Coincidentally, I'd just been wondering about that too... I'd been adding grade levels to the Heisig list (curious where the last kyoiku kanji was in the book), and found one leftover!

It's 璽 (ジ) "emperor's seal".

I have a sneaky one.  How do you pronounce 物 in the following word?:

しょく物

Last edited by JimmySeal (2007 April 26, 10:57 pm)

I get it now...it is a trick question!

Not bad.

Last edited by synewave (2007 April 26, 11:08 pm)

killjoule wrote:

i dont quite get it.  is it a trick cause it could be ぶつ　or もつ?

That's pretty much what I reckon.

植物　－　しょくぶつ
食物　－　しょくもつ

@ JimmySeal - is that what you were getting at?

So here's another one:

Heisig's system depends on each keyword being unique. But one keyword comes up twice (oops). Which is it?

Katsuo is very dedicated to his studies.

Not dedicated enough, it seems, because I'd noticed a different duplicate. So there's two (at least). The one I'd noticed was also renamed for the 4th edition.

"Storehouse". Are you sure? Perhaps I have a different edition because I didn't have the remotest idea about that.

By the way, to anybody who likes doing kanji puzzles, there is a magazine out now called 漢字楽 (kanji raku) which is full of them. It costs 440 円 and has lots of prizes on offer. (If you are trying for the prizes, then answers have to be submitted by July 5th.)

漢字楽 seems to be widely available inside Japan, but I'm not sure about outside.

leosmith wrote:

JimmySeal wrote:

I have a sneaky one.  How do you pronounce 物 in the following word?:

しょく物

Why can't it be もの? Is it because もの is a seperate word? Or because もの is not normally written with 漢字?

Do you have the word しょくもの in your dictionary?

leosmith wrote:

Let's just assume the dictionary self-combusted, and the internet closed down to be painted. Why wouldn't もの be a possibility?

Maybe because no one says しょくもの? I don't get it.

Last edited by wrightak (2007 May 01, 4:59 am)

leosmith wrote:

synewave wrote:

Do you have the word しょくもの in your dictionary?

Hey, not fair using logic
Let's just assume the dictionary self-combusted, and the internet closed down to be painted. Why wouldn't もの be a possibility?

It's analogous to asking "Why is a bus stop called a bus stop?" - Because it is.

From the dictionaries I've checked, しょくもの simply isn't a word, that's why you don't say it.

But if one didn't have any dictionaries to check, or the internet to browse, しょくもの would be a fair guess, I suppose. But in this case, not the answer.

synewave wrote:

But if one didn't have any dictionaries to check, or the internet to browse,

or anyone to ask...

Some mixed reading words I know:
本屋  ほんや  bookshop
台所  だいどころ  kitchen
四時  よじ  4 o'clock
大好き  だいすき  greatly like
大嫌い  だいきらい  greatly dislike
本田  ほんだ  Honda (name)


Some kanji only have 音 or 訓 readings, so compounds of those are sometimes mixed. Some random examples from edict (don't know how common these words are):

畑作: はたさく (n) dry field farming; dry field crop;
畑地: はたち (n) farmland;
上期: かみき (n-adv,n) first half of the year;
下期: しもき (n-adv,n) second half of the fiscal year;
区切り: くぎり (n) an end; a stop; punctuation;
意気込み: いきごみ (n) ardor; enthusiasm;
大時代: おおじだい (adj-na,n) old-fashioned; antiquated;
大路: おおじ (n) main street;