One-character difficult kanji quiz: a multiple-choice (3 options) game to learn the readings of challenging kanji

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Started performing in bands in junior high school. Influenced by Japanese rock and UK rock, spent over 10 years continuing band activities while creating original songs. Later began producing Vocaloid tracks using Hatsune Miku, with total plays of released songs surpassing 10,000. Has five years of experience writing for music magazines. Currently works as a music writer, director, and composer, keeping a ground-level perspective on the scene by attending live shows across Japan. Now performs at live houses in Tokyo, showcasing guitar playing centered on acoustic guitar and informed by knowledge of chord analysis and guitar scales. Also writes leveraging a broad knowledge of music genres.

There are many kanji characters that are hard to read at first glance.

Some of you may want to learn or memorize the readings of difficult kanji.

In this article, we’ve collected single-character kanji that are considered difficult.

It can be helpful to use radicals as hints or to think from the shape of the character.

Many of these kanji are rarely seen in daily life, so learning them will make you more knowledgeable about difficult kanji.

Be sure to try the multiple-choice quiz on tricky kanji readings!

One-character obscure kanji quiz: three-choice questions to learn difficult kanji readings (11–20)

navel

belly button
age; year(s) old; occasion; festival;—the meaning depends on context. Commonly, as a suffix “〜歳” means “years old,” and as “際(さい)” it means “when/on the occasion of.”
shin

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belly button

The character 臍 is read as “heso.” It refers to the mark of the navel on the human body and is one of those kanji whose reading is hard to guess from a single character. The “heso” indicated by this character is the spot where the umbilical cord was attached—namely, the depressed area in the center of the abdomen—and it was also an important part through which a baby received nutrients while in the mother’s womb.

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In conclusion

We’ve introduced tricky kanji quizzes across a variety of themes, including the human body, living creatures, and foods.

Some can be guessed from the shapes of the characters, so you can sometimes get the right answer even without knowing the kanji.

That feeling of “I’ve seen this somewhere, but I can’t place it…” is what makes the quiz so exciting, isn’t it? If you’re interested in kanji or want to study them, use these quizzes as a chance to learn some hard-to-read characters.