Kanji

Kanji ( 漢字 , pronounced [kaɲdʑi] ( listen)) are the adopted

Kanji
logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing
system.[1] They are used alongside the Japanese syllabic scripts Script type Logographic
hiragana and katakana. The Japanese term kanji for the Chinese Time 5th century AD –
characters literally means "Han characters".[2] It is written with the period present
same characters as in Traditional Chinese to refer to the character
writing system, hanzi ( ).[3] Although some Kanji will have Languages Old Japanese,
similar meaning and pronunciation as Chinese, some can have very Japanese, Ryukyuan
different meanings and pronunciations as well e.g. 誠 , meaning languages
'honest' in both Chinese and Japanese, is pronounced makoto or sei in Related scripts
Japanese, but pronounced chéng in Chinese (Standard).
Parent Oracle bone script
systems
Seal script
Contents Clerical script
History
Regular script
Orthographic reform and lists of kanji
Kyōiku kanji Kanji
Jōyō kanji
Sister Hanja, Zhuyin,
Jinmeiyō kanji systems traditional Chinese,
Hyōgai kanji
simplified Chinese,
Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji
Nom, Khitan script,
Gaiji
Jurchen script,
Total number of kanji Tangut script, Yi
Readings script
On'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading) ISO 15924
Kun'yomi (native reading) ISO 15924 Hani, , Han (Hanzi,
Ateji Kanji, Hanja)
Gairaigo
Unicode
Mixed readings
Unicode Han
Special readings alias
Single character gairaigo
Other readings
When to use which reading
Ambiguous readings
Place names
Pronunciation assistance
Spelling words
Dictionaries
Local developments and divergences from Chinese
Kokuji
 Kokkun
Types of kanji by category
Shōkei moji (象形⽂字)
Shiji moji (指事⽂字)
Kaii moji (会意⽂字)
Keisei moji (形声⽂字)
Tenchū moji (転注⽂字)
Kasha moji (仮借⽂字)
Related symbols
Collation
Kanji education
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
External links
Glyph conversion

History
Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters,
swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from
China. The earliest known instance of such an import was the King of
Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Wa emissary in
57 AD.[4] Chinese coins from the first century AD have been found
in Yayoi period archaeological sites.[5] However, the Japanese of that Nihon Shoki (720 AD), considered by
era probably had no comprehension of the script, and would remain historians and archeologists as the
illiterate until the fifth century AD.[5] According to the Nihon Shoki most complete extant historical
and Kojiki, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani (Japanese: 王仁 ) record of ancient Japan, was written
entirely in kanji.
was dispatched to Japan by the Kingdom of Baekje during the reign
of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him
knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters.[6]

The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at
the Yamato court.[5] For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of
Liu Song in 478 has been praised for its skillful use of allusion. Later, groups of people called fuhito were
organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese. During the reign of Empress Suiko (593–
628), the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large
increase in Chinese literacy at the Japanese court.[6]

In ancient times paper was so rare that people stenciled kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood. These
wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported
between various countries, and the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far was
written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to the 7th century. It is a record of trading for cloth and salt.[7]
[No longer mentioned in source]

The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were
written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period (794–1185), however, a system known as
kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to
restructure and read Chinese sentences, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in
accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.

Chinese characters also came to be used to write Japanese words, resulting in the modern kana syllabaries.
Around 650 AD, a writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū)
evolved that used a number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. Man'yōgana
written in cursive style evolved into hiragana, or onna-de, that is, "ladies' hand,"[8] a writing system that was
accessible to women (who were denied higher education). Major works of Heian-era literature by women
were written in hiragana. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to
a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana, referred to
collectively as kana, are descended from kanji. In comparison to kana ( 仮名 , "provisional character") kanji are
also called mana ( 真名 , "true name, true character").

In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the language (usually content words) such as nouns,
adjective stems, and verb stems, while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings and as
phonetic complements to disambiguate readings (okurigana), particles, and miscellaneous words which have
no kanji or whose kanji is considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are mostly used
for representing onomatopoeia, non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese), the
names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words.

Orthographic reform and lists of kanji

In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of
Japan, the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander
of the Allied Powers, instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to
help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and
periodicals. The number of characters in circulation was reduced, and
formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school
were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs,
called shinjitai ( 新字体 ). Many variant forms of characters and
obscure alternatives for common characters were officially
discouraged.

These are simply guidelines, so many characters outside these

standards are still widely known and commonly used; these are
known as hyōgaiji ( 表外字 ).

Kyōiku kanji
A young woman practicing kanji.
Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Yōshū The kyōiku kanji ( 教育漢字 , lit. "education kanji") are the 1,026 first
Chikanobu, 1897. kanji characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school,
from first grade to sixth grade. The grade-level breakdown is known
as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō ( 学年別漢字配当表 ), or the
gakushū kanji ( 学習漢字 ). This list of kanji is maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education and
prescribes which kanji characters and which kanji readings students should learn for each grade.
Jōyō kanji

The jōyō kanji (常⽤漢字 , regular-use kanji) are 2,136 characters consisting of all the Kyōiku kanji, plus 1,130
additional kanji taught in junior high and high school.[9] In publishing, characters outside this category are
often given furigana. The jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters
known as the tōyō kanji ( 当⽤漢字 , general-use kanji), introduced in 1946. Originally numbering 1,945
characters, the jōyō kanji list was expanded to 2,136 in 2010. Some of the new characters were previously
阪熊奈岡⿅梨⾩埼茨栃 媛
Jinmeiyō kanji; some are used to write prefecture names: , , , , , , , , , and .

Jinmeiyō kanji

As of September 25, 2017, the jinmeiyō kanji ( ⼈名⽤漢字 , kanji for use in personal names) consists of 863
characters. Kanji on this list are mostly used in people's names and some are traditional variants of jōyō kanji.
There were only 92 kanji in the original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently.
Sometimes the term jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2,999 kanji from both the jōyō and jinmeiyō lists combined.

Hyōgai kanji

Hyōgai kanji ( 表外漢字 , "unlisted characters") are any kanji not contained in the jōyō kanji and jinmeiyō kanji
lists. These are generally written using traditional characters, but extended shinjitai forms exist.

Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji

The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define character code-points for each kanji and kana, as
well as other forms of writing such as the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic script, Greek alphabet, Arabic numerals, etc.
for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are:

JIS X 0208,[10] the most recent version of the main standard. It has 6,355 kanji.
JIS X 0212,[11] a supplementary standard containing a further 5,801 kanji. This standard is
rarely used, mainly because the common Shift JIS encoding system could not use it. This
standard is effectively obsolete;
JIS X 0213,[12] a further revision which extended the JIS X 0208 set with 3,695 additional kanji,
of which 2,743 (all but 952) were in JIS X 0212. The standard is in part designed to be
compatible with Shift JIS encoding;
JIS X 0221:1995, the Japanese version of the ISO 10646/Unicode standard.

Gaiji

Gaiji ( 外字 , literally "external characters") are kanji that are not represented in existing Japanese encoding
systems. These include variant forms of common kanji that need to be represented alongside the more
conventional glyph in reference works, and can include non-kanji symbols as well.

Gaiji can be either user-defined characters or system-specific characters. Both are a problem for information
interchange, as the code point used to represent an external character will not be consistent from one computer
or operating system to another.

Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997, and JIS X 0213-2000 used the range of code-points
previously allocated to gaiji, making them completely unusable. Nevertheless, they persist today with NTT
DoCoMo's "i-mode" service, where they are used for emoji (pictorial characters).
Unicode allows for optional encoding of gaiji in private use areas, while Adobe's SING (Smart INdependent
Glyphlets)[13][14] technology allows the creation of customized gaiji.

The Text Encoding Initiative uses a <g> element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including
gaiji.[15] (The g stands for "gaiji".)[16]

Total number of kanji

There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The Dai
Kan-Wa Jiten, which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The
Zhonghua Zihai, published in 1994 in China, contains about 85,000 characters, but the majority of them are
not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms.[17][18][19]

A list of 2,136 jōyō kanji ( 常⽤漢字 ) is regarded as necessary for functional literacy in Japanese.
Approximately a thousand more characters are commonly used and readily understood by the majority in
Japan and a few thousand more find occasional use, especially in specialized fields of study but those may be
obscure to most out of context. A total of 13,108 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial
Standards for kanji.

