[11]漢字：Kanji

I know it is hard for learners of Japanese to learn Kanji.
However, Kanji is also difficult for even Japanese, particularly in the case of place-name!

For example, “東仲間町” in the above bus stop sign is capable of reading some different patterns, HIGASHI NAKAMA CHO, HIGASHI NAKAMA MACHI, HIGASHI CHUKAN MACHI, TOH CHUKAN CHO, etc., but HIGASHI CHUGEN MACHI is correct reading.

As you know, one Kanji has one or more different “readings” and children in Japan study them at school. Nevertheless, there are many place-names of Kanji which have special readings and Japanese can’t read without “hiragana” because Kanji readings of place-names sometimes turn to be unique. This kind of thing won’t happen except Japan (probably Chinese, too), for other countries basically have only one kind of character like alphabet unlike Japan. By the way, these bus stop sign also include alphabet. This town is not urban like Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya, but the wave of globalization is gradually spreading without a doubt.