Hard uncommon Kanji

Bunpro
#1

Hey! Sorry if this has already been asked before, but is there a way to turn off kanji but just for some words?

Like I want to be able to recognize these words for example when reading because they’re quite common words (I’m like N3 level),

胡瓜 きゅうり

玉蜀黍 とうもろこし

抑 そもそも

蚯蚓 みみず

But Bunpro just shows me them in kanji form in reviews, but they are apparently extremely rare kanji and I don’t want to waste my precious brain space learning these kanji right now that most Japanese people don’t even know (maybe one day when I’m a kanji-god)

This happens to me all the time on Bunpro! I definitely don’t want to turn off ALL kanji cuz obviously 木 and 今日 are crazy useful, just these wacky kanji! Anyone else had this problem and found a solution?

#2

I know on mine, if I hover over a word it gives the reading, so if I see something I don’t remember I can still get the reading on it easily. I’m not sure if I had to do anything to settings for that, though. I actually like it this way because I make the association between the kanji and the reading if I don’t recognize it.

3 Likes
#3

I think this is a fair point but they do come up more than you think, and its very tedious trying to look up kanji individually when you’re reading a book that doesn’t do furigana, so I recommend getting comfortable with seeing them at least! Still use furigana, but if you see the kanji with the furigana your brain will still slowly make the association and you’ll be happy down the line that it did. (I think). No need to learn the kanji independently, but I think its worth getting comfortable with them.

1 Like
#4

Yeah me too! Again it just feels like wasted brain space though for some kanji! 95% of kanji on Bunpro are fine though! Like I want to know the kanji for 参加 instead of just learning さんか because that’s a kanji you see ALL over the place!

But learning 蚯蚓 is just so completely unnecessary in my opinion when I could just learn みみず instead and save the time trying to figure out if this kanji I actually should know or not! Maybe if I become a professional bug scientist one day I can learn it, but for now, I just want to be able to talk with normal people, and read what normal people can read!

I showed my Japanese girlfriend the word 蚯蚓 and she said she had absolutely no idea what it said :joy:

#5

I feel you! I personally just don’t think it’s worth it for some kanji and would rather spend that time learning other Japanese words, or more common kanji!

Like my Japanese girlfriend said she’d never seen the kanji 蚯蚓 in her life before, and she guessed that 玉蜀黍 meant like egg or something :joy:

Just not worth it to me learning those kanji, and I don’t know of a way to study those words on Bunpro just in hiragana because EVERYONE knows them in hiragana!