Kanji Handbook. Vee David
missteps and disarray. Second, I wish to extend gratitude to the entire staff of Tuttle Publishing and Periplus Editions, for taking a decisive initiative in adopting this book project for world-wide distribution.
My deepest gratitude goes out to Katsuo Nishiura, a gentle soul whom I met in my second year living in Miyazaki, Japan. As a retired principal of six junior high schools, Mr. Nishiura's curriculum vitae reads like a page of a literature book. His expertise in the Japanese and English languages proved indispensable to the successful completion of this book. With painstaking efforts, he reviewed over 35,000 word compounds—word for word, letter by letter—including the Romaji spellings and word meanings on more than 2,000 draft pages. Sifting through the pages of this book, the Kanji Handbook, I can feel his reassuring presence. I cannot say enough to thank him for all the help he devoted to a helpless friend. I am indebted to him in ways he will never know, and a lot more than I can admit.
Ialso wish to thank my faithful wife, Yuko Hirota, and my lovely daughters, Jurisa and Sara, for their encouragement and inspiration. My wife's incessant questions as to whether I could still do better—page after page—could only have come from the famed Japanese spirit. Part of the draft was written on frequent flights to New York City to be home with my girls on extended visits. In their eyes, I see the glow of the future. To my student Nao Itō for dutifully checking the brush strokes of 1,945 Kanji characters that required microscopic focus: please accept my profound appreciation. To the following librarians Kiyomi Yamaguchi, Masako Tazume, and Hitomi Iwase: I wish to give overdue credit for their skilled compilation of previous drafts. I wish to extend my appreciation to Yūji Kumamaru of the Foreign Ministry of Japan; to Paul and Betty Muller of East Sussex, England; to Ricky Rondina, Marc Trombino, Mary Duzant, Jill Caruso and Daryl Duzant of Staten Island; to the memory of my friend, Jun'ichi Taniguchi, for transforming software programming into human form; to Nobuyo Hasegawa, Yuichi Kamimura, Takahiro Kamizaki, Tōru Moriyama, Mitsutaka Sasada and Dr. Kensuke Kiyomizu; and to my over-all English editor, Katie Berkedal of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her meticulous attention to detail, combined with sophisticated writing skills, gave the book a new breath of life in the dying days until manuscript submission. I acknowledge my eternal debt to the Great Jack Halpern, whose piercing critique led to timely revisions. This book lives on the path of his previous works, particularly on Kanji core meanings. I wish to recognize the contribution of Wilfrido Villacorta, my college guru at the De La Salle University. On a visit to Miyazaki, Japan, in September 1993, I showed him the abstract concepts of what became this book. He immediately urged me to develop them into concrete form. Over the long years from conceptual framework to manuscript completion, there were times I nearly gave up; only to find myself back on my laptop. I was answering to an inner force that I could neither contend with, nor explain. I take full responsibility for both the form and contents. I apologize for imperfections, accepting the harshest blame which is mine alone. Finally, I wish to pay tribute to my loving parents, who gave so much to get so little; for putting their best years in the worst of times—never knowing the nights from the days of life in the tempest.
New York City
16 September 2006
Table of Contents
Checklist Two: Jōyō Kanji characters (1,945)
List of Kanji Characters With Multiple Meanings
Important Kanji Characters With Multiple Meanings
Japanese Language Proficiency Level Index
Theoretical Approach
Foreigners who study Japanese often question why all four writing systems must be learned to master the language. First, the four writing systems—Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji characters, and the Roman ABCs—each have unique roles. Hiragana is generally used for native words and grammatical values, while Katakana is reserved for foreign words. Here, the function of Katakana shows the cultural consciousness to draw a line between what is Japanese, and what is not. Roman alphabets are valued for initials, such as APEC, WHO, and EU, and for commercial advertisements. Kanji characters must be learned to differentiate between the large bodies of Japanese homophones;