The world’s toughest! A collection of insanely hard-to-read kanji
The kanji that we Japanese use as a matter of course come naturally to us not only when writing sentences but even when we’re calling something to mind.
In fact, texts written only in hiragana or katakana are very hard to read, and just thinking about that shows how convenient kanji are.
Even for us, who are so familiar with kanji in our daily lives, there are many characters that make us scratch our heads and ask, “How do you read this?”
In this article, we’ve picked out kanji that not only people overseas studying Japanese but even a large majority of Japanese people can’t read.
We include their readings as well as the origins of the words, but first, have fun seeing how many you can read—like a kanji quiz!
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- A quiz on how to read obscure kanji: words that become difficult when written in kanji.
- [Hard-to-Read Quiz] Single-character difficult kanji — including surprisingly simple ones!
- Can You Read These? Quiz on Kanji with Many Strokes
- [Interesting] Summary of Kanji Reading Quiz Questions
- The world’s fewest: A collection of one-stroke kanji. Learn them in a quiz format!
- Obscure fish kanji. Can you read them?
- A quiz of interesting obscure kanji: characters that look easy but are hard to read
- One-character difficult kanji quiz: a multiple-choice (3 options) game to learn the readings of challenging kanji
- [For Elementary School Students] Country Names in Kanji Quiz. A quick, fun quiz
- [Interesting] Collection of Matchstick Quiz Problems
- [Trick Quiz] Quiz Questions That Excite Everyone from Kids to Adults
- [For Seniors] Challenging but Exciting! Kanji Quiz
The World’s Hardest! A Collection of Amazing Kanji You’re Incredible If You Can Read (11–20)
wren
Those who read it as the bird “wren” (misosazai) are also correct.
Being able to read it as misosazai is impressive in itself, but this time it’s being asked as a proper noun.
Since it’s a person’s surname, it may be very difficult to read.
In fact, these characters are read “Sasaki.” It’s said there are several families with this name in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture.
Some people originally wrote the surname Sasaki with the characters for Ōsasagi (wren), deriving it from Ōsasagi no Mikoto, an alternate name of Emperor Nintoku, but later they changed the characters to the more common 佐々木.
Those who didn’t change them kept using the characters 鷦鷯 while reading them as Sasaki… Unique, hard-to-read surnames really do have a long history, don’t they?
tokoroten (gelled noodle-like jelly made from agar)
A pattern where simple kanji are lined up but given a special reading—of course, you don’t read them as “shinta” or “kokorofuto.” However, because the pronunciation of the word has shifted to its current form, this alternate reading is an important hint to reach the answer.
If you actually pronounce it and then morph the sounds, you can get closer to the answer’s pronunciation.
The answer is “tokoroten,” a food made by chilling and solidifying the broth from boiling the seaweed tengusa into transparent noodle-like strands.
It’s said that because tengusa was once called “kokorofuto,” this name was slurred over time into the reading “torokoten,” which then became “tokoroten.”
Akebia (chocolate vine)
It’s a difficult word that uses a special reading for a simple combination of kanji you’d learn in elementary school.
The kanji don’t reflect the usual readings but are based on the shape of the object, so it’s probably hard to reach the answer from each character’s standard reading.
It’s a fruit seen in autumn and might be unfamiliar in some regions.
The answer is “akebi” (Akebia), a fruit whose ripe pod splits open vertically and gives off a sweet aroma.
The kanji 木通 are used because the vine’s core is hollow all the way through.
udon
Among the words that blend into our daily lives, many don’t really evoke an image of being written in kanji.
Here we have the name of something everyone knows, written in such an unfamiliar form.
Because it uses the character for “food” (食), you can tell it’s something to eat; the key is what the rest represents.
Rather than the meanings of the kanji, focus on the readings.
If you think of other kanji that use the same component—like 溫 or 鈍—you might get closer to how this word is read.
The answer is “udon.” You may even find it written in kanji on signs, so it could be fun to look out for it.
filthy; squalid; narrow-minded; petty; mean; niggardly
It uses kanji that you don’t often see, and the high number of strokes also gives it a difficult impression.
Each kanji is read as “kosetsuku” when written as 「齷く」 and as “tsutsushimu” when written as 「齪む」, but even knowing that, it still seems hard to arrive at the answer.
Looking at the variant that uses different characters with the same reading, '偓促', might bring you closer to the answer.
The answer is “akuseku,” a word that describes being fussy and unable to relax over trivial matters.
The crowded, many-stroked components also convey a restless feeling.
In conclusion
Kanji are incredibly handy—you can look at, say, a signboard written in Chinese characters and, even if you don’t know how to read it, you can often guess the meaning if you recognize the characters.
But the ones I introduced this time were probably all examples where, even if you know the kanji, you still can’t figure out the reading or the meaning.
If you’re interested, I encourage you to delve into the deep and fascinating world of hard-to-read kanji!