No idea where it comes from (some help I am) but can definitely say that you'll learn to spot rare readings when they come up. Just treat them as is and remember them in the context of the word that they appear in. 部屋 used to trip me up for ages trying to read it. 　why is どこ kanjified as 何処? ど seems like a really rare/obscure reading for 何 to me (though it's obviously based on meaning). Though it doesn't phase me these days. Like I said, treat them as is and remember them in the context of the words you see them in.

Yes, 部屋 is in the Jouyou 'supplementary list of ateji, special kanji readings and words which can't be readily broken down into per-character readings'.  You can tell this from the Daijirin entry by the double-angle-brackets around the kanji in the heading.  (何処 on the other hand gets a pile of white triangles indicating non-standard reading that's not in the supplementary list of 'approved' ateji, indicating I think that the Jouyou authors expected this to be written in kana.)

Bonus useless trivia: 部 is the kanji which was the source of both hiragana and katakana へ (via a different simplification path despite the similar final result, according to my kanji dictionary).

Last edited by pm215 (2009 December 29, 7:43 pm)

Ah, I see now. I didn't realize there was a term for this sort of thing (ateji). Thank you all for the info.

pm215 wrote:

Bonus useless trivia: 部 is the kanji which was the source of both hiragana and katakana へ (via a different simplification path despite the similar final result, according to my kanji dictionary).

This is actually how I ran across this question. I saw that へ was derived from the kanji and shared a reading but couldn't find a clear answer on the reading.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Actually to be nitpicky, the real term is 熟字訓 (jukujikun -- 熟 from 熟語 (compound word)).

This makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for that.