Similar Kanji
- Similar Kanji: Compare and North
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August 30th, 2011
Use the image of a spoon (ヒ) to create your stories. Here we see two spoons and if we “compare” the two, the one on the right looks like the normal kanji for spoon (ヒ) but the one on the left looks a little squashed.
- Similar Kanji: Special, Wait and Hold
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August 15th, 2011
Use the images of “cow (牛)” and “Buddhist Temple (寺)” to create your stories. The most popular mnemonic for this kanji is the use of “Cow” as a sacred or “special” animal in countries like India where, in some places, a person can be jailed for killing or injuring a cow!
- Look-alike Kanji for Beginners
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August 2nd, 2011
A big sticking point for beginners of the Japanese language is the progression from hiragana and katakana (or even possibly rōmaji for the ill-informed!) to kanji-based sentences. Not only are kanji difficult to read, write and remember in the first instance, when you gradually start to acquire more and more kanji, you’ll start to notice that there are many kanji which look similar to those that you have already learned!
- Similar Kanji: Icicle vs Eternity
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April 19th, 2010
In terms of similar kanji, 氷 (icicle) and 永 (eternity) are very close. They’re clearly not indistinguishable but at normal reading size they can be difficult to tell apart especially for beginners. If we threw in 水 to the mix, which is the kanji for water, we could thoroughly confuse ourselves – so I think we’ll just stick with these two for today. ^_^
- Similar Kanji: Eye vs Oneself
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February 14th, 2010
目 (eye) and 自 (oneself) are separated by just one small stroke and as such prove to be tricky for beginners to remember. Both kanji are part of the JLPT3 and are taught in grade one and two at Japanese schools respectively.
- Similar Kanji: Person vs Enter
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January 23rd, 2010
人 (Person) and 入 (Enter) are both JLPT4/N5 and learnt in Grade 1 in Japanese schools, however for a beginner, they can be very easily mixed up.
The only visual difference between the two is the small stroke at the top of 入 (enter), which is what I use to create a story in my mind to remember the two.
- Similar Kanji: Noon vs Cow
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December 29th, 2009
My advice to separate the two in your mind is to imagine that the line at the top of 牛 (cow) is the horn of a bull, which is similar enough to a cow to trigger the memory.
As soon as I used that idea it was very easy to separate the two in my head and I moved on to the next 1943 kanji to memorise!
- Similar Kanji: Taste vs Wisdom
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December 9th, 2009
While these kanji (味 – Flavour, taste and 知 – Know, wisdom) are less alike than some of my previous examples in this series, they still can provide some confusion at the JLPT 3rd and 4th levels with the same basic box on the side and a similar looking object on the side.
- Similar Kanji: White vs Day
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November 21st, 2009
Visually 日 (day) and 白 (white) are differentiated by just a small stroke at the top of 白. Both kanji are part of JLPT 4 and are learnt in grade one in Japan.