simple, if time-consuming, procedure was followed in making the
selection of the remaining characters for this volume. First, all kanji that
appeared less than 9 times in the National Japanese Language Research
Institute list and which also appeared in JIS-1 were included. The selec-
tion was then rounded off with a few characters that fell outside these
borders but which, from personal judgment, we thought it best to in-
clude. Graphically, the ³nal results look like this:
5 For a fuller account of these conflicts, see special issues of C^rQD dealing with
+°o»ûÜí2Ç[Kanji and the computer], 1/2 (1990), and J‰+°uy°5¤“L
[Rethinking the standardization of the kanji at present], 4/2 (1993).
12 INTRODUCTION
Chapter 14 is intended to reµect the authors’ dissatisfaction with the
unavoidable arbitrariness in the selection process. It opens with a list of
7 kanji (3001–3007) deliberately excluded from the selection process: 5
of them from the list of names and 2 from JIS-2 that seem worth learn-
ing. Space is left for you to record additional characters that you feel
belong to “upper-level pro³ciency.” In future editions, we hope to be
able to add to this list of 7, but that will depend on signi³cant numbers
of readers sending in their lists for us to compare.
Parts One and Two follow, respectively, the methods of volumes I
and II of Remembering the Kanji. The layout of the frames has changed
somewhat, but a full graphic description is included at the end of the
book, after the Indexes. The choice of sample words for on-yomi read-
ings has been made with an eye to providing useful vocabulary wherever
possible, but here, too, there was some arbitrariness. In the course of
assigning readings to the kanji, a shelf of dictionaries based on the JIS
lists was consulted and compared, only to ³nd inconsistencies at every
turn. Given the ease with which computerized data can be accessed, one
would expect at least an overall accuracy in indexing and cross-referenc-
ing. This was not the case. To compensate for this, Index 3 errs on the
side of excess, including more readings than are mentioned in the frames
of Part Two. The only exception was made for names: only those read-
ings in the Ministry of Education’s updated list are contained in the
index. Otherwise, all four indexes cover all the kanji and readings con-
tained in the three volumes of the Remembering the Kanji series.
.
James W. Heisig
Nagoya
PART ONE
WRITING
CHAPTER 1
New Primitives &
Kanji Primitives
_NEW PRIMITIVES_
We begin our journey to 3,000 kanji with the addition of a few
new primitive elements to those already included in volume I.
They have been included only if they appear frequently enough
in the kanji in general to be useful, or if at least three instances
appear in this volume. Each new element is followed by the
new characters in which it appears.
After this, all the primitives in this volume will already be
familiar to you. If you get stuck, consult the comprehensive
list in Index 4 at the end of this volume.
2043. this here
R-2670
Â
footprint … spoon. [6]
2044. brushwood
R-2671
Û
this here … tree. [10]
2045. fort
R-2672
÷
this here … stone. [11]
16 NEW PRIMITIVES
2046. whit
R-2673
Ô
this here … two. [8]
2047. beard
R-3140
Ñ
hair … shape … this here. [16]
* sheik Ï
top hat … villain … belt … elbow. [10]
This element is already familiar from the character ? (I.1492). The
reason the part for elbow requires 3 strokes instead of the usual 2 is
that the combination of elements l is actually a radical classically
de³ned as having 5 strokes.
2048. crystal
R-2454
8
jewel … sheik. [15]
This is one of the seven classical stones of China.
2049. fowl
R-2843
9
umbrella … sheik. [12]
2050. apple
R-2844
?
tree … fowl. [16]
* shoeshine m
rice … sunglasses. [12]
NEW PRIMITIVES 17
This combination of elements has already been learned from the
character t (I.1311). The assignation of the primitive meaning is
almost entirely arbitrary.
2051. sympathize with
R-2499
œ
state of mind … shoeshine. [15]
2052. phosphorus
R-2496
p
³re … shoeshine. [16]
2053. camelopard
R-2498
v
deer … shoeshine. [23]
The keyword here refers to a motley-colored mythical creature
from China with the body of a deer, the tail of a cow, and the crest
and claws of a bird.
2054. scaled
R-2497
u
³sh … shoeshine. [23]
The “scales” referred to here are the kind found on ³sh, dragons,
and so forth.
2055. encompassing
R-2583
Õ
St. Bernard … eel. [8]
The sense of the keyword is of something that is expansive and
covers over everything. When used as a primitive, this will take the
meaning of a dachshund. Think here of a particularly large and
l-o-n-g one to combine the qualities of the eel and the St. Bernard.
18 NEW PRIMITIVES
2056. hermitage
R-2582
I
cave … dachshund. [11]
2057. shrouded
R-2584
Ù
³ngers … dachshund. [11]
The sense of the keyword does not refer to an actually funeral
“shroud,” but only to the sense of being covered over or con-
cealed.
2058. myself
R-2585
,
person … dachshund. [10]
The keyword refers to a very familiar way of referring to oneself,
usually restricted to men.