Readings
Because of the way they have been adopted into Japanese, a single Borrowing typology of Han
kanji may be used to write one or more different words—or, in some characters
cases, morphemes—and thus the same character may be pronounced
Meaning Pronunciation
in different ways. From the reader's point of view, kanji are said to
have one or more different "readings". Although more than one a) L1 L1
reading may become activated in the brain,[21] deciding which semantic
reading is appropriate depends on recognizing which word it on
represents, which can usually be determined from context, intended b) L1 L2
meaning, whether the character occurs as part of a compound word
semantic
or an independent word, and sometimes location within the sentence.
For example, 今⽇ is usually read kyō, meaning "today", but in kun
formal writing is instead read konnichi, meaning "nowadays"; this is c) — L1
understood from context. Nevertheless, some cases are ambiguous phonetic
and require a furigana gloss, which are also used simply for difficult on
readings or to specify a non-standard reading.
d) — L2
Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi ( ⾳読み , literally phonetic
"sound reading", from Chinese) or kun'yomi ( 訓読み , literally kun
"meaning reading", native Japanese), and most characters have at *With L1 representing the language
least two readings, at least one of each.
borrowed from (Chinese) and L2

However, some characters have only a single reading, such as kiku representing the borrowing language

菊 鰯
( , "chrysanthemum", an on-reading) or iwashi ( , "sardine", a (Japanese).[20]
kun-reading); kun-only are common for Japanese-coined kanji
(kokuji).

Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is , which is ⽣
read as sei, shō, nama, ki, o-u, i-kiru, i-kasu, i-keru, u-mu, u-mareru, ha-eru, and ha-yasu, totaling eight basic
readings (the first two are on, while the rest are kun), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct; see
⽣
okurigana § for details.
Most often, a character will be used for both sound and meaning, and it is simply a matter of choosing the
correct reading based on which word it represents.

On'yomi (Sino-Japanese reading)

The on'yomi ( ⾳読み , [oɰ̃jomi], lit. "sound(-based) reading"), the Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern
descendant of the Japanese approximation of the base Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was
introduced. It was often previously referred to as translation reading, as it was recreated readings of the
Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English
pronunciation of Latin loanwords. Old Japanese scripts often stated that on'yomi readings were also created by
the Japanese during their arrival and re-borrowed by the Chinese as their own. There also exist kanji created
by the Japanese and given an on'yomi reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating
character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple
on'yomi, and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan (kokuji) would not normally be expected to
働
have on'yomi, but there are exceptions, such as the character "to work", which has the kun'yomi "hataraku"
and the on'yomi "dō", and 腺 "gland", which has only the on'yomi "sen"—in both cases these come from the
on'yomi of the phonetic component, respectively 動 "dō" and 泉"sen".

Generally, on'yomi are classified into four types according to their region and time of origin:

Go-on ( 呉⾳ , "Wu sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Northern and
Southern dynasties of China during the 5th and 6th centuries. Go refers to the Wu region (in the
vicinity of modern Shanghai), which still maintains linguistic similarities with modern Sino-
Japanese vocabulary. See also: Wu Chinese and Shanghainese language.
Kan-on ( 漢⾳ , "Han sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Tang dynasty of
China in the 7th to 9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital, Chang'an
(modern Xi'an). Here, Kan refers to Han Chinese people or China proper.
Tō-on ( 唐⾳ , "Tang sound") readings are from the pronunciations of later dynasties of China,
such as the Song and Ming. They cover all readings adopted from the Heian era to the Edo
period. This is also known as Tōsō-on ( 唐宋⾳
, Tang and Song sound).
Kan'yō-on ( 慣⽤⾳ , "customary sound") readings, which are mistaken or changed readings of
the kanji that have become accepted into the Japanese language. In some cases, they are the
actual readings that accompanied the character's introduction to Japan, but do not match how
the character "should" (is prescribed to) be read according to the rules of character construction
and pronunciation.

The most common form of readings is the kan-on one, and use of a non-kan-on reading in a word where the
kan-on reading is well known is a common cause of reading mistakes or difficulty, such as in ge-doku ( 解毒 ,
detoxification, anti-poison) (go-on), where 解 is usually instead read as kai. The go-on readings are especially
common in Buddhist terminology such as gokuraku ( 極楽 , paradise), as well as in some of the earliest loans,
such as the Sino-Japanese numbers. The tō-on readings occur in some later words, such as isu ( 椅⼦ , chair),
布団
futon ( , mattress), and andon (⾏灯 , a kind of paper lantern). The go-on, kan-on, and tō-on readings are
generally cognate (with rare exceptions of homographs; see below), having a common origin in Old Chinese,
and hence form linguistic doublets or triplets, but they can differ significantly from each other and from
modern Chinese pronunciation.

In Chinese, most characters are associated with a single Chinese sound, though there are distinct literary and
colloquial readings. However, some homographs ( pinyin: duōyīnzì) such as ⾏
(háng or xíng)
(Japanese: an, gō, gyō) have more than one reading in Chinese representing different meanings, which is
reflected in the carryover to Japanese as well. Additionally, many Chinese syllables, especially those with an
entering tone, did not fit the largely consonant-
vowel (CV) phonotactics of classical Japanese. Examples (rare readings in parentheses)
Thus most on'yomi are composed of two morae Kanji Meaning Go-on Kan-on Tō-on Kan'yō-on
(beats), the second of which is either a lengthening
of the vowel in the first mora (to ei, ō, or ū), the 明 bright myō mei (min) —
vowel i, or one of the syllables ku, ki, tsu, chi, fu
(historically, later merged into ō and ū), or moraic
⾏ go
gyō
gō
kō
kō
(an) —

n, chosen for their approximation to the final

consonants of Middle Chinese. It may be that
極 extreme goku kyoku — —

palatalized consonants before vowels other than i 珠 pearl shu shu ju (zu)
developed in Japanese as a result of Chinese
borrowings, as they are virtually unknown in 度 degree do (to) — —

words of native Japanese origin, but are common 輸 transport (shu) (shu) — yu
in Chinese.
雄 masculine — — — yū
On'yomi primarily occur in multi-kanji compound
words (熟語 , jukugo), many of which are the result
熊 bear — — — yū

of the adoption, along with the kanji themselves, of ⼦ child shi shi su —
Chinese words for concepts that either did not exist
in Japanese or could not be articulated as elegantly 清 clear shō sei (shin) —

using native words. This borrowing process is 京 capital kyō kei (kin) —
often compared to the English borrowings from
Latin, Greek, and Norman French, since Chinese- 兵 soldier hyō hei — —
borrowed terms are often more specialized, or
considered to sound more erudite or formal, than
強 strong gō kyō — —

their native counterparts (occupying a higher

linguistic register). The major exception to this rule is family names, in which the native kun'yomi are usually
used (though on'yomi are found in many personal names, especially men's names).

Kun'yomi (native reading)

The kun'yomi ( 訓読み , [kɯɰ̃jomi], lit. "meaning reading"), the native reading, is a reading based on the
pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamato kotoba, that closely approximated the meaning of the
Chinese character when it was introduced. As with on'yomi, there can be multiple kun'yomi for the same kanji,
and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all.

東
For instance, the character for east, , has the on'yomi tō, from Middle Chinese tung. However, Japanese
already had two words for "east": higashi and azuma. Thus the kanji 東
had the latter readings added as
⼨
kun'yomi. In contrast, the kanji , denoting a Chinese unit of measurement (about 30 mm or 1.2 inch), has no
native Japanese equivalent; it only has an on'yomi, sun, with no native kun'yomi. Most kokuji, Japanese-
created Chinese characters, only have kun'yomi, although some have back-formed a pseudo-on'yomi by
analogy with similar characters, such as 働 dō, from 動dō, and there are even some, such as 腺
sen "gland",
that have only an on'yomi.

