Kanji

Kanji ({{Audio|ja-kanji.ogg|??}}, literally "Han characters") are Chinese characters used in Japanese. Kanji are one of the five character sets used in the modern Japanese writing system, the other four being hiragana, katakana, the Roman alphabet (r?maji), and Arabic numerals.

Miscellaneous

The ideographic iteration mark (?) is used to indicate that the preceding kanji is to be repeated, functioning similarly to a ditto mark in English. It is pronounced as though the kanji were written twice in a row, for example ?? (iroiro "various") and ?? (tokidoki "sometimes"). This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in the surname Sasaki (???). Another frequently used symbol is ? (a small katakana "ke"), pronounced "ka" when used to indicate quantity (such as ???, rokkagetsu "six months") or "ga" in place names like Kasumigaseki (???). This symbol is a simplified version of the character ?.

Related Topics:
Ideographic iteration mark - Ditto - Surname - Katakana - Kasumigaseki

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See also sci.lang.japan FAQ about Japanese symbols.

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The Japanese government provides the Kanji kentei (?????????? Nihon kanji n?ryoku kentei shiken; "Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude") which tests the ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the Kanji kentei tests about 6000 kanji.

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