In Japan, nearly every public restroom has a blue picture of a man on the men’s room door and a red picture of a woman on the ladies’ room door.
But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, especially at places that don’t get many foreign customers, the doors with be marked with black kanji symbols for male and female on the respective doors.
Would you be able to find the correct restroom? Take this two-question quiz to see.
For this quiz, this symbol will be “no. 1”.
For this quiz, this symbol will be “no. 2”.
How did you do? Did you know the answers, of just guess them? Tell me in the comments section!
Tokyo Five 
I admit I have been studying Japanese which is why I know them, but I feel like they resemble a bit the woman and man icons that are commonly used in the US to indicate public restrooms–like the woman kanji looks a little like it is a person wearing a dress,with hips, and the man kanji has the 2 legs and is more straight up and down.
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>I admit I have been studying Japanese which is why I know them
How long have you been studying Japanese?
>but I feel like they resemble a bit the woman and man icons that are commonly used in the US to indicate public restrooms
Really? I guess I’m just used to them. I don’t see any “image” when I look at them.
About 70% of the people who took this quiz got the answers correct, so maybe they do look as you explained…or maybe most people just made “lucky guesses”. π
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I remember them by means of mental pictograms. A technique I learned from my 2nd Japanese Sense.
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I know about that technique. I learned kanji, though, just by repeatedly writing them.
By the way, do you like udon noodles? π
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Failed! LOL!
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Don’t feel bad…about 1/4 of the people who have taken it so far have failed it.
And now you’ve learned two useful kanji characters!
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I guessed to be honest based on how the kanji looked. Not to be too crude, it looks like someone sitting, for the female kanji and someone in front of a urinal for the male. Possibly strange perception of the kanji as it is, but not totally illogical π
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Thanks for taking the quiz…and for leaving a comment!
I guess I should’ve been more clear in this post…these kanji don’t mean “men’s restroom” and “ladies’ restroom“—they mean “man” and “woman”.
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