Kun'yomi are characterized by the strict (C)V syllable structure of yamato kotoba. Most noun or adjective
kun'yomi are two to three syllables long, while verb kun'yomi are usually between one and three syllables in
length, not counting trailing hiragana called okurigana. Okurigana are not considered to be part of the internal
reading of the character, although they are part of the reading of the word. A beginner in the language will
rarely come across characters with long readings, but readings of three or even four syllables are not
uncommon. This contrasts with on'yomi, which are monosyllabic, and is unusual in the Chinese family of
scripts, which generally use one character per syllable—not only in Chinese, but also in Korean, Vietnamese,
and Zhuang; polysyllabic Chinese characters are rare and considered non-standard.
承る uketamawaru, 志 kokorozashi, and 詔 mikotonori have five syllables represented by a single kanji, the
longest readings in the jōyō character set. These unusually long readings are due to a single character
representing a compound word:

承る is a single character for a compound verb, one component of which has a long reading.
It has an alternative spelling as 受け賜る u(ke)-tamawa(ru), hence (1+1)+3=5.
Compare common 受け付ける u(ke)-tsu(keru).
志 is a nominalization of the verb 志す which has a long reading kokoroza(su).
This is due to its being derived from a noun-verb compound, ⼼指す kokoro-za(su).
The nominalization removes the okurigana, hence increasing the reading by one mora,
yielding 4+1=5.
Compare common 話 hanashi 2+1=3, from 話す hana(su).
詔 is a triple compound.
It has an alternative spelling 御⾔宣 mi-koto-nori, hence 1+2+2=5.
Further, some Jōyō characters have long non-Jōyō readings (students learn the character, but not the reading),
such as omonpakaru for 慮る .

In a number of cases, multiple kanji were assigned to cover a single Japanese word. Typically when this
occurs, the different kanji refer to specific shades of meaning. For instance, the word なおす , naosu, when
written 治す , means "to heal an illness or sickness". When written 直す it means "to fix or correct something".
Sometimes the distinction is very clear, although not always. Differences of opinion among reference works is
not uncommon; one dictionary may say the kanji are equivalent, while another dictionary may draw
distinctions of use. As a result, native speakers of the language may have trouble knowing which kanji to use
and resort to personal preference or by writing the word in hiragana. This latter strategy is frequently employed
with more complex cases such as もと 元基本下
moto, which has at least five different kanji: , , , , and , the 素
first three of which have only very subtle differences. Another notable example is sakazuki "sake cup", which
杯 盃 巵卮 坏
may be spelt as at least five different kanji: , , / , and ; of these, the first two are common—formally
杯 盃
is a small cup and a large cup.

Local dialectical readings of kanji are also classified under kun'yomi, most notably readings for words in
Ryukyuan languages. Further, in rare cases gairaigo (borrowed words) have a single character associated with
them, in which case this reading is formally classified as a kun'yomi, because the character is being used for
meaning, not sound.

Ateji

当て字 宛字 あてじ
Ateji ( , or ) are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation is still
based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of ateji, narrowly jukujikun). Therefore,
only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also special cases where the
reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading.

The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese varieties, where there are literary and
colloquial readings of Chinese characters—borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed
readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are
related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form doublets and are generally
similar, analogous to different on'yomi, reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese.
Gairaigo

Longer readings exist for non-Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, where a long gairaigo word may be the
reading (this is classed as kun'yomi—see single character gairaigo, below)—the character 糎
has the seven
kana reading センチメートル senchimētoru "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two
half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has
パーセント
the five kana reading pāsento.

Mixed readings

There are many kanji compounds that use a mixture of on'yomi and
kun'yomi, known as jūbako yomi ( 重箱読み , multi-layered food box)
or yutō (湯桶 , hot liquid pail) words (depending on the order), which
are themselves examples of this kind of compound (they are
autological words): the first character of jūbako is read using on'yomi,
the second kun'yomi (on-kun, 重箱読み ). It is the other way around
with yu-tō (kun-on, 湯桶読み ).

Formally, these are referred to as jūbako-yomi ( 重箱読み , jūbako

reading) and yutō-yomi ( 湯桶読み , yutō reading). Note that in both
these words, the on'yomi has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese
generally are derived from sound changes common to loans from
Chinese, hence distinctive of on'yomi. These are the Japanese form of A jūbako (重箱 ), which has a mixed
hybrid words. Other examples include basho ( 場所 , "place", kun-on,
on-kun reading

湯桶読み ⾦⾊
), kin'iro ( , "golden", on-kun, 重箱読み ) and aikidō
合気道
( , the martial art Aikido", kun-on-on, 湯桶読み ).

Ateji often use mixed readings. For instance the city of Sapporo ( サッ
ポロ ), whose name derives from the Ainu language and has no
meaning in Japanese, is written with the on-kun compound 札幌
(which includes sokuon as if it were a purely on compound).

Special readings

Gikun ( 義訓 ) and jukujikun ( 熟字訓 ) are readings of kanji 湯桶

A yutō ( ), which has a mixed
combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' kun-on reading
individual on'yomi or kun'yomi. From the point of view of the
character, rather than the word, this is known as a nankun ( 難訓 ,
difficult reading), and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character.

Gikun are when kanji that are barely or even at all related to their readings in terms of meaning are used, such
as using 寒 冬
meaning "cold" with reading fuyu ("winter"), rather than the standard character . These usages
are typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers, with few exceptions, such
as the spelling of Asuka, ⾶⿃ . Aided with furigana, gikun could be used to convey complex literary or poetic
effect (especially if the readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious.

Jukujikun are when the standard kanji for a word are related to the meaning, but not the sound. The word is
pronounced as a whole, not corresponding to sounds of individual kanji. For example, 今朝
("this morning")
is jukujikun, and read neither as *ima'asa, the kun'yomi of the characters, infrequently as konchō, the on'yomi
of the characters, and not as any combination thereof. Instead it is read as kesa, a native bisyllabic Japanese
word that may be seen as a single morpheme, or as a fusion of kyō (previously kefu), "today", and asa,
"morning". Likewise, 今⽇ ("today") is also jukujikun, usually read with the native reading kyō; its on'yomi,
konnichi, does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in the broader sense "nowadays" or
"current", such as 今⽇的 ("present-day"), although in the phrase konnichi wa ("good day"), konnichi is
typically spelled wholly with hiragana rather than with the kanji 今⽇
.

Jukujikun are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as Yamato ( ⼤和 倭
or , the name of the
dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some
old borrowings, such as shishamo ( 柳葉⿂ , willow leaf fish) from Ainu, tabako ( 煙草
, smoke grass) from
Portuguese, or bīru ( ⻨酒 , wheat alcohol) from Dutch, especially if the word was borrowed before the Meiji
Period. Words whose kanji are jukujikun are often usually written as hiragana (if native), or katakana (if
borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as hiragana, especially Portuguese loanwords such as
かるた
karuta ( ) from Portuguese "carta" (Eng: card), tempura ( てんぷら ) from Portuguese "tempora", and
pan (ぱん ) from Portuguese "pão" (Eng: bread), as well as tabako ( たばこ ).

Sometimes, jukujikun can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being kera ( 啄⽊⿃
,
woodpecker), gumi ( 胡頽⼦ , silver berry/oleaster), [22] and Hozumi ( ⼋⽉朔⽇ , a surname). [23] This
phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound
names, for example when ⻩⾦⾍ , normally read as koganemushi, is shortened to kogane in 黒⻩⾦⾍
kurokogane, although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji anyway.
Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example ⼤元帥
daigen(sui),
or the historical male name suffix 右衛⾨ -emon which was shortened from the word uemon.

Jukujikun are quite varied. Often the kanji compound for jukujikun is idiosyncratic and created for the word,
and where the corresponding Chinese word does not exist; in other cases a kanji compound for an existing
Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and on'yomi may or may not be used in Japanese; for
example, ( 馴⿅ , reindeer) is jukujikun for tonakai, from Ainu, but the on'yomi reading of junroku is also used.
In some cases Japanese coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese, such as ankō ( , 鮟鱇
monkfish).

The underlying word for jukujikun is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have
an existing kanji spelling (either kun'yomi or ateji) or for which a new kanji spelling is produced. Most often
the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb
form or a fusional pronunciation; for example sumō ( 相撲 , sumo) is originally from the verb suma-u ( 争う , to
vie), while kyō (今⽇ , today) is fusional. In rare cases jukujikun is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and
adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word.

Examples of jukujikun for inflectional words follow. The most common example of a jukujikun adjective is
kawai-i (可愛い , cute), originally kawayu-i; the word ( 可愛 ) is used in Chinese, but the corresponding
on'yomi is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either fusawa-shii ( 相応しい , in jukujikun)
or sōō (相応 , in on'yomi) are both used; the -shii ending is because these were formerly a different class of
adjectives. A common example of a verb with jukujikun is haya-ru ( 流⾏る , to spread, to be in vogue),
corresponding to on'yomi ryūkō ( 流⾏ ). A sample jukujikun deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is
強請
yusuri ( , extortion), from yusu-ru ( 強請る , to extort), spelling from kyōsei ( 強請 , extortion). See 義訓
and 熟字訓 for many more examples. Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly,
compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read
using usual kun'yomi; examples include omo-shiro-i ( ⾯⽩い , interesting) face-whitening and zuru-gashiko-i
狡賢い
( , sly).

