Japan Adds Kanji to Education List, Includes ‘Depression’
This article is for subscribers only.
Japan’s Ministry of Education will add 196 kanji to its list of common characters, the first change since the list was established in 1981, as the spread of computers allows writers to type out difficult characters.
The “Joyo Kanji,” a standardized list of 1,945 characters taught to Japanese students through high school, will be expanded to 2,136 characters starting tomorrow, said Yasuhiro Takeda, a researcher at the ministry’s language division. Five kanji will be removed from the list.