A poll conducted by the Agency of Cultural Affairs in February and March on various issues related to the Japanese language offers interesting insight into people's attitude toward kanji — the Chinese characters that are an indispensable part of Japan's linguistic culture.

A total of 1,943 people responded. In response to a multiple-choice question, 60 percent said they rely on dictionaries in book form when they cannot write kanji correctly; 35 percent, on the kanji-conversion function of a mobile phone; 21 percent, on the kanji-conversion function of a word processor or personal computer; 19 percent, on an electronic dictionary; and 10 percent depend on an Internet dictionary.

Among young people, mobile phones have become an important means of finding kanji they are not sure about. The poll shows that 79 percent of those in their 20s and 62 percent in their 30s use the kanji-conversion function of a mobile phone; while 35 percent of the first group and 46 percent of the second group use book-form dictionaries. But it must be remembered that the kanji appearing on a mobile phone are not necessarily exact.