Typographically, the furigana for jukujikun are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for
inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to the entire word—rather
than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual
phono-semantic readings.
Broadly speaking, jukujikun can be considered a form of ateji, though in narrow usage "ateji" refers
specifically to using characters for sound and not meaning (sound-spelling), rather than meaning and not sound
(meaning-spelling), as in jukujikun.

Many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began life as gikun (improvized meaning-spellings).

Occasionally a single word will have many such kanji spellings; an extreme example is hototogisu (lesser
cuckoo), which may be spelt in a great many ways, including ,杜鵑 時⿃ ⼦規 不如帰 霍公⿃ 蜀魂 沓⼿
, , , , ,
⿃ 杜宇 ⽥鵑 沓直⿃
, , , , and 郭公 —many of these variant spellings are particular to haiku poems.

Single character gairaigo

In some rare cases, an individual kanji has a reading that is borrowed from a modern foreign language
(gairaigo), though most often these words are written in katakana. Notable examples include pēji ( ⾴、ペー
ジ , page), botan (釦∕鈕、ボタン , button), zero (零、ゼロ , zero), and mētoru ( ⽶、メートル , meter). See
list of single character gairaigo for more. These are classed as kun'yomi of a single character, because the
character is being used for meaning only (without the Chinese pronunciation), rather than as ateji, which is the
classification used when a gairaigo term is written as a compound (2 or more characters). However, unlike the
vast majority of other kun'yomi, these readings are not native Japanese, but rather borrowed, so the "kun'yomi"
label can be misleading. The readings are also written in katakana, unlike the usual hiragana for native
kun'yomi. Note that most of these characters are for units, particularly SI units, in many cases using new
characters (kokuji) coined during the Meiji period, such as kiromētoru ( 粁、キロメートル , kilometer, ⽶
千
"meter" + "thousand").

Other readings

Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called nanori ( 名乗り), which are mostly used for names (often
given names) and in general, are closely related to the kun'yomi. Place names sometimes also use nanori or,
occasionally, unique readings not found elsewhere.

For example, there is the surname ⼩⿃遊 (literally, "little birds at play") that implies there are no predators,
such as hawks, present. Pronounced, "kotori asobu". The name then can also mean 鷹がいない (taka ga inai,
literally, "no hawks around") and it can be shortened to be pronounced as Takanashi.[24]

When to use which reading

Although there are general rules for when to use on'yomi and when to use kun'yomi, the language is littered
with exceptions, and it is not always possible for even a native speaker to know how to read a character
without prior knowledge (this is especially true for names, both of people and places); further, a given
character may have multiple kun'yomi or on'yomi. When reading Japanese, one primarily recognizes words
(multiple characters and okurigana) and their readings, rather than individual characters, and only guess
readings of characters when trying to "sound out" an unrecognized word.

Homographs exist, however, which can sometimes be deduced from context, and sometimes cannot, requiring
a glossary. For example, 今⽇ may be read either as kyō "today (informal)" (special fused reading for native
word) or as konnichi "these days (formal)" (on'yomi); in formal writing this will generally be read as konnichi.

In some cases multiple readings are common, as in 豚汁 "pork soup", which is commonly pronounced both as
ton-jiru (mixed on-kun) and buta-jiru (kun-kun), with ton somewhat more common nationally. Inconsistencies
abound—for example ⽜⾁ gyū-niku "beef" and ⽺⾁ yō-niku "mutton" have on-on readings, but 豚⾁
buta-
niku "pork" and 鶏⾁ tori-niku "poultry" have kun-on readings.
The main guideline is that a single kanji followed by okurigana (hiragana characters that are part of the word)
—as used in native verbs and adjectives—always indicates kun'yomi, while kanji compounds (kango) usually
use on'yomi, which is usually kan-on; however, other on'yomi are also common, and kun'yomi are also
commonly used in kango.

For a kanji in isolation without okurigana, it is typically read using their kun'yomi, though there are numerous
exceptions. For example, 鉄 "iron" is usually read with the on'yomi tetsu rather than the kun'yomi kurogane.
Chinese on'yomi which are not the common kan-on reading are a frequent cause of difficulty or mistakes when
encountering unfamiliar words or for inexperienced readers, though skilled natives will recognize the word; a
good example is ge-doku ( 解毒 解
, detoxification, anti-poison) (go-on), where ( ) is usually instead read as kai.

Okurigana ( 送り仮名 ) are used with kun'yomi to mark the inflected ending of a native verb or adjective, or by
convention. Note that Japanese verbs and adjectives are closed class, and do not generally admit new words
(borrowed Chinese vocabulary, which are nouns, can form verbs by adding -suru ( 〜する , to do) at the end,
and adjectives via 〜の 〜な
-no or -na, but cannot become native Japanese vocabulary, which inflect). For
example: ⾚い aka-i "red", 新しい atara-shii "new", ⾒る mi-ru "(to) see". Okurigana can be used to
⾷べる
indicate which kun'yomi to use, as in ⾷う
ta-beru versus ku-u (casual), both meaning "(to) eat", but
開く
this is not always sufficient, as in , which may be read as a-ku or hira-ku, both meaning "(to) open". ⽣ is
a particularly complicated example, with multiple kun and on'yomi—see okurigana: ⽣ for details. Okurigana
is also used for some nouns and adverbs, as in 情け nasake "sympathy", 必ず kanarazu "invariably", but not
⾦
for kane "money", for instance. Okurigana is an important aspect of kanji usage in Japanese; see that article
for more information on kun'yomi orthography

Kanji occurring in compounds (multi-kanji words) ( 熟語 , jukugo) are generally read using on'yomi, especially
for four-character compounds (yojijukugo). Though again, exceptions abound, for example, 情報 jōhō
"information", 学校 gakkō "school", and 新幹線 shinkansen "bullet train" all follow this pattern. This isolated
kanji versus compound distinction gives words for similar concepts completely different pronunciations. 北
"north" and 東 "east" use the kun'yomi kita and higashi, being stand-alone characters, but 北東 "northeast", as
a compound, uses the on'yomi hokutō. This is further complicated by the fact that many kanji have more than
one on'yomi:⽣ is read as sei in 先⽣ sensei "teacher" but as shō in ⼀⽣ isshō "one's whole life". Meaning
can also be an important indicator of reading; 易 is read i when it means "simple", but as eki when it means
"divination", both being on'yomi for this character.

These rules of thumb have many exceptions. Kun'yomi compound words are not as numerous as those with
on'yomi, but neither are they rare. Examples include ⼿紙 tegami "letter", ⽇傘 higasa "parasol", and the
famous 神⾵ kamikaze "divine wind". Such compounds may also have okurigana, such as 空揚げ (also
written唐揚げ 折り紙
) karaage "Chinese-style fried chicken" and origami, although many of these can also
be written with the okurigana omitted (for example, 空揚 折紙or ). In general, compounds coined in Japan
using japanese roots will be read in kun'yomi while those imported from China will be read in on'yomi.

愛
Similarly, some on'yomi characters can also be used as words in isolation: ai "love", Zen, 禅 点
ten "mark,
dot". Most of these cases involve kanji that have no kun'yomi, so there can be no confusion, although
exceptions do occur. Alone ⾦ may be read as kin "gold" or as kane "money, metal"; only context can
determine the writer's intended reading and meaning.

Multiple readings have given rise to a number of homographs, in some cases having different meanings
depending on how they are read. One example is 上⼿ , which can be read in three different ways: jōzu
(skilled), uwate (upper part), or kamite (stage left/house right). In addition, 上⼿い has the reading umai
(skilled). More subtly,明⽇ has three different readings, all meaning "tomorrow": ashita (casual), asu (polite),
and myōnichi (formal). Furigana (reading glosses) is often used to clarify any potential ambiguities.
Conversely, in some cases homophonous terms may be distinguished in writing by different characters, but not
so distinguished in speech, and hence potentially confusing. In some cases when it is important to distinguish
these in speech, the reading of a relevant character may be changed. For example, 私⽴
(privately established,
esp. school) and 市⽴ (city established) are both normally pronounced shi-ritsu; in speech these may be
distinguished by the alternative pronunciations watakushi-ritsu and ichi-ritsu. More informally, in legal jargon
前⽂ 全⽂
"preamble" and "full text" are both pronounced zen-bun, so 前⽂
may be pronounced mae-bun for
clarity, as in "Have you memorized the preamble [not 'whole text'] of the constitution?". As in these examples,
this is primarily using a kun'yomi for one character in a normally on'yomi term.

