Questions tagged [kanji]
漢字. Chinese characters as used in Japanese writing as opposed to the two kana syllabaries and rōmaji (Latin letters).
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Creating a Unique Japanese Name: Seeking Guidance on "てるかわ" for "Terukawa" [closed]
I have a question and I kindly ask for your patience, as my knowledge of Japanese is basic. I've been trying to create a Japanese name, and I came across the word "両側" (ryōgawa), which means ...
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Using AI to learn Japanese [migrated]
I've been using ChatGPT to learn Japanese specifically in getting vocab. My prompt is:
Always answer in this format for Japanese Word
Kanji(furigana)
JLPT level:
Commonness:
Formality:
Usually ...
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When years are (or were) written using kanji numerals, what are the usual variants/options?
I believe that these days, years would be written almost always using western/Arabic numerals in either the Japanese era or Gregorian calendar.
But it must sometimes be written using the kanji ...
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How cross-applicable were Classical Chinese second-person pronouns to Japanese kanji?
I'm fairly certain there's a certain stigma surrounding second-person pronouns in Japanese. Even in Chinese, it's generally considered polite to avoid them (and refer to a person by surname, title, ...
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Abbreviations for weekdays
I was studying Japanese weekdays and I found something interesting: you can use abbreviations such us ゲッすい (月水) to indicate both Monday and Wednesday or 木土 pron. どぼく to indicate Thursday and Saturday....
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What are the three boxes? ロ, 口 and 囗
I was scrolling the Kanji Unicodes and spotted three box-like characters.
I'm well aware that ロ is the katakana ro, as for which the other two are, I'm not sure.
Among the three ロ (katakana), 口 (kanji)...
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Should I memorize Kanji readings? [closed]
I'm almost done with recommended vocabulary and Kanjis for JPLT N5, also finishing up Genki 1. The most time consuming so far is memorizing Kanji readings (not all of them of course, but those that ...
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How to read this name "番藤茶太郎"?
Can anyone help me how to read his name and nickname?
name: 番藤茶太郎
nickname: 番茶
Checking with AI seems to give "Fujito Chataro" as name but also "Bandou Chataro" and "Bancha&...
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Why is 正 used for tallying instead of 五?
I feel like it would make more sense to use 五 since it literally means 5.
I know that 正 has 5 strokes and 五 has 4, but you could still tally like so:
I also know this question isn't just limited to ...
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Do we need to learn N4 and N3 kanji for JPLT N5? Most of recommended verbs using more advanced kanji than N5 ones [closed]
I want to try to my luck with JLPT N5 this December and I'm still not sure how much Kanji I supposed to memorize. I got the impression that for N5 I need to know around 100 Kanji, but I've already ...
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What does 亜字形図象 mean?
In particular I was not able to find 図象 in any dictionary; I wonder if it is perhaps a typo and the author meant 図像.
In the case that the author meant 図像, would it then simply mean "icon made up ...
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Given harakiri was once pronounced farakiri and, even earlier, parakiri, how do I write those two older forms, using kanjis?
In "The Unfolding Of Language" by Guy Deutscher, I've read that "harakiri" was once pronounced as "farakiri" and, even earlier "parakiri", thus reavaling the ...
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Pronouncing kanji numbers
ホグワーツには一四二もの階段があった。
There were as many as 142 staircases at Hogwarts.
This is probably a daft question but I'd like to be sure.
When you see a number written in kanji like 一四二 do you read it as ...
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why does 先 means "ahead" and "previous" at the same time?
sometimes 先 (saki) means the future, but for ex 先月 means previous month 😳. why? how?
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kun and on reading
Hello I recently read the difference between the kun or on readings and understood it, now I know in which cases to use one or the other reading, but I still have a question.
For example: the kanji 日 ...
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Which one is correct between 侘び寂び and 侘寂
I know that generally you use the hiragana "わびさび", and in the entry for "侘寂" in the chinese wikipedia "侘び寂び" is listed as the original japanese, but I still have my ...
