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For example:

  • 一日{いちにち} = one day (duration);
  • 一日{ついたち} = first day of the month.

First of all, are the meanings correct? Because I found contradicting answers.
I suspect the meanings are overlapping in some cases?

Then, after a quick search, I found out that okurigana is efficient to disambiguate them. Didn't the author mean furigana instead? Maybe I didn't grasp something here.

Lastly, what are the most important (to know)/most frequent homographic Kanji out there?

Alenanno
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  • I didn't find a tag with "homographic-kanji", I'll create a tag wiki for that. – Alenanno Oct 11 '11 at 10:02
  • "duration" would be 一日中 – Axioplase Oct 11 '11 at 10:14
  • Can 一日 also be duration? Maybe a less precise and more general term than 一日中? – Alenanno Oct 11 '11 at 10:16
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    Actually 一日中 means throughout the day, and 一日 can be used as a durational count. – Flaw Oct 11 '11 at 10:32
  • @Flaw Thanks, yeah I noticed that too when I looked it up. I suppose your comment means the two meanings are quite different. – Alenanno Oct 11 '11 at 10:38
  • I think that the tag name [homographic-kanji] should be changed to [homographs]. I posted this on meta, so if you or anyone has a comment on this, please post there instead of here. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 11 '11 at 11:20
  • Note that ついたち has its own special kanji that can be used: 朔【ついたち】 or 朔日【ついたち】. Although I don't know how (un)commonly they may be used. As for the disambiguation, I think the context of where they appear should be enough. – istrasci Oct 11 '11 at 14:18
  • @Alenanno You are right. The author probably mistook furigana and okurigana. Maybe the author is a non-native. If okurigana is different, then there wont be an issue of ambiguity. For example, 切ない reads 'せつない, and切れない` reads 'きれない'. –  Oct 11 '11 at 15:36
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    Can someone please explain the close vote? It's not helpful to vote to close a question that actually shows a real problem, especially without giving an explanation for that close vote. In this case then, about close-vote reason that was "NARQ", I'd like to ask who voted: please, stand up and explain why my question would be "ambiguous, vague, incomplete, or rhetorical" and why it can't be "reasonably answered in its current form." Thank you – Alenanno Oct 12 '11 at 15:48
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    @Alenanno: I voted NARQ. You'll notice I tried to answer (even before voting). Trying to answer convinced me the question, as is, wasn't proper. And it's also one single vote; you don't have to take that badly. As far as I know, the question is still open, as the community decided… – Axioplase Oct 13 '11 at 05:27
  • @Axioplase Thanks for responding. I was not really taking it badly, I was mostly wondering why there was no explanation about it (but I was a bit surprised too, honestly, because it didn't seem like a "NARQ" question). Anyway, if you tell me what was not proper in your opinion, I'd appreciate it! Thanks. P.S. Just to be clear, I have no problem with you! :) – Alenanno Oct 13 '11 at 10:12

1 Answers1

2

First of all, are the meanings correct?

Yes, you are right.

Then, after a quick search, I found out that okurigana is efficient to disambiguate them. Didn't the author mean furigana instead?

Yes, he's wrong.

Lastly, what are the most important (to know)/most frequent homographic Kanji out there?

Err, all the X中, where 中 is read ちゅう or じゅう.
And also

今日 -- こんにち(today, nowadays, or in "こんにちは")/きょう(today),
明日 -- あす/あした/みょうにち、
昨日 -- さくじつ/きのう
今年 -- こんねん/ことし…

Basically, the "on.yomi" is more formal than the other readings.

I have no idea how to rank anything (which I can't even remember) by importance… I'd like to say that there aren't that many, and that answering would be vain, barely a useful information (if you ignore proper nouns…)

chocolate
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Axioplase
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  • Your answer is good enough, but about the examples... I was not really requiring a "rank" type of list... Just a small list, or some examples, about some expressions that have the same issues. Something on the lines of "These are the most known exceptions" for grammar. :) And 今日 is also read こんにち? I thought it only was きょう... – Alenanno Oct 13 '11 at 10:18
  • Yes, "こんにち" means "nowadays". – Axioplase Oct 13 '11 at 10:39
  • Great! So きょう means "today" and こんにち means "nowadays"? If you organize that part of the answer to highlight these differences, it'd be wonderful! I was looking for something like that. :) – Alenanno Oct 13 '11 at 10:43