Can you match the old kanji form to its modern version? (Quiz)

Got all of them.
I might be very bad in both chinese and japanese (and english too), and my Wanikani reviews might have been very bad lately, but at least I’ve got that skill :see_no_evil:

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Even after having learned Mandarin Chinese with a Taiwanese teacher, I still whiffed a few – nr 6, 10, and 12. Maybe it’s time to pick it up again.

I somehow knew nr 5 was one of the forgery proof numbers used on banknotes and financial documents, but when I went to look at a 10000 yen bill, I was disappointed to find out they don’t use it there (it’s 壱万円). They do use the character for 1, though.

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Well, the first was a miss, but I’m pretty pleased that I knew 7 of these already, and could understand/guess the others. :v: Cool little quiz though; some took quite a bit of internal debate.

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Got 4/13 by guessing :stuck_out_tongue:

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Me - 7
Youngish Japanese coworker - 8
Slightly older but not like, old-old coworker - 9

I learned to stop guessing based on shape and guess the LEAST obvious answer, unless I could take a stab at the meaning, like in 11.

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Oddly, those were among the ones I guessed correctly!

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Very surprised to get 6/13 off of total guessing. Only knew #7 and I have no idea why I was very confident in my answer.

Would’ve been 9/13 with all luck and no knowledge but my brain disagreed with what my gut was telling it :crazy_face:

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2,3,4,7,9, and 13 I was able to recognize because they are still used in traditional Chinese.

Interestingly 廣 became 广 in simplified Chinese but 広 in Japanese.

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I think Japanese doesn’t like all that blank space.

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It’s like they just went “Hey, you know that kanji with a whole bunch of lines under the awning?” -not very specific, but sure- “Well, henceforth it shall be known as the one without any lines under the awning.” -OK- :upside_down_face:

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6 out 13 mostly guesses obviously

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I got 8. It was fun, thanks!

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3/13… I think I did the worst out of everyone :laughing:

Woah! Baader-Meinhoff moment!

I sometimes work near where the actual Rashomon gate once stood. So I decided to watch the movie last night. I told a coworker about how cool it is to watch the movie after having lived in Kyoto for a while. This coworker also knows I have been trying to read more Japanese (sorry book clubs, I am just bad at you!). So he suggests I try to read 藪の中 (やぶのなか)“In a Grove”, which the film is based on. Turns out, it’s in the public domain (new vocabulary for him), and online. Yay! Free! It is old, though. The furigana’s got all sorts of craziness, like ゐ and ゑ and odd pronunciations that could be because old, or because free and someone typed it in weird (をとこ for 男?!). Anyway, lo and behold, I see number 11 lurking in the text.

Before yesterday I had no idea that 11 was a variant form of the one that it is. I probably could have lived the rest of my life here in Japan not knowing that little tidbit. But now I know, and it is following me! AAHHHHH!

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If it turns out to be too hard to read the Aozora version in old Japanese, there are also modernized versions available in various short story collections, e.g. at BookWalker (digital) or your friendly neighbourhood BookOff. (That’s where I got my copy at least - want to read it for the same reason!)

Also, the movie seems to be based on two of his stories btw: “Rashoumon” contains the part where they are at the gate and talk, while “In a Grove” is the story that gets told by them.

Thanks, I’ll check those out.

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