What is it with me and databases? Probably a distraction to keep me away from actually learning Japanese....

Anyway, after musing on japanese!japanese! about the expanding spider's web of compounds, that grows with the addition of each new character, surprise surprise, off goes Barnes with his Lego-Meccano-StickleBricks database-making toy. Half an hour later, the wondrous kanji/compounds database. Probably a complete waste of time, but good for a laugh. And who knows...

You enter each character as a 'record' on one page. On a separate page, you enter compounds made from characters you've already entered.

Then, as if by magic, on the 'kanji' page there appear two lists that include the compounds that kanji features in - one where the kanji comes in the first position, one where it comes in the second.

One thing it's good for is making sense of the different pronunciations of the same character.

It remains to be seen whether the benefits outweigh the time needed to keep the thing updated.

Here's an example page:-




The number at the right of each compound (16 for each of those above) is the JLPT level of each of the two kanji multiplied together. So each of the compounds above comprises two 'level 4' kanji.