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5 most difficult Kanji (漢字) in the world

Matome Culture & Lifestyle
Sunday, February 05, 2017 at 22:21

The history of kanji

It is said that there are 200 thousand kanjis in the history of China, 50 thousand in Japan and Japanese people usually use around from 2,000 to 4,000 kanjis daily.
Kanji was born in China designed after illustrations. In early days, old kanjis were just too difficult to write.
Old kanjis
Old kanjis
And they are basically illustrations, therefore everybody write the same kanji in different ways.
Therefore, old Chinese people tried to simplify kanji so that everyone can write any kanji in the same way.
That is the ancestor of current kanji.

As time comes closer today, kanjis got more and more simple.
But until 1956-1964, Chinese people used traditional kanji. But on 1964, Chinese people completely started to use simplified kanji.
Japanese people also simplified kanji at the era too. But Japanese kanji is more complicated than Chinese simplified kanji.

Currently, only Taiwan and HongKong use traditional kanji.
Left: Simplified Kanji   Right: Traditional Kanji
Left: Simplified Kanji Right: Traditional Kanji

Let's take a look at top 5 difficult kanjis

There are some very difficult kanjis left behind the history.
Most of them are not used now. The reason is quite simple. It take so long to write and difficult to understand too.
Current most difficult kanji should be 鬱 or 鑑.

Now let's take a look at the great legacy of Chinese history.

"Taito"

Taito
Taito
This kanji reads "Taito"
It is said that this kanji is for Japanese family name. However no family with this kanji is registered.

"Sei"

Sei
Sei
This kanji read sei.
Meaning of this kanji is totally unknown.
One of the mysterious kanji in the history.

"Biang"

Biang
Biang
This kanji is Chinese original.
This kanji is only used to express specific kind of noodle.
You can eat biang biang noodle in Beijing
Biang Biang noodle
Biang Biang noodle
Hot oil noodle- Biang Biang mian (Biang Biang noodles) is a very interesting and popular dish in Shaanxi province. And definitely it was one of my favorite dishes during my four years of university life.
Biang Biang Mian (Biang Biang Noodles) – China Sichuan Food

Yin

"Yin" "On"
"Yin" "On"
This kanji reads "Yin" or "On".
This is the typical not modernized kanji.
You have to write very carefully.
The meaning is "shade"
"Bonnou"
"Bonnou"
This kanji reads "bonnou". The same meaning with 煩悩 (desire).
If you take a careful look at this kanji.
You can see many factors of desires such as girls, ear, nose, pain and so on...

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