What is the difference between 賢明 and 聡明?


Both of these words seem to mean "wise, sensible, sagacious". What is the
difference between them?

I guess the difference actually mainly comes down to: what is the difference
between the kanji 賢 and 聡, since a similar question can be made about the
difference between 賢い and 聡い.




聡明 almost always modifies a person.

  * 聡明な人物
  * 彼の聡明さは社内でも有名である。

賢明 tends to modify a decision or strategy (判断/選択/戦略/etc), but it can modify a
person.

  * あなたは賢明な選択をするべきです。
  * 2人の主張を両方聞いておく方が賢明でしょう。

When they describe a person, I think 聡明 focuses on one's intelligence (e.g.,
"being good at debates", "being able to understand difficult math concepts"),
wheres 賢明 focuses on one's judiciousness (e.g., "makes a good decision when in
trouble").

> I guess the difference actually mainly comes down to 賢い and 聡い

I think you are over-analyzing. 賢い and 聡い both mean "clever/smart" and I don't
think there is a big semantic difference. The biggest difference is frequency;
the latter is fairly uncommon today, and you almost never hear it in modern
conversations.

