Filthy lucre is the Kanji of the Year

[Taro Toporific]

"Gold"--- as in greed or filthy lucre--- has been chosen as the kanji of the year in Japan!
In fact, gold-n-greed is so good to the Japanese that 金 was also the Kanji of the Year in the year 2000 (Wikipedia).

"Kin" (Gold) chosen as Kanji of the year in Japan
Xinhua English | 2012-12-12
"Kin", the kanji for gold or money, was chosen as character of the year in 2012 in Japan...the kanji character representing the social conditions in Japan or World of the year which is announced by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, based in the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto, on the "Kanji day", December 12...more...

[yanpa]

The foundation also pointed out a series of political discussions about reforming tax system and "money" scandals reported often this year in the newspapers as another reason for the choice.

By that standard, they can use the same Kanji every fucking year.

Maybe they should start making up some new Kanji to revitalise that moribund writing system and provide fresh candidates. A 42-stroke monster signifying "NoMajorNuclearIncidentsSoFar" is my suggestion for 2012.

[Samurai_Jerk]

The foundation also pointed out a series of political discussions about reforming tax system and "money" scandals reported often this year in the newspapers as another reason for the choice.

By that standard, they can use the same Kanji every fucking year.

Maybe they should start making up some new Kanji to revitalise that moribund writing system and provide fresh candidates. A 42-stroke monster signifying "NoMajorNuclearIncidentsSoFar" is my suggestion for 2012.

Don't encourage them to go in the wrong direction. If anything, they should abandon their ridiculous writing system. They could say it was a protest against China's claims on the Senkaku.

[Coligny]

The foundation also pointed out a series of political discussions about reforming tax system and "money" scandals reported often this year in the newspapers as another reason for the choice.

By that standard, they can use the same Kanji every fucking year.

Maybe they should start making up some new Kanji to revitalise that moribund writing system and provide fresh candidates. A 42-stroke monster signifying "NoMajorNuclearIncidentsSoFar" is my suggestion for 2012.

Don't encourage them to go in the wrong direction. If anything, they should abandon their ridiculous writing system. They could say it was a protest against China's claims on the Senkaku.

+1

BRILLIANT...

[gaijinpunch]

The only thing that would make Japanese harder is to throw out kanji. The words all sound the fucking same. Reading would becum impossible.

[yanpa]

How did Korea manage it? Or is Korean full of uniquer words ?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Kanji has its uses....


....one of which is to remind us Philistine gaijin fucks that Japan uses four different styles of writing (one for each of its distinct seasons, perhaps?), of which one is kanji.

[matsuki]

The only thing that would make Japanese harder is to throw out kanji. The words all sound the fucking same. Reading would becum impossible.

haha, doesn't help that they fuck up imported words and shorten the fuck out of everything to only a few syllables.

How did Korea manage it? Or is Korean full of uniquer words ?

They made their own hieroglyphics but with some more reasoning behind them than "好き - it's girls and children, everyone likes girls and children!" or the infamous "If you stare really hard at it, it looks like [ ] so it means (something totally unrelated to [ ]" The only thing Kanji is good for is tatoos ID tags to let us identify idiots without interacting with them

[yanpa]

How did Korea manage it? Or is Korean full of uniquer words ?

They made their own hieroglyphics but with some more reasoning behind them than "好き - it's girls and children, everyone likes girls and children!" or the infamous "If you stare really hard at it, it looks like [ ] so it means (something totally unrelated to [ ]"

Thanks, but I know what Hangul are (and they're easy enough to work out just by looking at station signs in Tokyo). I just wonder if Korean has a lot of homophonic Sino-Korean words in the same way as Sino-Japanese which become ambiguous when written without kanji.

The only thing Kanji is good for is tatoos ID tags to let us identify idiots without interacting with them

http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I used to think Hangul was the name for that stuff a Japanese AV actress spat onto her hand after giving a Handy-cum-BJ that reached climax...but Koreans told me otherwise.