21329
I understand that the On- and Kun- readings are important to know and
understand. However, what about the Nanori readings? Are they worth studying
if I am aiming to just take the JLPT tests?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-16T21:19:46.870
21328
2015-01-16T21:44:04.807
4610
question
kanji
Nanori reading needed for JLPT?
No, you definitely don't need to know _nanori_ readings for the JLPT.
Honestly, you can read a lot of basic things pretty well without knowing very
many _nanori_ readings.

Why? Well, suppose you see this ([derived from Japanese
Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%89%E5%80%8D%E6%99%8B%E4%B8%89)):

> **安倍 晋三** は、日本の政治家。自由民主党所属の衆議院議員（8期）、内閣総理大臣（第90・96・97代）、自由民主党総裁（第21・25代）。

You may have no idea how to pronounce 安倍晋三, but as long as you recognize that
it is a name, you'll survive. For example, later on, you might read this:

> **安倍** は「幼い頃から私には身近に政治がありました」と回想している。

For all you know, maybe 安倍 is pronounced ばびうべぼ, but for the purpose of
understanding the text, you know that the 安倍 here refers to the same thing as
the 安倍 earlier.

Now, of course, if you know that あべしんぞう was the prime minister of Japan, but
don't know that 安倍晋三 is read あべしんぞう, you'll run into problems down the line.
_Eventually_ , you absolutely should learn as much _nanori_ as you can,
because they are useful to know for reading names in real life (though, even
if you do know your _nanori_ , [reading Japanese names in kanji can be fraught
with peril](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5529/3437)).

But for basic texts, including the JLPT (in which all passages are pretty much
self-contained), _nanori_ are a low priority.

* * *

Also, as a practical matter, it's not really effective to sit down and "learn
all the _nanori_ readings" in the same way that works for _kun_ and _on_
readings. If you look at [Wiktionary's list of _nanori_ for
一](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%80#Readings), you will see that
there's a _lot_ of them - 13, by my count. But even if you memorized them all,
you probably wouldn't be able to read the name 一彦 correctly on your first try
(let's assume that you know that 彦 is pronounced ひこ in names).

It turns out that 一彦 can be pronounced いちひこ・いつひこ or かずひこ・かつひこ (I think that
いちひこ and かずひこ are more common than the other two), but not いひこ or おさむひこ or
すすむひこ or はじめひこ or ひひこ. (Of course, the other _nanori_ are used in other names
containing 一.)

Over time, you'll probably get a feel for which combinations are likely as
names, and which aren't (for example, I intuited that いちひこ and かずひこ were the
only correct readings, which was close - there are also the two other variants
I listed) - but sitting down and learning all the _nanori_ for kanji isn't
going to get you there.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-16T21:37:06.970
21329
2015-01-16T21:44:04.807
2017-04-13T12:43:44.863
-1
3437
21328
answer