As stated above, jūbako and yutō readings are also not uncommon. Indeed, all four combinations of reading
are possible: on-on, kun-kun, kun-on and on-kun.

Ambiguous readings

In some instances where even context cannot easily provide clarity for homophones, alternative readings or
mixed readings can be used instead of regular readings to avoid ambiguity. For example:

Ambiguous
Disambiguated readings
reading

baishun ( 売春, "selling sex", on)

baishun
kaishun ( 買春, "buying sex", yutō) [25]

kotobaten ( 辞典, "word dictionary", yutō) [25]

jiten
kototen (事典, "encyclopedia", yutō) [25][26]

mojiten (字典, "character dictionary", irregular, from moji (⽂字, "character")) [25]

kagaku ( 科学, "science", on)

kagaku
bakegaku ( 化学, "chemistry", yutō) [25][26]

Kinoesaru ( 甲申, "Greater-Wood-Monkey year", kun)

甲⾠, "Greater-Wood-Dragon year", kun)
Kinoetatsu (

Kanoesaru (庚申, "Greater-Fire-Monkey year", kun)

Kōshin

Kanoetatsu (庚⾠, "Greater-Fire-Dragon year", kun)

秦
Hatashin ( , "Qin", irregular, from the alternative reading Hata used as a family name)[25][26]

Shin 晋
Susumushin ( , "Jin", irregular, from the alternative reading Susumu used as a
personal name)[25][26]

ichiritsu (市⽴, "municipal", yutō) [25][26]

shiritsu
watakushiritsu ( 私⽴, "private", yutō) [25][26]
Place names

Several famous place names, including those of Japan itself ( ⽇本 Nihon or sometimes Nippon), those of some
東京
cities such as Tokyo ( Tōkyō) and Kyoto ( 京都 Kyōto), and those of the main islands Honshu ( 本州
Honshū), Kyushu ( 九州 Kyūshū), Shikoku ( 四国 Shikoku), and Hokkaido ( 北海道 Hokkaidō) are read with
on'yomi; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read with kun'yomi: ⼤阪 Ōsaka, ⻘森 Aomori,
箱根 Hakone. Names often use characters and readings that are not in common use outside of names. When
characters are used as abbreviations of place names, their reading may not match that in the original. The
Osaka ( ⼤阪 神⼾
) and Kobe ( ) baseball team, the Hanshin ( 阪神 ) Tigers, take their name from the on'yomi of
the second kanji of Ōsaka and the first of Kōbe. The name of the Keisei ( 京成 ) railway line—linking Tokyo
(東京 成⽥
) and Narita ( )—is formed similarly, although the reading of 京 from 東京 is kei, despite kyō
already being an on'yomi in the word Tōkyō.

Japanese family names are also usually read with kun'yomi: ⼭⽥ ⽥中

Yamada, Tanaka, 鈴⽊ Suzuki.
Japanese given names often have very irregular readings. Although they are not typically considered jūbako or
yutō, they often contain mixtures of kun'yomi, on'yomi and nanori, such as ⼤助 Daisuke [on-kun], 夏美
Natsumi [kun-on]. Being chosen at the discretion of the parents, the readings of given names do not follow any
set rules, and it is impossible to know with certainty how to read a person's name without independent
地球 天
verification. Parents can be quite creative, and rumours abound of children called Āsu ("Earth") and
使 Enjeru ("Angel"); neither are common names, and have normal readings chikyū and tenshi respectively.
亮彰明顕
Some common Japanese names can be written in multiple ways, e.g. Akira can be written as , , , ,
章 聴 光 晶 晄 彬 昶 了 秋良 明楽 ⽇⽇⽇ 亜紀良 安喜良
, , , , , , , , , , , , and many other characters and kanji
combinations not listed, 聡 哲 哲史 悟 佐登史 暁 訓 哲⼠ 哲司 敏 諭
[27] Satoshi can be written as , , , , , , , , , , ,
智 佐登司 總 ⾥史 三⼗四 了 智詞
, , , , , , 遥 春⾹ 晴⾹ 遥⾹ 春果
, etc., [28] and Haruka can be written as , , , , ,
晴夏 春賀 春佳
, , , and several other possibilities. [29] Common patterns do exist, however, allowing
experienced readers to make a good guess for most names. To alleviate any confusion on how to pronounce
the names of other Japanese people, most official Japanese documents require Japanese to write their names in
both kana and kanji.[23]

Chinese place names and Chinese personal names appearing in Japanese texts, if spelled in kanji, are almost
invariably read with on'yomi. Especially for older and well-known names, the resulting Japanese
pronunciation may differ widely from that used by modern Chinese speakers. For example, Mao Zedong's
name is pronounced as Mō Takutō ( ⽑沢東 ) in Japanese, and the name of the legendary Monkey King, Sun
Wukong, is pronounced Son Gokū ( 孫悟空 ) in Japanese.

Today, Chinese names that are not well known in Japan are often spelled in katakana instead, in a form much
more closely approximating the native Chinese pronunciation. Alternatively, they may be written in kanji with
katakana furigana. Many such cities have names that come from non-Chinese languages like Mongolian or
Manchu. Examples of such not-well-known Chinese names include:

Japanese name
English name
Rōmaji Katakana Kanji

Harbin Harubin ハルビン 哈爾浜

Ürümqi Urumuchi ウルムチ 烏魯⽊⻫
Qiqihar Chichiharu チチハル ⻫⻫哈爾
Lhasa Rasa ラサ 拉薩
Internationally renowned Chinese-named cities tend to imitate the older English pronunciations of their names,
regardless of the kanji's on'yomi or the Mandarin or Cantonese pronunciation, and can be written in either
katakana or kanji. Examples include:
 Mandarin name Hokkien name Cantonese Japanese name
English name
(Pinyin) (Tâi-lô) name (Yale) Kanji Katakana Rōmaji

Hong Kong Xianggang

Hiong-káng /
Hiang-káng
Hēung Góng ⾹港 ホンコン Honkon

Macao/Macau Ao'men ò-mn̂g / ò-bûn Ou Mùhn 澳⾨ マカオ Makao

Shanghai Shanghai
Siōng-hái /
Siāng-hái
Seuhng Hói 上海 シャンハイ Shanhai

Beijing (also
Peking)
Beijing Pak-kiann Bāk Gīng 北京 ペキン Pekin

Nanjing (also
Nanking)
Nanjing Lâm-kiann Nàahm Gīng 南京 ナンキン Nankin

台北 タイペイ / タ Taipei /
Taipei Taibei Tâi-pak Tòih Bāk
イホク Taihoku

Gaoxiong / ⾼雄 / カオシュン / Kaoshun /

Kaohsiung
Dagou
Ko-hiông Gōu Hùhng
打狗 タカオ Takao

Notes:

Guangzhou, the city, is pronounced Kōshū, while Guangdong, its province, is pronounced
Kanton, not Kōtō (in this case, opting for a Tō-on reading rather than the usual Kan-on reading).
Kaohsiung was originally pronounced Takao (or similar) in Hokkien and Japanese. It received
this written name (kanji/Chinese) from Japanese, and later its spoken Mandarin name from the
corresponding characters. The English name "Kaohsiung" derived from its Mandarin
pronunciation. Today it is pronounced either カオシュン タカオ
or in Japanese.
Taipei is generally pronounced たいほく in Japanese.
In some cases the same kanji can appear in a given word with different readings. Normally this occurs when a
character is duplicated and the reading of the second character has voicing (rendaku), as in ⼈⼈ hito-bito
"people" (more often written with the iteration mark as ⼈々), but in rare cases the readings can be unrelated,
as in tobi-haneru (跳び跳ねる , "hop around", more often written ⾶び跳ねる ).

Pronunciation assistance

Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled
out in ruby characters known as furigana, (small kana written above or to the right of the character) or
kumimoji (small kana written in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign
learners. It is also used in newspapers and manga (comics) for rare or unusual readings, or for situations like
the first time a character's name is given, and for characters not included in the officially recognized set of
essential kanji. Works of fiction sometimes use furigana to create new "words" by giving normal kanji non-
standard readings, or to attach a foreign word rendered in katakana as the reading for a kanji or kanji
compound of the same or similar meaning.

