宮 palace

This is a total COCK. First of all, in the modern age, there ARE no palaces in Japan that even use this -when I show my Japanese friends this kanji, they're like, "Oh you mean Versailles?"

Second, even if you go back to the Heian period when there were palaces galore, 宮　is used as a suffix, and it's pronounced ぐう, as in JermaineGUU (Jermaine's Palace). But in people's names, it's pronounced MIYA, and in NON-place-name jukugo it's KYUU. What the palatial fuck!

My bad, I guess the Emperor's house is technically a 宮.

But even then (or at Versailles, for that matter!) a Japanese tourist would never say "Hey Mieko! Get a load of that classy MIYA!"

So, in short, the KUNyomi is only used in people's last names, and the only useful ONyomi (きゅう) is actually an exception - all the other (useless) jukugo use ぐう.

Aren't you glad you're learning Japanese now?