Japanese fonts or specific Japanese characters, different from Chinese

[novemberfog]

Are common japanese people able to read 旧字体? Or is it like mainland China, where certain portions of the population can't read traditional?

My coworkers cannot read a lot of the things that appear in my traditional character Chinese books (folk stories actually). But they enjoy trying to guess. However, they can make a guess at the simplified Chinese quite often and are correct.

Now, my Korean friend is really amazing, he can understand a lot of the old characters that can be seen at temples in Japan. I asked my Japanese friend and he did not know, so then the Korean guy explained it to me. .

[atitarev]

My coworkers cannot read a lot of the things that appear in my traditional character Chinese books (folk stories actually). But they enjoy trying to guess. However, they can make a guess at the simplified Chinese quite often and are correct.

Now, my Korean friend is really amazing, he can understand a lot of the old characters that can be seen at temples in Japan. I asked my Japanese friend and he did not know, so then the Korean guy explained it to me. .

Koreans learn traditional characters (when and if they do), Japanese, as discussed in this thread, have quite a number of characters simplified, some of them similar to Chinese simplified, some of them are different from both simpl./trad., their own way of simplification.

[atitarev]

Cool links on the topic:

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ax2s-kmtn/ref/old_chara.html

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/lt/cl/koten/newold.htm

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E5%AD%97%E4%BD%93

I get "precondition failed" error on this URL

kanji DOT ifdef DOT jp SLASH japanese.html

[famitsudc]

Both of my teachers from Japanese school were able to read Pre-WWII texts fine and they only couldn't recognize a couple of characters. My one couldn't read 寶 and 體 I had to explain to her that it was 宝 and 体. My teacher said that her parents would use them even after the war and that's how she picked up on them.