Spelling words

Conversely, specifying a given kanji, or spelling out a kanji word—whether the pronunciation is known or not
—can be complicated, due to the fact that there is not a commonly used standard way to refer to individual
kanji (one does not refer to "kanji #237"), and that a given reading does not map to a single kanji—indeed
there are many homophonous words, not simply individual characters, particularly for kango (with on'yomi).
Easiest is to write the word out—either on paper or tracing it in the air—or look it up (given the pronunciation)
in a dictionary, particularly an electronic dictionary; when this is not possible, such as when speaking over the
phone or writing implements are not available (and tracing in air is too complicated), various techniques can be
used. These include giving kun'yomi for characters—these are often unique—using a well-known word with
the same character (and preferably the same pronunciation and meaning), and describing the character via its
components. For example, one may explain how to spell the word kōshinryō ( ⾹⾟料 , spice) via the words
kao-ri (⾹り ⾟い
, fragrance), kara-i ( , spicy), and in-ryō (飲料 , beverage)—the first two use the kun'yomi, the
third is a well-known compound—saying "kaori, karai, ryō as in inryō."

Dictionaries

In dictionaries, both words and individual characters have readings glossed, via various conventions. Native
words and Sino-Japanese vocabulary are glossed in hiragana (for both kun and on readings), while borrowings
(gairaigo)—including modern borrowings from Chinese—are glossed in katakana; this is the standard writing
convention also used in furigana. By contrast, readings for individual characters are conventionally written in
katakana for on readings, and hiragana for kun readings. Kun readings may further have a separator to indicate
which characters are okurigana, and which are considered readings of the character itself. For example, in the
⾷
entry for , the reading corresponding to the basic verb eat ( ⾷べる , taberu) may be written as .た べる
(ta.beru), to indicate that ta is the reading of the character itself. Further, kanji dictionaries often list compounds
including irregular readings of a kanji.

Local developments and divergences from Chinese

Since kanji are essentially Chinese hanzi used to write Japanese, the majority of characters used in modern
Japanese still retain their Chinese meaning, physical resemblance with some of their modern traditional
Chinese characters counterparts, and a degree of similarity with Classical Chinese pronunciation imported to
Japan from 5th to 9th century. Nevertheless, after centuries of development, there is a notable number of kanji
used in modern Japanese which have different meaning from hanzi used in modern Chinese. Such differences
are the result of:

the use of characters created in Japan,

characters that have been given different meanings in Japanese, and
post-World War II simplifications (shinjitai) of the character.

Likewise, the process of character simplification in mainland China since the 1950s has resulted in the fact that
Japanese speakers who have not studied Chinese may not recognize some simplified characters.

Kokuji

In Japanese, Kokuji ( 国字 , "national characters") refers to Chinese characters made outside of China.
Specifically, kanji made in Japan are referred to as Wasei kanji ( 和製漢字 ). They are primarily formed in the
usual way of Chinese characters, namely by combining existing components, though using a combination that
is not used in China. The corresponding phenomenon in Korea is called gukja ( 國字
), a cognate name; there
are however far fewer Korean-coined characters than Japanese-coined ones. Other languages using the
Chinese family of scripts sometimes have far more extensive systems of native characters, most significantly
Vietnamese chữ Nôm, which comprises over 20,000 characters used throughout traditional Vietnamese
writing, and Zhuang sawndip, which comprises over 10,000 characters, which are still in use.
Since kokuji are generally devised for existing native words, these usually only have native kun readings.
働
However, they occasionally have a Chinese on reading, derived from a phonetic, as in , dō, and in rare cases
腺 泉
only have an on reading, as in , sen, from , which was derived for use in technical compounds ( means 腺
"gland", hence used in medical terminology).

The majority of kokuji are ideogrammatic compounds ( 会意字 ), meaning that they are composed of two (or
more) characters, with the meaning associated with the combination. For example, 働is composed of ⺅
動
(person radical) plus (action), hence "action of a person, work". This is in contrast to kanji generally, which
are overwhelmingly phono-semantic compounds. This difference is because kokuji were coined to express
Japanese words, so borrowing existing (Chinese) readings could not express these—combining existing
characters to logically express the meaning was the simplest way to achieve this. Other illustrative examples
(below) include 榊 sakaki tree, formed as ⽊ "tree" and 神"god", literally "divine tree", and 辻 tsuji
⻍⻌ ⼗
"crossroads, street" formed as ( ) "road" and "cross", hence "cross-road".

In terms of meanings, these are especially for natural phenomena (esp. flora and fauna species), including a
鰯
very large number of fish, such as (sardine), 鱈
(codfish), 鮴 鱚
(seaperch), and (sillago), and trees, such as
樫 (evergreen oak),椙 椛
(Japanese cedar), (birch, maple) and 柾
(spindle tree).[30] In other cases they refer to
辻
specifically Japanese abstract concepts, everyday words (like , "crossroads", see above), or later technical
腺
coinages (such as , "gland", see above).

There are hundreds of kokuji in existence.[31] Many are rarely used, but a number have become commonly
used components of the written Japanese language. These include the following:

Jōyō kanji has about nine kokuji; there is some dispute over classification, but generally includes these:

働 どう dō, はたら(く) hatara(ku) "work", the most commonly used kokuji, used in the
fundamental verb hatara(ku) (働く, "work"), included in elementary texts and on the Proficiency
Test N5.
込 こ(む) ko(mu), used in the fundamental verb komu (込む, "to be crowded")
匂 にお(う) nio(u), used in common verb niou (匂う, "to smell, to be fragrant")
畑 はたけ hatake "field of crops"
腺 せん sen, "gland"
峠 とうげ tōge "mountain pass"
枠 わく waku, "frame"
塀 へい hei, "wall"
搾 しぼ(る) shibo(ru), "to squeeze" (disputed; see below); a
jinmeiyō kanji

榊 さかき sakaki "tree, genus Cleyera"

辻 つじ tsuji "crossroads, street"
匁 もんめ monme (unit of weight)
Hyōgaiji:

躾 しつけ shitsuke "training, rearing (an animal, a child)"

 腺
Some of these characters (for example, , "gland")[32] have been introduced to China. In some cases the
Chinese reading is the inferred Chinese reading, interpreting the character as a phono-semantic compound (as
in how on readings are sometimes assigned to these characters in Chinese), while in other cases (such as ), 働
the Japanese on reading is borrowed (in general this differs from the modern Chinese pronunciation of this
phonetic). Similar coinages occurred to a more limited extent in Korea and Vietnam.

Historically, some kokuji date back to very early Japanese writing, being found in the Man'yōshū, for example
鰯
— iwashi "sardine" dates to the Nara period (8th century)—while they have continued to be created as late
as the late 19th century, when a number of characters were coined in the Meiji era for new scientific concepts.
粁
For example, some characters were produced as regular compounds for some (but not all) SI units, such as
⽶
( "meter" + 千 竏⽴
"thousand, kilo-") for kilometer, ( "liter" + 千 瓩
"thousand, kilo-") for kiloliter, and
⽡
( "gram" + "thousand, kilo-") for kilogram. However, SI units in Japanese today are almost exclusively
written using rōmaji or katakana such as キロメートル ㌖ or for km, キロリットル for kl, and キログラム
㌕
or for kg.[33]

In Japan the kokuji category is strictly defined as characters whose earliest appearance is in Japan. If a
character appears earlier in the Chinese literature, it is not considered a kokuji even if the character was
independently coined in Japan and unrelated to the Chinese character (meaning "not borrowed from
Chinese"). In other words, kokuji are not simply characters that were made in Japan, but characters that were
first made in Japan. An illustrative example is ankō ( 鮟鱇 , monkfish). This spelling was created in Edo period
Japan from the ateji (phonetic kanji spelling) 安康 for the existing word ankō by adding the ⿂ radical to each
character—the characters were "made in Japan". However, 鮟 is not considered kokuji, as it is found in
ancient Chinese texts as a corruption of ( ⿂匽 鱇
). is considered kokuji, as it has not been found in any
鮟
earlier Chinese text. Casual listings may be more inclusive, including characters such as .[note 1] Another
搾
example is , which is sometimes not considered kokuji due to its earlier presence as a corruption of Chinese
.

Kokkun

In addition to kokuji, there are kanji that have been given meanings in Japanese that are different from their
original Chinese meanings. These are not considered kokuji but are instead called kokkun ( 国訓 ) and include
characters such as the following:

Japanese Chinese
Char.
Reading Meaning Pinyin Meaning

藤 fuji wisteria téng rattan, cane, vine[note 2]

沖 oki offing, offshore chōng rinse, minor river (Cantonese)

椿 tsubaki Camellia japonica chūn Toona spp.

