Confusing Kanji - Part 1 -

Different length and angles of lines

Learing Japanese and especially reading and writing Kanji can be quite confusing. While learing a lot of Kanji over the past years, i have seen, that i often confuse the same Kanji, that look similar. So i wanted to create this small series where i show you 5 sets of Kanji, that look smiliar and where you have to pay attention. In this part i want to concentrate on Kanji where the length and the angle of the lines are important to differentiate between the Kanji.

1. Tsuchi (earth, soil) and Shi (gentleman, samurai)

土　士

The difference is the lenght of the horizontal line. While the Kanji for tsuchi the upper on is longer, the kanji for shi the lower one is the shorter.

2. Matsu (end) and Mada (still, not yet)

末　未

The next two are the Kanji for matsu and mada. As above in matsu the upper one is longer, while in mada the lower one is.

3. I (to put in, go into) and Hito (person)

入　人

This is one of the examples, where there even is a difference between the written Kanji and computer font character. I the Kanji for I the right line is longer than the left one and it looks like it supports the right side. The font version of hito is symmetrical, while the written form should be the opposite (The right line should be shorter and support the left side).

4. Sen (thousand) and hoshi (dry)

千　干 

While the the upper line  for Sen is more of a slope, the upper line from hoshi is parrallel to the lower one.

5. Nichi (day) and Iwaku (say, reason)

日　曰

I´ve only seen the second twice and it is not even in the JLPT so i may not be so important, but since i encountered it more than once it is used sometimes. The difference is that in the Kanji for nichi the line inside the box touches the box on the right side, while iwaku stops right before.

As of now, there are five more Post in this series, so don´t miss them.