A great channel to test your Japanese skills on is QuizKnock.
Their YouTube description is the following: 東大クイズ王・伊沢拓司を中心としたメンバーが、ガチンコクイズや盛り上がるゲーム、激ムズ入試問題など様々な無理難題に対し、頭脳と根性で挑戦していくチャンネルです。勉強動画もあるよ！
ガチンコ means to do something seriously. It comes from Sumo, originally being ガチン which is the onomatopoeia for the sound of two wrestlers slamming together when they go from the 蹲踞 crouch to the 立合い. 東大 is an abbreviation for 東京大学, the other similar one being 京大 for 京都大学.
The video they did on kanji is a great insight into how the Japanese look to recognise kanji and use clues to work out what a kanji is. The feats performed in this video are impressive even by native speaker standards, with specific reference being made that 山本さん has 漢検準一級, meaning he has effective command of over 3000 kanji.
The video we’re reviewing involves kanji that are rotated in a kaleidoscope fashion. The video title contains 万華鏡, ばんげきょう (notice the sneaky げ) to reference this.
Practice – “bits are poking out”
The first is 白 rotated 90 degrees. During the discussion, the controversy of ‘font choice’ is going to be brought up and complained about through the rest of the video.
Certain fonts have what are referred to as 高床式 たかゆかしき. This is originally in reference to granaries and buildings built on stilts. 山本さん points out this are particularly noticeable at the bottom, referring to them as a 出っ張り でっぱり. What this means is, that you’re likely dealing with a kanji that is actually normally square on the bottom but in this stilt font style, meaning the two similar notches on top are just from the flipped version.
Thus the two notches on top can be ignored, leaving the single notch in the middle. A square kanji with a single notch on top and single line in the middle is 白.
Now this shows an incredible ability to rotate 3D shapes in the mind. Most of these participants are not only good at kanji but also at mathematics. These two factors are not a coincidence for these graduates of the top Japanese universities.
Question 1 – “that deppari looks like child!”
Another reliance on deppari, but a different type of it. Deppari just means bits sticking out, and the top part of 子 appears in several kanji but is fairly recognisable. 鶴崎さん points out that this deppari just looks like 子 to him.
Question 2 – “I’m too dependent on font”
須貝さん has a great bit of insight to realise that with this style of font, square shapes are going to have a bit of overlap because of the difference of height on the bottom stroke.
山本さん blames the font and gets called out by 須貝さん.
Question 3 – “That bit that is thrusting out”
Next up is a similar kind of clue to the でっぱり, but is referred to as a 飛び出し とびだし. You see this word on signs in neighbourhoods to warn drivers that kids may run out from behind alleys or corners.
須貝さん refers to it as a ‘characteristic bit that is thrusting out’ and 山本さん worked out it was 品.
He makes the remark that once you have worked out how many times its been rotated, you know the orientation you should be looking at it in. This is also the answer for question 4. There is no logic given for the choice of question 5 either.
Question 6 – “Now there’s no stilts!”
This question and question 5 are why I like this channel so much. The producer is really good at coming up with difficult variations on the same problem so while the contestants think they’ve found a trick, it won’t work for everything.
This time the character of 昼 was used but the starting position was that it was upside down, then rotated twice, 130 degrees each time. This means you no longer have the 高床式 stilts on the bottom.
Final Question – “what’s with that perfectly drawn hexagon in the middle?!?”
鶴崎さん points out that the two distinctive legs likely means that he can get the correct orientation of the character that at least one example is written that is not flipped (ie it is how it would normally appear).
But then we have an issue that there could be a vertical stick going through, that can be seen amongst all the other lines, but this is an issue as we have an opening in the centre.
He then does some air drawing of kanji that have a line on top or on bottom, and then the legs. The kanji that pops into his head is 光.
I was able to watch this video and understand the points in detail and all those explanations you read above are my thoughts based on the video.
I can teach you to understand kanji to this degree as well, it’s not impossible!
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