Kanji Readings

So you want to know how to read Kanji? You came to the right place!

Basically…

Kanji is one of Japan’s alphabets. It has multiple readings, which falls into two types, Onyomi and Kunyomi.

https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/

A little Deeper

First, let’s look at what Kanji is. If you already know what Kanji is you can just skip this part.

What is Kanji?

In short, Kanji is one of Japan’s alphabets. You can think of Kanji as symbols representing things or ideas.

For example, look at the symbol below:



This symbol represents recycling. Kanji is kind of like that.
Take the Kanji below,

雨

This symbol (Kanji) represents rain in Japanese.

It is said that there are over 180,000 kanji in Japanese. Don’t worry though, most people have never even seen that many, and Japanese only use from 1000 to 2000 in everyday life.

Each Kanji has more than two readings

So, how do you read Kanji? You may think that there is only one reading for each Kanji. Actually, most Kanji have at least two or more readings.

For example:

雨 (rain)

This can be read as, u and ame.

Ok, but why so many readings?

Well, Kanji originally came from China.
When Kanji was first brought over to Japan, the Chinese told the Japanese that the symbol 雨 meant rain and was pronounced in Chinese as u.

And the Japanese said,

“oh, I see. We call rain, ame in Japanese”.

So in the end, the Japanese read 雨 all of the above, u and ame.
That is why Kanji has multiple readings.

Onyomi and Kunyomi

Kanji readings are separated into two types.
One is Onyomi the other is called Kunyomi.

Onyomi is what we call the Chinese-based sounds (although they are not exactly the same as in Chinese).

So, looking at the Kanji 雨,

u would be Onyomi

Kunyomi is what we call the Japanese sounds.

So, looking at the Kanji 雨,

ame would be Kunyomi.

Almost every Kanji has Onyomi and Kunyomi.
So, there are 2000 commonly used kanjis, plus multiple readings? That sounds like a pretty high hurdle to jump! Right? But don’t worry. Once you start learning Japanese, it will come naturally to you. And you don’t need to remember everything.

Putting it all Together

So, when you see kanji, just think of it as symbols with multiple readings.