Basic Japanese for reading go books
黒 先 白 死
To read and enjoy Japanese go books, you only need to learn a very small number of kanji. Of course, that number won't let you understand every word of a discussion book. But many books of tsumego and tesuji problems use a convenient format of headers and titles that use a limited set of kanji.
First, you want to know whether the problem is Black to play or White to play. So the first kanji to learn are these two colours.
Black 黒
White 白
There are two common patterns for indicating who is to play.
Turn 番
First 先
That's enough to get started!
Sometimes the desired result is given in the problem. Or the result may be mentioned in the answer. Typical results are living, killing, and making a ko. There are also two different kanji used for life. Also ko is often written in katakana or kanji.
Death 死
Alive 生 き
Life 活
Ko コ ウ
Ko 劫
So here are some typical combinations
Black to play 黒 番
Black to play and live 黒 先 生 き
Black to play and kill White 黒 先 白 死
White to play and live 白 先 生 き
White to play and kill Black 白 先 黒 死
Next, it helps to know which answer diagram is correct. They are usually labeled.
Correct 正 解
Failure 失 敗
So here are the most important kanji.
黒, 白, 番, 先,
死, 生 き, 活, コ ウ, 劫,
正 解, 失 敗.
Links to pages showing the kanji with nice fonts and animated strokes
Home Page: http://www.gahoh.com/home.html
Black (kuro) http://www.gahoh.com/movie/kanji/11kaku/koku3975.html
White (shiro) http://www.gahoh.com/movie/kanji/05kaku/haku4772.html
SnotNose: Much appreciated if someone could add the character(s) for "seki" (a.k.a., "dual life").
kokiri: If my memory isn't lying, it's pretty much always rendered in kana:
セキ
Whether there's a kanji used in older texts (as with ko) I don't know.
John F. Yes, there is. Same one as in motsu.
RafaelCaetano: Note that the notion of "live group" includes "alive in seki". So if the problem says "Black to live", a move which leads to a seki might be the correct answer. I'm pointing this out because I've noticed that many people assume that "seki" is somehow "not really alive" or otherwise a very undesirable result.
kokiri indeed, there's a quasi proverb to the tune of, 'seki is alive'. The japanese problem sets I have seen often include sekis in 'black to play and live' problems, but the description of the problem often makes a fairly heavy handed hint to the tune of 'don't forget that seki is also life'.
Extra Kanji that one may encounter in books:
正 解 図 Solution diagram
参 考 図 Reference diagram
変 化 図 Variation diagram
点 Spot, point (example: at
:
(1 の 点))
右 Right (example to the right of
:
(1 の 右))
左 Left (example to the left of
:
(1 の 左))
Often books will use the Iroha (いろは) to indicate additional moves. The first seven additional moves in order based upon the Iroha are: イ, ロ, ハ, ニ, ホ, ヘ, ト
Bruce? I found this fascinating page from an old book:
http://www10.plala.or.jp/koten/hon/T/gennkonmeika.htm
The diagram uses katakana in iroha order for the top coordinates. Hiragana in iroha order are used, as mentioned in the comment above, to indicate additional moves.
The move numbers are in kanji, but use a positional notation instead of the usual Sino-Japanese method: instead of 2,10,2 for twenty-two, just 2,2 is used.
Does anyone know if this continues for numbers over 99? Would move 154 be 1,5,4?
unkx80: I do not know whether this continues for numbers over 99 (it is hard to squeeze three characters in the limited space), but 154 would be 1,5,4.
Disclaimer: I do not read Japanese. However, the kanji characters are exactly the same as Chinese characters, so I can read the moves. By the way, the really old Chinese Go literature use the same format too, except for the characters used for the coordinates.
Japanese translation guide for Go games from Ishi Press: http://www.ishigames.com/jtg.htm