* streetwalker ¢
We learned this combination earlier in the character p (I.1014) as
composed of the elements person … license … walking legs. The
primitive meaning covers the sense of one “walking around licen-
tiously.” [7]
2059. make amends
R-2501
Ï
state of mind … streetwalker. [10]
2060. steed
R-2503
v
team of horses … streetwalker. [17]
NEW PRIMITIVES 19
2061. steep
R-2500
q
mountain … streetwalker. [10]
2062. complete a job
R-2502
t
vase … streetwalker. [12]
2063. mortar
R-2973
¡
back-to-back staples. [6]
The mortar referred to here is a stone or wooden basin used for
grinding with a pestle. As a primitive element it keeps the same
meaning.
2064. father-in-law
R-3085
+
mortar … male. [13]
2065. mouse
R-2964
Q
mortar … two plows … four drops … hook. [13]
2066. bore
R-3039
ß
standing in a row upside down … mortar and walking stick …
missile … metal. [28]
The sense of the keyword is boring a hole into something.
2067. break
R-3043
8
mortar … soil … missile. [13]
20 NEW PRIMITIVES
2068. small craft
R-2383
9
boat … mortar … walking stick … crotch. [15]
* I Ching p
The appearance of this element looks enough like one of the com-
binations used in the Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, to
give us a meaning for this element. Note that there is always some-
thing that comes between the two halves to keep them apart. [4]
2069. rhinoceros
R-3018
õ
flag … I Ching … walking stick … cow. [12]
2070. lunar month
R-3007
Q
white dove … I Ching … needle. [11]
2071. spinal column
R-2915
Ñ
I Ching … umbrella … flesh. [10]
* stitching o
This element is actually a character in its own right, a pictograph of
something that has been stitched. [8]
2072. rice-³eld footpath
R-3141
Æ
³eld … stitching. [13]
The character learned for paddy-ridge in volume ‘ (I.1204) and
that for paddy-³eld ridge –, which we will meet in FRAME 2571,
NEW PRIMITIVES 21
both mean the “ridges” that run between rice paddies. The charac-
ter introduced here refers directly to the ridge that is used as a
walking path.
2073. mend
R-2918
»
thread … stitching. [14]
2074. let it be
R-2473
¹
spike … eight … belt … stitching. [14]
Note that the writing of element for spike is interrupted by the ele-
ment eight. This character—among whose older usages was as a
polite form of addressing someone—is now used chiefly in names,
except for the famous Buddhist expression that will be introduced
when its reading comes up in Part Two.
2075. imperial seal
R-2474
º
let it be … jewel. [19]
* hill of beans W
This element (actually a rather rare character in its own right) is
made up of exactly what it says: a hill of beans. [10]
2076. suit of armor
R-2486
œ
metal … hill of beans. [18]
2077. triumph
R-2485
‹
hill of beans … wind. [12]
22 NEW PRIMITIVES
* sapling _
drop … St. Bernard. [4]
This element is easily confused with the shape of the character ú in
such kanji as þ (I.634) and in the element å(I, PAGE 155). It
meaning comes from the rather rare kanji on which it is based.
2078. bewitched
R-2862
Ø
woman … sapling. [7]
2079. irrigate
R-2861
ó
water … sapling. [7]
2080. quaff
R-2914
µ
sapling … mouth. [7]
* green onion {
un- … floor. [9]
2081. leek
R-3142
Ú
flowers … green onion. [12]
2082. lottery
R-2835
Ã
bamboo … assembly line … ³esta … green onion. [23]
The character can also replace assembly line and ³esta with
Thanksgiving: Ä. This alternate form is less common, however.
NEW PRIMITIVES 23
2083. penitential
R-3047
H
state of mind … green onion. [20]
As in the previous frame, assembly line and ³esta can be replace with
Thanksgiving: I, though again less commonly.
2084. hay
R-3047
M
Think of this element as showing two ricks of dried hay lying on
top of each other. The element for bound up is familiar. The 3-
stroked piece being bound up appeared in the primitive for moun-
tain goat Ã. Think of the goat burying his “missing” horns in the
hay to pick them up and toss them.[10]
2085. chick
R-2466
Œ
hay … turkey. [18]
2086. scurry
R-2465
‹
run … hay. [17]
The sense of this keyword is the way someone in kimono runs, tak-
ing short steps quickly.
2087. understandably
R-3001
‹
chihuahua with one human leg. [4]
The sense of the keyword is that something “stands to reason.”
2088. training
R-3001
—
wheat … chihuahua with one human leg … delicious. [15]
24 KANJI PRIMITIVES
2089. immense
R-3035
G
cliff … chihuahua with one human leg … shape. [9]
_NEW KANJI FROM OLD PRIMITIVES_
We close this ³rst chapter with a handful of kanji that were
already learned as primitive elements but not as kanji in their
own right. The only thing you will have to learn now is their
keyword meaning, which does not in each case accord with the
meaning they have been assigned as primitive elements. Try to
relate the two meanings together if this causes confusion.
2090. grab
R-2565
ô
vulture … tree. [8]
We already met this combination in the characters ï, û, and í
(1.733, 734, 1714).
2091. a
R-3143
E
mouth … floor … ³esta. [8]
This character is roughly equivalent to the inde³nite article a in
English or to the phrase a certain… It appears as a primitive in the
characters o and Î (I.356, 614).
