Hi, everyone.


I. Could someone kindly explain the following? I have always been wondering...

How come one can write a word, say おわる using as many kanji as "終る ・ 了わる ・ 卒わる ・ 畢わる ・ 竟わる" ?

Thanks a lot.


II. Don't feel like opening another new post... A second question, if I may? xD

I am just about to start and re-learn the Kanji in a systematic way... Can anyone recommend a good site that dissects a Kanji in radical and phonetic component. (I am looking for the exact reading of each phonetic part)

Any suggestions highly appreciated.

The word has the same general meaning but the different kanji give more specific connotations.

Shinichirou Wrote:How come one can write a word, say おわる using as many kanji as "終る ・ 了わる ・ 卒わる ・ 畢わる ・ 竟わる" ?

That looks suspiciously like the list from Edict (Rikaichan/WWWJDIC). The word is 終わる. The others may have some specific nuance, but i personally don't think i've ever seen them.  竟わる gets like 361 results on google as opposed to 44,200,000 for 終わる.

If you use Windows, when converting a word from kana to kanji you sometimes get information about the different possible kanji and when to use each one. That's a very good way to learn about the different connotations added by the choice of kanji.

終る  - very generic word for finish
了わる  - Getting a little more specific, mostly used for seasons, projects, or set schedules.
 卒わる  - Finishing a course of study.

The other two are very rare and none of my Japanese friends have ever seen them before.

Honestly I'm not sure I've ever seen 了わる or  卒わる either (the former maybe in kanbun). Don't get too fancy with this or your Japanese will start looking strange. If you look at 了わる in google, for example, there are very few hits, and most of them are either classical or dictionaries.

In case of verbs, you will find that sometimes the same word can be written with different kanjis. Usually, one of those kanjis will be appearing in 80-90% of times, while the others are reserved only for specific cases, adding some nuance that depends on the context. For example, みる (to see) can be written as:

見る = The common kanji
観る = Used when you are looking at movies, shows, etc, or in genera, in cases where you are the spectator. Makes sense when you learn that 観光 (かんこう) means tourism. (tourists are a kind of spectators after all)
診る = Used on case of medical inspections and diagnosis. The hint is 診断 (しんだん), diagnosis.
視る = Used when somehow you want to look something with great detail, like staring. Not very common, appears mostly in literature.
看る = Used as "look after". The key word would be 看護婦 (かんごふ), nurse.
覧る = Very unusual, as actually the kanji stands commonly for another verb, ご覧になる (ごらんになる) which as means to see but in an honorific way.

If you are just beginning studying kanji, do not worry to much about the alternate forms, learn first and thoroughly the common ones and enjoy discovering the others one by one later, as the appear here and there.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful answers and insightful advice.

I think I get the picture now more or less.

I find that generally it will be more often used if it can be associated with a common and distinctive compound word, like 診る to 診断. Even though 了 is used in 終了, 終 is used as well so it's not as distinctively associated with 了.

The influence of the Jouyou list is also a factor; 診る is a Joyo-approved reading whereas 了わる is not.