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"魂 燃え立つ 天の降るとも" having "魂" read as "こころ" and "天" read as ”雨"? (Bleach)
In Bleach Sennen Kessen-hen, at the end of each episode, an old poetic-style line or two is read to invoke the next episode. But I wonder whether it's actually some old poetic style of speech, or if ...
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Can you suggest a name for an energy in a magic system that incorporates the kanji 真霊? [closed]
I have decided to choose a more flashy and direct title for my new work. Specifically, I am creating a magic system and I have chosen the name "Rei" (霊) for it, but I don't want to offend ...
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What are the 漢字 that aren't jouyou or jinmeiyou for?
When you search them up, they have readings, and meanings sometimes, but they're non standard and can't even be used anywhere, neither do I know if they were used in old Japanese.
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Can I choose my own kanji characters for my middle name?
My middle name is Asano, named after my great grandmother, but my family has lost the ability to write Japanese and not sure exactly what kanji she used in her name. Am I able to decide my own ...
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What is this sign? [duplicate]
When i use Google Translate on my phone it translate it as either - or !
But my problem is that it looks nothing like the one in the the various Manga´s and such where i see it.
So anyone know what ...
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I want to learn a lot about Japanese names for my stories [closed]
The title is pretty catchy on its own, but I'm already familiar with creating good Japanese names. I know about kanji and their meanings, but I'm at a loss. doubts about a few things. first of them: ...
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Are 神 and 神 the same?
My friend asked me if I know what 神仙 means so I tried to look it up and almost all the results I got were 神仙 instead of 神仙. Which appearently means something like a hermit or an immortal person that ...
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What is the proper way to notate Japanese lyrics in sheet music?
I'm transcribing a song with Japanese lyrics as sheet music but am unsure how to approach using kanji.
Here's an example:
Currently, I front-load the kanji on the first note so that it is immediately ...
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If 米 can be used to refer to America as a country (USA), can it also refer to America as a continent?
I am currently studying this Kanji. In addition to the original meaning of rice, it also has other meanings of meter (SI unit of length) and America. In English and my mother tongue Indonesian, "...
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Why is this reading like this?
Why is this reading like this? Looking this up I had to search the radicals individually on Jisho. The furigana reading... is it just flat out wrong? Furthermore, why is the word structured like this? ...
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How should I read 帖合・書店印 and what is it?
帖合・書店印
There are cards in my books called 注文カード and it's written on them. I can't type the first word automatically and I don't know how to read 印 since it has two pronunciations: しるし, いん.
ちょうあい・...
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How to make sense of radicals that form a kanji
One thing that puzzles me, is how to guess a meaning of a kanji by deducting its radicals. For instance 神 (god), is constructed of ｜ 日 礼 田 . What's the idea behind it? A stick combined with a sun ...
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Kanji with multiple readings of identical meaning
Are there other instances in Japanese where a kanji compound has two or more readings that all carry the same or very similar meanings, akin to the use of 明日 for tomorrow, which can be read as あした, あす,...
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What does 次元を超越 really mean?
Unless it's rude to ask, I would like responses mainly from Japanese native speakers, please.
There is this scan from the guidebook for the Dragon Ball Z anime with a translation that is generally ...
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How is Tsuyuri Kumin's name (五月七日くみん) read with 3 characters when it's made up of 4 kanji?
From the Chuunibyou anime, Kumin's last name is Tsuyuri (3 characters), but written as 五月七日 (4 kanji characters). How can this be? At first, I thought it might just be a chuuni thing, where you write ...
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How do you type 啼く in the Japanese IME [closed]
I have tried looking online and messing with the settings to get it to display 啼く yet I can't get it to, as far as I am aware you should have to type なく(naku) to get it to appear, yet it does not.
Any ...
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Why Kanji "Ichi tsu" pronounced hito?
As I was reading the book, I found the above table. Here, one thing=hito. Though Ichi ju made much more sense to me as an absolute beginner (Assuming, "hito" is another word to describe one ...
