99048
<Jisho.org> often lists kanji with widely divergent Jōyō and JLPT levels, e.g.
矢. Jisho lists this as 2nd grade Jōyō; Henshall’s _Guide to Remembering
Japanese Characters_ lists it for 6th grade— both signifying elementary
school. Yet Jisho describes the kanji as JLPT level 1 and #1,294 of the 2,500
most common words in newspapers, i.e. in the more-infrequent half of common
words. The kanji is easy to write, but except for “arrow” most of the
associated words that Jisho lists seem rather uncommon.

In contrast, 忙 is also easy to write and would seem like a more useful word
for young children; but it is junior-high-school Jōyō and JLPT level 3.

Why do an apparently large number of kanji have widely divergent Jōyō and JLPT
classifications?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-25T19:08:55.260
99045
2023-03-26T07:35:03.990
27152
question
jlpt jōyō-kanji
Kanji with Widely Differing Jōyō and JLPT Levels
For one thing, the frequency of a word and the level of a kanji are different
concepts. Any kindergartener who can't even write hiragana knows the word 誕生日
("birthday"), and it's naturally classified as a JLPT N5 word. However, it has
a rather difficult (and not very versatile) first kanji, and the kanji 誕
itself is supposed to be learned in the 6th grade.

According to [this
article](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97)
and [this article](https://kanjibunka.com/kanji-faq/history/q0145/), the list
of 教育漢字 by grade did not exist at first. The grade-by-grade list was
introduced later out of concern for avoiding problems when students changed
schools and textbooks in the middle of elementary school. There does not seem
to have been any particularly detailed statistical consideration. Frequency
was one of the factors, but the simplicity of a kanji shape was also
considered. And that's why the grade-by-grade 教育漢字 list sometimes seems
impractical to you. Japanese people naturally learn most of the JLPT N1
vocabulary before they turn 10, and even if they don't know many kanji, they
have no trouble communicating. Even if they don't know the kanji 忙, the word
いそがしい by itself is something they know from the age of 3. There may not be any
particular reason to learn the kanji 矢 in the second grade, but there's no
strong reason not to do so, either (its shape is simple, and it's frequent
enough for an 8-year-old). If English is your native language, you have never
bothered with level-specific vocabulary lists when learning English, have you?

The situation is different for a Japanese-as-a-second-language learner. If you
want to acquire communication skills as quickly as possible, a practical
vocabulary list by frequency and difficulty is essential. It's usually
efficient to learn the word 忙しい along with its kanji. And JLPT levels are
designed exactly for this purpose.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-26T06:45:54.537
99048
2023-03-26T07:35:03.990
2023-03-26T07:35:03.990
5010
5010
99045
answer