I came across this kanji yesterday:

着

which is used in "kiru" = to wear (clothing) and "tsuku" = to arrive.

So this one kanji is used for two totally different meanings.

Is there a handy list of these kanji with multiple meanings? Multiple readings is bad enough, but multiple, unrelated meanings....thanks.

This is one of the reasons people suggested not to do the romaji route, based on the amount of homographs and homophones. I mean English has them to, "I saw a bat last night." "Hand me the bat." You need to look at kanji in a similar way. They are not used in isolation, and even though many are morphemes, most Japanese people view them like letters. So when you see the word "exhume" do you think, "Oh 'out of dirt?'" No, you think of it as one word. That's what you need to do with kanji, learn the kanji and the word as one unit. Reading books with furigana helps with pronunciation as well. As far as a list goes, pretty much all Kanji have various disparate meanings.

RandomQuotes Wrote:look at kanji in a similar way. They are not used in isolation

To add to RandomQuotes explanation this is also why kanji/words are better learnt in context (ie. in a sentence) rather than alone.

john555 Wrote:I came across this kanji yesterday:

着

which is used in "kiru" = to wear (clothing) and "tsuku" = to arrive.

So this one kanji is used for two totally different meanings.

Oh it's used in a lot more than that: http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E7%9D%80&eng=&dict=edict

A lot of common Kanji are used this way. Nothing to worry about, if anything, it makes things easier than if we had to learn a new Kanji for each verb. Just roll with it, use context to figure out which usage it is (and by context I mean the example sentence, don't try to memorize that one has a "ru" and the other a "ku" at the end, that's useless information).

john555 Wrote:Is there a handy list of these kanji with multiple meanings?

Any good dictionaries.

Seriously though, as others have said, don't worry about homograph and homophones, 99% of the time there will be no ambiguity due to the context.

john555 Wrote:Is there a handy list of these kanji with multiple meanings? Multiple readings is bad enough, but multiple, unrelated meanings....thanks.

Almost all of them, depending on what you mean. Or, at least, the number of them that are used in compounds in ways that make no sense in terms of meaning is staggering, enough to question the extent to which kanji really have meanings. If you're talking about about words with just one kanji, like 着る and 着く, the number is far less.