How many Chinese Characters Can High School Students Read?
From a Survey on High-School Students' Recognition Level of Chinese Characters
March 2005
Proliferation of word processors and mobile phones has created more opportunity to electronically “generate,” not to handwrite, letters. It enables even most intricate Kanji characters to be generated easily, and the number of Kanji used in daily activities has increased.
Conforming to the government's policy on Japanese language education that Kanji notation should abides by the national list of Chinese characters in common use, which was issued in 1981, more than 20 years ago, broadcasters and press have been using Kanji characters basically within the limit of the list,
Against this backdrop, the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, or NSK, reviewed Kanji characters for newspapers and decided to use a part of Kanji not included in the national list in 2001.
NHK also went through a series of discussions and issued a permit for using 37 unlisted characters that are supposedly legible without showing kana, or Japanese phonetic scripts, reading from April 2002.
In 2003, in order to avoid “mixed transcription” that combines hiragana and Kanji for one word consisting of multiple Kanji characters, one of which is an “unlisted character,” NSK decided to use 22 such words with printing kana reading alongside and 123 words with kana reading.
Such movements imply that mass media virtually pressed for an overhaul of the designated Kanji in common use.
However it does not mean the limitless usage of Kanji is allowed. First of all, we in the media must always consider whether a Kanji character is readable or not. That is, we need to know general public's ability to read Kanji.
Thus our team conducted “Survey on High-School Students' Recognition Level of Chinese Characters,” targeting high school third graders, who are one step short of going out into the world. We surveyed more than 6,000 students on 70 unlisted Kanji that are commonly used in everyday life.
The survey illuminated general outline of high school students' ability to read Kanji, indicating that unlisted Kanji characters that are used for names of plants and animals and in comics or songs as well as Kanji characters whose readings are detectable from context or from analogous letters marked high percentage of correct answer.
The article reports the result of analysis of the recent “Survey on High-School Students' Recognition Level of Chinese Characters.”