Just wondering if using the kanji gives any nuance. The context will give you the exact meaning, but is using one or the other any different, or just personal choice? I'm a noob and haven't gotten into reading yet, just mining/SRSing to get a foundation. I never see it in kanji form, but I thought I'd put in a few just to "mix it up".

And does anyone recommend doing this in general? I'm thinking it's good to see　可愛い in your SRS, even if you get it in kana. I'm thinking you will get a sense over time whether or not to use the kanji form when writing, so as to not be over the top or whatever. And it is better to learn the kanji so when you come across it later, you know it, even if the majority of the time it's in kana. Seems like the thing to do, but I just am curious if people do this often.

在る refers to existence. 有る refers to possession. I wouldn't say it's necessarily detrimental, but definitely in daily use, you should try to avoid using them.

I also add everything to my SRS in full kanji, even if the characters are never used. It helps to learn character readings, to get more familiar with the kinds of meaning the character has, and so you can read it IF it ever happens to pop up.

在る・有る has no meaning difference with ある beyond than the usual "wow, he put it in kanji" kind of emphasis.

有る describes possession
在る means existence

and one you missed:
或る means "a certain" and is not a verb. It appears in kanji somewhat regularly.

no, there are differences

here are good explanations:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...907AA6WE9J

I hate it, that no dictionary (which I know) explain the differences anymore.

EDIT: Oh, I was to late...

Historically they are all the same word though The application of kanji gave them nuance.

Teskal: there are dictionaries that explain the difference. The problem is that most dictionaries on the market are crap. The kenkyuusha intermediate and advanced dictionaries are the best general use ones, but even they don't tell the difference. Even J-J dictionaries don't spell it out so clearly.

You need to get into specialized dictionaries. The one I use is here. Kenkyuusha also publishes a J-E "tsukaiwake" dictionary, but I don't recall the name since I don't own it. I just wish I had a decent EPWING one instead of thinly sliced dead trees.

Thanks for the lightning quick responses yo! That was exactly what I thought the case might be.

Yeah I'm not really planning to over use kanji when it's not normal....maybe might look like a show off if you do that(?). Or perhaps if your really familiar it can be cool and stylistic if done right(?). And it's not confusing because you see these words in kana in the first place. But I also notice it seems like some things are "dumbed down" a bit. Since I'm learning the word I might as well learn the kanji too. And I want to be able to read it later on, if it's used in say a Soseki novel or something like that.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I also add everything to my SRS in full kanji, even if the characters are never used. It helps to learn character readings, to get more familiar with the kinds of meaning the character has, and so you can read it IF it ever happens to pop up.

在る・有る has no meaning difference with ある beyond than the usual "wow, he put it in kanji" kind of emphasis.

有る describes possession
在る means existence

and one you missed:
或る means "a certain" and is not a verb. It appears in kanji somewhat regularly.

I also add full kanji in my SRS. However, I color those kanji blue so that I won't use them in real writing later. Some good examples are 沢山、大抵 and 曖昧 (though I've seen 曖昧 written in kanji on more than one occation...)

I was actually planning to ask this question, myself. Thanks for sparing me the effort.

Well I haven't started SRSing my words or anything yet, but in some sakubuns that I write, I kanjify everything. I don't do this because I'm a hardcore RTK nerd or anything, rather there are word limits for our sakubun, and kanji help me fit more content heh.
My teacher tells me which ones aren't ever used. The most recent one off the top of my head was 煩い. She didn't even know how to read that one, she just guessed うるさい　ｆom context/kanji.

And yeah you kind of get a feel of which ones are used and are not used, similar to Tobberoth's colouring kanji in his SRS. The problem is I don't know which ones *are* or are not used, apart from what e-dict says uk or uK or nothing. Since I cannot be bothered with all that I figure I'll just brute force everything and learn from corrections just like the case with urusai and others which I learned to omit from immersion etc.

Damn windows IME...

Ta for the question, and the tips^^.

It's definitely useful to learn all of these, as you will see them rear their little heads from time to time in texts. I've written a large post before about kanji forms, so I'll keep this one simple: 有る, 在る, and 或る now adays are mostly used in rare circumstances, and have rather a formal air to them since they mostly show up in government documents. In literature they can be used both as a style, or to add emphasis. I wouldn't say it's technically 'showing off' to use the kanji forms, just less casual and common-place. I often use the kanji forms simply because I am sick of seeing ある all my life and like to add some variation. And, as the other posters said, the kanji forms are more specific in meaning. Not that it matters much since the context will make it clear anyway.

Lately a lot of newer dictionaries simply list 有る and 在る as being the same. Some people don't care if they use the incorrect one, but I think it looks kinda' uneducated when I see people using it incorrectly.

For 煩い, a fun version to use sometimes is　五月蝿い

Regarding when to not use a kanji form...it's up to your personal preferences. Something being most common does not mean it's most correct. A lot of Japanese youth are pretty uneducated now adays in regards to all the kanji forms, so I think it's best to use them just to keep the next generation from dumbing down the language to hiragana Besides, 此れ is not much more difficult than これ to write, and if you're using a computer then all you have to do is hit a space bar anyway. No practical reason for people not to use the kanji forms more often.

Cool. I will start doing this more. It can be nice to have some kana words to sometimes seperate kanji words, but Kanji are just more fun! Words like [kana]これ[/kana] come up so often, that I might as well use [kana]此れ[/kana] sometimes too. And I like Tobberoth's suggestion about color coding, I'll maybe do that in the answer section. I guess whether to use them or not depends on the situation too. I don't imagine I'll be making compositions for quite sometime anyway, and experience will light the way.