鮎 ayu sweetfish nián catfish (rare, usually written )

咲 saki blossom xiào smile (rare, usually written 笑)

Types of kanji by category

Han-dynasty scholar Xu Shen in his 2nd-century dictionary Shuowen Jiezi classified Chinese characters into
six categories (Chinese: 書
liùshū, Japanese: 六書
rikusho). The traditional classification is still taught but is
problematic and no longer the focus of modern lexicographic practice, as some categories are not clearly
defined, nor are they mutually exclusive: the first four refer to structural composition, while the last two refer to
usage.

Shōkei moji ( 象形⽂字)

Shōkei (Mandarin: xiàngxíng) characters are pictographic sketches of the object they represent. For example,
⽬ ⽊
is an eye, while is a tree. The current forms of the characters are very different from the originals, though
their representations are more clear in oracle bone script and seal script. These pictographic characters make up
only a small fraction of modern characters.

Shiji moji ( 指事⽂字)

Shiji (Mandarin: zhǐshì) characters are ideographs, often called "simple ideographs" or "simple indicatives" to
distinguish them and tell the difference from compound ideographs (below). They are usually simple
graphically and represent an abstract concept such as 上 "up" or "above" and 下
"down" or "below". These
make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.

Kaii moji ( 会意⽂字)

Kaii (Mandarin: huìyì) characters are compound ideographs, often called "compound indicatives", "associative
compounds", or just "ideographs". These are usually a combination of pictographs that combine semantically
to present an overall meaning. An example of this type is 休
(rest) from ⺅
(person radical) and ⽊
(tree).
峠
Another is the kokuji (mountain pass) made from ⼭
(mountain), 上
(up) and 下
(down). These make up a
tiny fraction of modern characters.

Keisei moji ( 形声⽂字)

Keisei (Mandarin: xíngshēng) characters are phono-semantic or radical-phonetic compounds, sometimes called
"semantic-phonetic", "semasio-phonetic", or "phonetic-ideographic" characters, are by far the largest category,
making up about 90% of the characters in the standard lists; however, some of the most frequently used kanji
belong to one of the three groups mentioned above, so keisei moji will usually make up less than 90% of the
characters in a text. Typically they are made up of two components, one of which (most commonly, but by no
means always, the left or top element) suggests the general category of the meaning or semantic context, and
the other (most commonly the right or bottom element) approximates the pronunciation. The pronunciation
relates to the original Chinese, and may now only be distantly detectable in the modern Japanese on'yomi of
the kanji; it generally has no relation at all to kun'yomi. The same is true of the semantic context, which may
have changed over the centuries or in the transition from Chinese to Japanese. As a result, it is a common error
in folk etymology to fail to recognize a phono-semantic compound, typically instead inventing a compound-
indicative explanation.

Tenchū moji ( 転注⽂字)

Tenchū (Mandarin: zhuǎnzhù) characters have variously been called "derivative characters", "derivative
cognates", or translated as "mutually explanatory" or "mutually synonymous" characters; this is the most
problematic of the six categories, as it is vaguely defined. It may refer to kanji where the meaning or
application has become extended. For example, 楽 is used for 'music' and 'comfort, ease', with different
pronunciations in Chinese reflected in the two different on'yomi, gaku 'music' and raku 'pleasure'.
Kasha moji ( 仮借⽂字)
Kasha (Mandarin: jiǎjiè) are rebuses, sometimes called "phonetic loans". The etymology of the characters
follows one of the patterns above, but the present-day meaning is completely unrelated to this. A character was
appropriated to represent a similar-sounding word. For example, 来 in ancient Chinese was originally a
pictograph for "wheat". Its syllable was homophonous with the verb meaning "to come", and the character is
used for that verb as a result, without any embellishing "meaning" element attached. The character for wheat
⻨ , originally meant "to come", being a keisei moji having 'foot' at the bottom for its meaning part and "wheat"
at the top for sound. The two characters swapped meaning, so today the more common word has the simpler
character. This borrowing of sounds has a very long history.

Related symbols
々
The iteration mark ( ) is used to indicate that the preceding kanji is to be repeated, functioning similarly to a
ditto mark in English. It is pronounced as though the kanji were written twice in a row, for example iroiro
⾊々
( 時々
, "various") and tokidoki ( , "sometimes"). This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in
the surname Sasaki ( 佐々⽊ 仝 同
). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji , a variant of dō ( , "same").

ヶ
Another abbreviated symbol is , in appearance a small katakana "ke", but actually a simplified version of the
箇
kanji , a general counter. It is pronounced "ka" when used to indicate quantity (such as 六ヶ⽉ , rokkagetsu
"six months").

The way how these symbols may be produced on a computer depends on the operating system. In macOS,
typing じおくり will reveal the symbol 々 as well as ,ヽゝ ゞand . To produce , type 〻 おどりじ
. Under
Windows, typing くりかえし will reveal some of these symbols, while in Google IME, おどりじ
may be
used.

Collation
Kanji, whose thousands of symbols defy ordering by conventions such as those used for the Latin script, are
often collated using the traditional Chinese radical-and-stroke sorting method. In this system, common
components of characters are identified; these are called radicals. Characters are grouped by their primary
桜
radical, then ordered by number of pen strokes within radicals. For example, the kanji character , meaning
"cherry", is sorted as a ten-stroke character under the four-stroke primary radical ⽊ meaning "tree". When
there is no obvious radical or more than one radical, convention governs which is used for collation.

Other kanji sorting methods, such as the SKIP system, have been devised by various authors.

Modern general-purpose Japanese dictionaries (as opposed to specifically character dictionaries) generally
collate all entries, including words written using kanji, according to their kana representations (reflecting the
way they are pronounced). The gojūon ordering of kana is normally used for this purpose.

Kanji education
Japanese schoolchildren are expected to learn 1,006 basic kanji characters, the kyōiku kanji, before finishing
the sixth grade. The order in which these characters are learned is fixed. The kyōiku kanji list is a subset of a
larger list, originally of 1,945 kanji characters and extended to 2,136 in 2010, known as the jōyō kanji—
characters required for the level of fluency necessary to read newspapers and literature in Japanese. This larger
list of characters is to be mastered by the end of the ninth grade.[34] Schoolchildren learn the characters by
repetition and radical.
Students studying Japanese as a foreign language are often required
by a curriculum to acquire kanji without having first learned the
vocabulary associated with them. Strategies for these learners vary
from copying-based methods to mnemonic-based methods such as
those used in James Heisig's series Remembering the Kanji. Other
textbooks use methods based on the etymology of the characters, such
as Mathias and Habein's The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji and
Henshall's A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Pictorial
mnemonics, as in the text Kanji Pict-o-graphix, are also seen.

The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation provides the Kanji

kentei (⽇本漢字能⼒検定試験 Nihon kanji nōryoku kentei shiken;
An image that lists most joyo-kanji,
"Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude"), which tests the ability to read and
write kanji. The highest level of the Kanji kentei tests about six according to Halpern's KKLD
thousand kanji. indexing system, with kyo-iku kanji
color-coded by grade level

See also
Braille kanji
Chinese influence on Japanese culture
Han unification
Han-Nom (Vietnamese equivalent)
Hanja (Korean equivalent)
Chinese family of scripts
Japanese script reform
Japanese typefaces (shotai)
Japanese writing system
Kanji of the year
List of kanji by concept
List of kanji by stroke count
POP (Point of Purchase typeface)
Radical (Chinese character)
Stroke order
Table of kanji radicals

Notes
1. 国字 (http://www.kanjijiten.net/japanese.html) at 漢字辞典ネット (http://www.kanjijiten.net/)
demonstrates this, listing both 鮟 and 鱇 as kokuji, but starring 鮟 and stating that dictionaries
do not consider it to be a kokuji.
2. the word for wisteria being "紫藤", with the addition of "紫", "purple"

