I made two native speakers take this simple kanji knowledge quiz

https://jiken.herokuapp.com/

I took it myself too. Apparently, I know around 750 characters. My mother, a native speaker who finished Japanese middle school but graduated from an American high school and still lives in the US, knows around 2500 characters. My aunt, a native speaker who has lived in Japan her entire life and finished nursing school, knows around 3300 characters.

See how you compare. Do at least 30 for a somewhat accurate estimate.

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Yeah the last time I did it the first 10 gave me 3500 but after like 80 it was at 3200 which was almost the exact number of kanji i had in my srs decks.

I tried it againā€¦and I got 4200 after 50. I think it was really confused about my level though, because after I hit the 4000 mark it gave me 嘘 and 駐 lol. Iā€™ve been studying 1ē“š kanji recently so maybe thats throwing it off. Funny enough the hardest one I got though, é¹½, came in over the 6000 threshold but I only know it becauseā€¦its written on my bag of salt in my kitchen.

Overall, the amount of kanji I ā€œknowā€ by most peoples definition is probably a lot closer to the 3200 i mentioned earlier.

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That was fun! It thinks I know 2012 Kanji. Which seems about right.

Roughly 2800, which makes sense since Iā€™m preparing for Kanken pre-1 but also havenā€™t studied seriously in a while.

I got some wrong that Iā€™ve studied in the past.

After about 50 it gives me 1250, according to wkstats I should know about 1150, maybe a few more from reading, but probably not more than a few dozen, so seems about right. The font itself is really odd, I suspect itā€™s not prioritizing japanese glyphs, so for example Iā€™ve seen lines that were instead split up into ā€œdropsā€.

Also at one time I said I knew a kanji and it went and decreased the amount I probably know, what a ripoff

I imagine if youā€™re studying for kanken level 1, it may skew things a bit. You may not be learning characters by frequency like you do with the joyo kanji. So if you know a cluster of kanji in the 5000 frequency range, this algorithm in place may think you know more than you actually do. Thatā€™s why it provides an estimate range, and your bottom one is 3215.

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While I got 1954 - 2172 (era where I live in), I feel that it is inaccurate, or at least less. What do you mean by knowing the Kanji? One meaning? Most meanings related to usage / vocabularies? One reading? Most readings? What about misreading?

I feel that for more common ones, at least an On reading should be known, not just Kun-related vocabularies. (And of course, some meanings must be known.) Though, what decides common-ness? As inexperienced as most answerers shouldnā€™t decide it.

At least, typing and comparing answers should help to better the calculation and reduce bias. I made a feedback to the repo, regardless. I donā€™t really understand the maths behind it, though.

I also understand that at some point, it would hard for less advanced learners or non-natives, to make it accurate. (How comprehensive is JMdict, for example?)

I personally gave myself credit for knowing it if I could identify a word that included it, with the correct reading, and the correct meaning of that word.

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My definition of ā€œknowingā€ a kanji is knowing at least one word associated with the kanji. Of course, this doesnā€™t fly with more frequently used characters, but it works for the less common ones. Using this definition of ā€œknowing,ā€ I read in one of my kanji books that the average native Japanese adult ā€œknowsā€ over 3000 kanji.

This wasnā€™t meant to be a serious assessment anyway. Just make of it what you will.

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If that has a reliable source, I canā€™t say anything, but counting only words and excluding names, id be a bit surprised if the average was over 3000. If we are talking adults who read a moderate amount and up, then thats not surprising, but I suspect some of my coworkers who donā€™t read at all would be dragging down the average.

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I donā€™t know how you could reasonably exclude peopleā€™s knowledge of names from the equation.

It was a book by Wolfgang Hadamitzky and Mark Spahn, who I think are fairly reputable, as they wrote a huge kanji dictionary. I believe the 3000 includes names too, I should have specified.

Thats outside the topic of discussion, though.

Yeah then that makes sense.

Thank you for sharing this resource.
I was skeptical upon reading your post about the capabilities of JiKen in gauging oneā€™s kanji knowledge with minimal inputā€¦but, I must confess, I was amazed when it pegged me pretty accurately (just as advertised) after I was about 10 kanji deep into the quiz! Truly impressive. :+1:

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Did about a 100 and itā€™s around 2200, which I guess is about right.

At 200 mark, I know 1708; but I can easily tell I need to know a lot more (and better).

Got bored at 70 and got 2009. According to wkstats I should know about 1924 so itā€™s pretty close. 10/10 will do it again.

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Apparently I answered 501 lmao I got sucked in. It puts me at knowing about 1510

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I had time so did over 200 and it was really accurateā€¦if WK says I should know 1800 I got 1850 on this site. Neat tool. at around 20 answered it was also pretty accurate at 1900 or so.

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Iā€™m not sure how many I did (maybe 40-50?) and it finished saying I knew 1571. Iā€™m not all that surprised (though still disappointed) since:

  1. I havenā€™t specifically studied kanji in about three years
  2. Iā€™m really bad at recognizing kanji out of context (i.e. not in words or sentences)
  3. I donā€™t do production, so I had trouble confirming to myself that I knew a kanji even when I thought I might
  4. I was really strict, deciding that if I couldnā€™t think of a word with that kanji before checking the answer Iā€™d vote ā€œdonā€™t knowā€, even if I knew words with it after seeing the examples. (e.g. When asked about 阻 I was like ā€œwell thatā€™s one of the ton of kanji read 恝, but I donā€™t remember which oneā€, but if I had been shown é˜»ę­¢ I would have known immediately.)

I even got several basic kanji wrong that Iā€™m sure I would have gotten right if they were shown as part of words. Oh well. I probably will have to study kanji again at some point.

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