Learn Japanese — misc japanese

A difficult sentence for Japanese learners 0

Japanese Twitter and blogs are abuzz about a sentence that is said to be difficult for learners of the Japanese language.

Can you spot the problem? Take a look at the 日 (day) kanji. It’s used five times in the sentence, but the reading is different each time depending on which word compound it's in.

Before we get into the breakdown of the sentence, it’s important to remember that kanji used in Japanese usually has a Chinese reading (on yomi) and a native Japanese reading (kun yomi). This, combined with the fact that some words are forced to work with existing Chinese characters, can result in complicated reading rules that learners and natives just have to remember.