References

Citations
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Japanese (https://books.google.com/books?id=WDw4gBaPjZgC). Amsterdam: John
 Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 305. ISBN 90-272-1794-7.
2. Suski, P.M. (2011). The Phonetics of Japanese Language: With Reference to Japanese Script
(https://books.google.com/books?id=lyUc7oNgaqoC). p. 1. ISBN 9780203841808.
3. Malatesha Joshi, R.; Aaron, P.G. (2006). Handbook of orthography and literacy (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=nkXzdWSyBFgC). New Jersey: Routledge. pp. 481–2. ISBN 0-8058-
4652-2.
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Retrieved September 1, 2014.
5. Miyake (2003), 8.
6. Miyake (2003), 9.
7. "Kanji History in Japan" (https://ateliers-japon.com/#home). Les Ateliers de Japon.
8. Hadamitzky, Wolfgang and Spahn, Mark (2012), Kanji and Kana: A Complete Guide to the
Japanese Writing System, Third Edition, Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 4805311169. p.
14.
9. Tamaoka, K., Makioka, S., Sanders, S. & Verdonschot, R.G. (2017). www.kanjidatabase.com: a
new interactive online database for psychological and linguistic research on Japanese kanji
and their compound words. Psychological Research, 81, 696-708.
10. JIS X 0208:1997 (https://web.archive.org/web/20050522084722/http://www.io.com/~kazushi/en
coding/jis.html#kanji90#kanji90).
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coding/jis.html#kanjisup#kanjisup).
12. JIS X 0213:2000 (https://web.archive.org/web/20050522084722/http://www.io.com/~kazushi/en
coding/jis.html#kanji00#kanji00).
13. Introducing the SING Gaiji architecture (https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ft
pID=2437), Adobe.
14. OpenType Technology Center (https://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype/), Adobe.
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5-doc/en/html/WD.html), P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange, TEI-C.
16. "TEI element g (character or glyph)" (http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-g.ht
ml), P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange, TEI-C.
17. Kuang-Hui Chiu, Chi-Ching Hsu (2006). Chinese Dilemmas : How Many Ideographs are
Needed (http://www.ntpu.edu.tw/ads/doc/95/paper%20hsu95.doc) Archived (https://web.archiv
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2011, at the Wayback Machine, National Taipei University
18. Shouhui Zhao, Dongbo Zhang, The Totality of Chinese Characters—A Digital Perspective (htt
p://www.colips.org/journals/volume17/JCLC_2007_V17_N2_04.pdf)
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artmouth.edu/reports/TR2007-592.pdf), May 29, 2007
20. Rogers, Henry (2005). Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
ISBN 0631234640
21. Verdonschot, R. G.; La Heij, W.; Tamaoka, K.; Kiyama, S.; You, W. P.; Schiller, N. O. (2013).
"The multiple pronunciations of Japanese kanji: A masked priming investigation" (https://www.r
esearchgate.net/publication/236062398). The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
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013.773050). PMID 23510000 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23510000). S2CID 13845935
(https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:13845935).
22. "How many possible phonological forms could be represented by a randomly chosen single
character?" (https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/29056/how-many-possible-phonol
ogical-forms-could-be-represented-by-a-randomly-chosen-s). japanese.stackexchange.com.
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23. "How do Japanese names work?" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/names-for-people.html).
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24.【名字】⼩⿃遊 (http://myoji-yurai.net/searchResult.htm?myojiKanji=⼩⿃遊 )
25. Kōjien
26. Daijirin
27. "ateji Archives" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151225050755/http://www.tofugu.com/tag/ateji).
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29. "Haruka" (http://jisho.org/search/Haruka). jisho.org. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
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nese/kokuji/?series=kanji). Tofugu. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
31. "Kokuji list" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/kokuji-list.html), SLJ FAQ.
32. Buck, James H. (October 15, 1969) "Some Observations on kokuji" in The Journal-Newsletter
of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 45–9.
国字
33. "A list of kokuji ( )" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/kokuji-list.html). www.sljfaq.org. Retrieved
March 5, 2017.
34. Halpern, J. (2006) The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary. ISBN 1568364075. p. 38a.

Sources
DeFrancis, John (1990). The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6.
Hadamitzky, W., and Spahn, M., (1981) Kanji and Kana, Boston: Tuttle.
Hannas, William. C. (1997). Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press. ISBN 0-8248-1892-X (paperback); ISBN 0-8248-1842-3 (hardcover).
Kaiser, Stephen (1991). "Introduction to the Japanese Writing System". In Kodansha's Compact
Kanji Guide. Tokyo: Kondansha International. ISBN 4-7700-1553-4.
Miyake, Marc Hideo (2003). Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction. New York, NY; London,
England: RoutledgeCurzon.
Morohashi, Tetsuji. ⼤漢和辞典 Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (Comprehensive Chinese–Japanese
Dictionary) 1984–1986. Tokyo: Taishukan.
Mitamura, Joyce Yumi and Mitamura, Yasuko Kosaka (1997). Let's Learn Kanji. Tokyo:
Kondansha International. ISBN 4-7700-2068-6.
Unger, J. Marshall (1996). Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan: Reading Between
the Lines. ISBN 0-19-510166-9.

External links
Kanshudo (https://www.kanshudo.com)—Integrated system for finding and learning kanji,
Japanese vocab and grammar, with multiple ways to search, 3500+ mnemonics, free
flashcards and lessons
WaniKani (https://www.wanikani.com) - System for learning radicals, kanji, and vocabulary
using spaced repetition and mnemonics; first 3 levels are free.
Japanese (https://www.japaneseapp.com)—A free Japanese-English dictionary with flashcard
study features for iOS and Android
Kanji-Trainer (http://kanji-trainer.org/learn-kanji.php) Free flashcard learning tool with
mnemonic phrases for each character
 JLearn (http://jlearn.net/Kanji/SearchByRadical) Find Kanji by radical, readings or meanings
and see how to draw it. Common words that contain it are also shown
Kanji Dictionary (http://www.nihongomaster.com/dictionary/kanji) online Free Kanji Dictionary
Jim Breen's WWWJDIC server (https://web.archive.org/web/20150103191356/http://www.csse.
monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C) used to find Kanji from English or romanized
Japanese
JiShop (https://www.jishop.com) - Japanese-English electronic dictionary with special focus on
kanji.
RomajiDesu Kanji Dictionary (http://www.romajidesu.com/kanji/) a comprehensive Kanji
dictionary with strokes order and various lookup methods.
KanjiQ (http://www.languagebug.com/kanji_q)—Kanji flashcard tool that runs on mobile
phones.
Convert Kanji to Romaji, Hiragana (http://nihongo.j-talk.com/kanji/)—Converts Kanji and
websites to forms that are easy to read and gives a word by word translation
Learn Japanese Kanji (http://learnjapanese.elanguageschool.net/kanji-jlpt-lists)—How to write
Kanji in Japanese
Drill the kanji (http://www.japanese-kanji.com/)—online Java tool (Asahi-net)
Kanji Alive (http://kanjialive.com/)—Online kanji learning tool in wide use at many universities,
colleges and high-schools.
Real Kanji (http://www.realkanji.com/)—Practice kanji using different typefaces.
Change in Script Usage in Japanese: A Longitudinal Study of Japanese Government White
Papers on Labor (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2005/Tomoda.html), discussion
paper by Takako Tomoda in the Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies (http://w
ww.japanesestudies.org.uk/), August 19, 2005.
Genetic Kanji (http://www.genetickanji.com/), etymologically organized lists for learning kanji.
JavaDiKt (http://www.javadikt.net/en)—Open source kanji dictionary for desktop
Denshi Jisho (http://www.jisho.org/)—Online Japanese dictionary
GSF Jouyou Kanji (http://ck.kolivas.org/Japanese/kanji.html)—organized list of kanji which
takes into account both grade, stroke count and frequency
The Kanji Code (https://ochapress.com/the-kanji-code-2/) - a book that lists 150 Japanese
phonetic components
Kanji Database (https://www.kanjidatabase.com/) Katsuo Tamaoka, Nagoya University, Japan -
Comprehensive interactive Kanji and Jukugo database
flitskaart (https://www.flitskaart.com/#/study/meaning%20-%20kanji/ttaf) Flashcard learning app

Glyph conversion
A simple Shinjitai—Kyūjitai converter (https://web.archive.org/web/20090406041600/http://ww
w.geocities.jp/qjitai/)
A practical Shinjitai—Kyūjitai—Simplified Chinese character converter (https://web.archive.org/
web/20140823074547/http://yurara.kir.jp/material/kanji.html)
A complex Shinjitai—Kyūjitai converter (https://web.archive.org/web/20090204033300/http://ho
mepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/ja/tools/tradkan0.htm)
A downloadable Shinjitai—Kyūjitai—Simplified Chinese character converter (http://www.skycn.
com/soft/44716.html)

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