Don’t Buy That Kanji Dictionary Yet

Heads up Japanese language students, because next year the Japanese government is set to up the joyo list of general use kanji from 1945 characters to 2131. Mary Sisk Noguchi provides all the gory details, including the depressing news that the 29 stroke character for "melancholy," 鬱, has not been dropped from the list, nor has its definition been changed to "frustration." Meanwhile, I’m left wondering who this is going to cost more, Japanese language students or Japanese publishers.

My first thought was that I would have to replace all of my excellent resources like my Kanji Learner’s Dictionary and Kanji Flashcards. But who am I kidding? I haven’t studied Japanese seriously since passing the level three JLPT a few years ago, and that isn’t changing anytime soon. If you have your books too, are you really going to spring for replacements to learn a couple hundred more kanji? Likely not, especially if some enterprising publisher releases a small supplement covering the new ones. Anyone new to Japanese will just wait until the revised editions are published before buying.

That leaves the publishers forced to revise their entire product lines without the promise of any new revenue streams. Or does it? Just as I was about to shed a tear for them it hit me--the domestic education market. Every school and juku (tutoring service) in Japan will be forced to replace their suddenly dated textbooks to reflect the new and improved list. Talk about your economic stimulus package.