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Japan Know How archive

Tag: kanji

Writing & Language

How Many Kanji Do You Actually Need?

The official answer is 2,136. The useful answers are thirty, a hundred, and a thousand, depending on what you want to read. What each threshold buys, and the official lists explained.

Megan Rothwell

Writing & Language

Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji: How Japanese Writing Works

Three scripts in one sentence, each doing a job the others cannot. What each one is for, why Japanese never dropped kanji, and how to read the layout before you read the words.

Megan Rothwell