# Fun with Ateji 🈯

**URL:** <https://community.wanikani.com/t/fun-with-ateji/31956>\
**Category:** Kanji\
**Created:** [July 27, 2018, 10:32am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/fun-with-ateji/31956 "2018-07-27T10:32:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

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**Author:** ![anon38003452](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@anon38003452](https://community.wanikani.com/u/anon38003452)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/fun-with-ateji/31956/6 "2018-07-27T12:57:26Z")

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For those of us who don’t know what ateji means:

> In modern Japanese, ateji (当て字, 宛字 or あてじ “called upon characters”, Japanese: [a̠te̞ʑi]) principally refer to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to man’yōgana in Old Japanese. Conversely ateji also refers to kanji used semantically without regard to the readings.  
> [Ateji - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji)

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