Cracking the code of Japanese literature one kanji at a time

Reading Japanese literature in the original isn’t your average walk in the park. Research shows that literature contains a higher frequency of diverse and rare kanji than any other genre. In my own experience, the 漢字 (kanji, Chinese characters) and 単語 (tango, vocabulary) pose the greatest challenges.

There are so many that it feels like I’ll never learn them all. A few unfamiliar words clustered together can leave me helplessly lost at sea. Let’s look at two strategies we can use when tackling more complicated literary works.