In example, there's 故郷, rikai chan displays 3 readings and I don't know which to choose. Does this dictionary go in order of popularity or is it just random?

I dunno. I think it's random, cause the first entry in my "Kanji learner's dictionary" is often not the first on Breen's.

It'd be nice to say the first one is the most common, but it's not...I haven't figured any thing out either. On the odd occasion, I can pick out the reading that sounds familiar, but otherwise I'm lost. Kanji words with multiple readings...this is my biggest problem.

I don't really see any point in memorizing readings anyway. I'd memorize individual words rather than readings; memorization of the common on'yomi that way is nearly automatic. You learn a new word that uses a certain kanji and you see it uses the same on'yomi for that kanji, and you say, for instance, "Oh, this is the same 学 gaku as in 学生 gakusei and 大学 daigaku". Before long, you'll know that "gaku" isn't a bad first stab at 学 in compound words.

- Kef

furrykef Wrote:I don't really see any point in memorizing readings anyway. I'd memorize individual words rather than readings; memorization of the common on'yomi that way is nearly automatic. You learn a new word that uses a certain kanji and you see it uses the same on'yomi for that kanji, and you say, for instance, "Oh, this is the same 学 gaku as in 学生 gakusei and 大学 daigaku". Before long, you'll know that "gaku" isn't a bad first stab at 学 in compound words.

Re-read the first post. He wants to know which is the most common reading of a word, not a kanji.

*bonks self* You're right.

No, EDICT -- and therefore WWWJDICT, which is just an EDICT client -- contains no information about which readings are more common.

- Kef

Is there any site where I could look up to find the popular reading? If there isn't I'm sure if someone knew how it'd be easy to make a site where people vote on the popular readings for the dict or something along those lines

Well, I can rule out one of the readings by looking the word up in WWWJDICT: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-b...dic.cgi?1E

It says that only 旧里 is read as きゅうり. The only reason why Rikaichan came up with it is because it appears under the entry for 故郷, because 故郷, 古里, and 旧里 all share an entry since all of them can be read as ふるさと with essentially the same meaning. So that narrows it down to two.

ふるさと is obviously the kun reading of 故郷, and こきょう is obviously the on-reading. My learner's dictionary has both words for that kanji, so that's no help. I think the only way to really be sure is to ask a native speaker, but I would imagine both are used a lot. I'm guessing that the こきょう reading is considered slightly more advanced since it's an on-reading, similar to how Latin vocabulary is more advanced than native Anglo-Saxon vocabulary in English. But you can't really judge that for a single individual word based on that alone, especially considering that compound words typically take on-readings.

- Kef

thanks. I usually go for on-yomi readings since most kanji combinations use that rather than kun, but you can never be sure

I was looking more for a way to find the answer for myself for kanji in general, not that particular one though.

you know, teach a hungry man to fish, etc