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Different radical for the same Kanji [duplicate]
Sometimes in social media, and especially in videogames, I found this kanji above (with the keyboard I can't type it, and copy and paste doesn't work either) with the same exact meaning of 終わる.
Same ...
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Ghost word and Ghost Kanji in Japanese
In Japanese, are there any words/kanji that are written in dictionarys but actually don't exist at all? Like the "Ghost word" in English.
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Should I remember kanji of words that mostly use the kana version?
I tried playing a game the other day, I was surprised to see [面倒]{めんどう}くさい in kanji, because even Jisho says it's mostly written in kana.
I also saw [貴方]{あなた} and [私]{わたし}[達]{たち}(not as rare), so it ...
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Does anyone know the deal with the compound 進捗?
I always found 進捗 to be an odd Sino-Japanese compound for two reasons:
it involves the character 捗 which barely occurs in Chinese, except for one rare compound 捗攄 (bu4 shu1) "to vanish" in ...
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Differences in the meaning for 女子 [closed]
When I check 女子on google I have found two contrasting definitions:
There is : https://jisho.org/search/%23kanji%20%E5%A5%BD
Which states that the meanings are "fond, pleasing, like something"...
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Dictionary searching for kanji readings and words
everyone, thanks for having me!
So, i’ve just started studying kanji and vocabulary and searching for words and readings on dictionaries (Japanese app).
However some cross information between my study ...
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Hito ki no pan meaning -- 「人気のパン」
Ive looked at multiple different searches for hito ki no pan meaning. It looks like "Urikireru" means sold out but I cannot find what hito ki means. Heres a picture. I dont know if this ...
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Difference between ひらがな and 漢字 in this poetry
A friend of mine shared this poetry to me, and just for fun I decided to translate it in my first language, Italian. The author is 穂村 弘 Homura Hiroshi, a contemporary writer.
あした世界が終わる日に
あした世界が終わる日に
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Compound? how to read
Since every kanji has an inherent meaning when I do know to read a compound? Do I read each kanjis meaning individually or does it somehow make a new meaning? What if the the kanji happens to be next ...
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Is it 日本人 or にほんじん?
I've been studying Japanese on my own for only three days. Why does the word "Japanese" sometimes appear like this 日本人 and also like this にほんじん?
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Kanji for darkness: 暗 vs 闇, nuance? meaning? use cases?
In Heisig's book Remembering the Kanji, 16th edition, kanji #519 (暗) is named Darkness. In Yu-gi-oh however the darkness element uses 闇
According to the following link, 暗 does indeed mean dark, ...
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Why do dictionaries differ so much in terms of spelling and is there an established standard for how a word should be written in contemporary text?
If we look at thee はまる, きこり, しじま and うつつ as three examples of many, they are spelt differently in different well known dictionaries.
はまる has 填まる first in Kenkyusha and Daijisen, while Meikyo and Shin ...
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On recurring pairs of alternate readings (e.g. せい／しょう for 生, 正, 青, etc.)
When learning to read Japanese one is taught from early on that not only can characters have both an ON (音) and a KUN (訓) reading, sometimes they can have multiple of either or both types of readings.
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Help identifying a character from a picture [closed]
I've tried using handwriting identification and building it from radicals, but no luck. The closest I found was き and I’m not sure if it’s that character but the source text uses both き and this one, ...
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Why are simple kanji sometimes written in hiragana?
I was playing a game and a little boy said, おにいさん. I was wondering why it was written in hiragana? Is it because the boy wasn't my brother, so putting it in hiragana changes the meaning?
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Understanding the reading of 川 in 品川区 [duplicate]
As of the resources I have consulted like romajidesu, 川 has only one kun'yomi reading which is kawa.
If that is the case, why is it read as gawa in 品川区?
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Is 天火明命 read as 'ten-ka-mei-mei'?
I've been playing maimai, the Japanese arcade rhythm game for a while. It offers a song named 天火明命, which a few of my friends pronounce as 'ten-ka-mei-mei'.
However, the official Twitter account of ...
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