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So far my kanji studies, the longest reading for any single kanji had been 3 syllables. 緑 and 考え are 2 examples I can think of that contain 3 kana characters.
Then yesterday I came across 雷 (かみなり) - hurrah, a single kanji containing 4 syllables!
Do people know any other kanji with a 4-kana reading, or maybe even higher (5? 6??)? It would be interesting to see stats on the average length of kun and on readings for individual kanji (a majority seem consist of 2 sounds, then 1, the 3).
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i think the longest i know is 5: 承る（うけたまわる）
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忝い（かたじけない） is cool as well =)
Edited: 2011-03-29, 11:20 am
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Depends on your criteria; 糎 is read as センチメートル which is 7.
I think 5 is the highest you can go with kanji in current use. There's 政（まつりごと） and 詔（みことのり）, which are quite rare in modern Japanese but still on the joyo list for some reason. 承る, 慮る and 志 were already mentioned.
If you delve into older Japanese you can sometimes find some pretty long kun-yomi glosses for Chinese words, like すめらみこと for 皇, but it's questionable whether these should really be considered "readings" or not.
Edited: 2011-03-29, 11:44 am
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I would not consider those kun-yomi; they come from the Morohashi, which has definitions and not just readings. It's a dictionary of Classical Chinese, so it explains the way characters are used in classical Chinese documents, and not all of its definitions represent the way the kanji were actually pronounced or read by any readers. In this case there's virtually no chance that even Nara or Heian-era readers would have read 閄 as ものかげからきゅうにとびだしてひとをおどろかせるときにはっするこえ.
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Ugh, of course, we forgot 恣 (ほしいまま)
Edited: 2011-03-29, 2:05 pm
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鯱(しゃちほこ) comes up in the Microsoft's Japanese IME, must be common enough.
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甃（いしだたみ）, 鸛（こうのとり）, 鰾（うきぶくろ）and 誄（しのびごと）also don't seem to be completely useless.
There is also a somewhat obscure, but not completely unused kanji for micrometre: 粆(マイクロメートル) which has 8 syllables.
Edited: 2011-03-29, 2:57 pm
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That site is awesome!!!!
鬣 （たてがみ）
Edited: 2011-03-30, 2:28 am
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Here's a SQL query from JDICT data, position is the character in the compound which reading ("pron") is shown, they are all kun-yomi:
+-----------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
| pron | position | kanji | compound |
+-----------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
| あまつさえ | 0 | 21104 | 剰 |
| いかのぼり | 0 | 20967 | 凧 |
| うけたまわ | 0 | 25215 | 承る |
| おにがしら | 0 | 32411 | 纛 |
| おもんぱか | 0 | 24942 | 慮る |
| おもんぱか | 0 | 24942 | 慮り |
| かたじけな | 0 | 24541 | 忝い |
| かたじけな | 0 | 24541 | 忝くも |
| かわごろも | 0 | 35032 | 裘 |
| こうのとり | 0 | 40475 | 鸛 |
| こころざし | 0 | 24535 | 志 |
| こころざし | 3 | 24535 | 青雲の志 |
| しゃちほこ | 0 | 39921 | 鯱 |
| しゃちほこ | 2 | 39921 | 金の鯱 |
| しゃちほこ | 0 | 39921 | 鯱瓦 |
| しゃちほこ | 0 | 39921 | 鯱蛾 |
| しゅうとめ | 0 | 22993 | 姑 |
| しゅうとめ | 1 | 22993 | 小姑 |
| たなごころ | 0 | 25484 | 掌 |
| たなごころ | 0 | 25484 | 掌を指す様に知っている |
+-----------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
I left some doubles so you can see example words.
