Of course there are some exceptional cases too. The most challenging thing is although there are some principles for you to recognize when to use Onyomi and when to use Kunyomi, Japanese is still full of irregularities. Even a native Japanese can always get into trouble in reading a sign or a paragraph written in Kanji.
So do not feel too pressured and back out when you face the same problem. Below are some general rules of Kanji reading. But please keep in mind that not every Kanji follow them. These three rules can help you in most cases. But to know exactly when to use Onyomi and Kunyomi, you have no other option than to memorize each Kanji and its readings. To help you overcome this obstacle, we will introduce to you 2 books which are very useful for learning Kanji.
They are Kanji — Look and learn and Basic Kanji. Hopefully, our blog has provided you useful information about Kunyomi and Onyomi. The news words arrived over time, often coming in multiple waves.
Each wave came with slight variations and different ways of saying the words. Several of those waves stuck, and as people adapted to the multiple variations, and they all became cannon. This lead to a language with multiple pronunciations of the same word. These words usually come from the original Chinese readings.
Examples include:. Those words are strong candidates for onyomi pronunciation. If you see a kanji on its own, then your go-to option should be one of the onyomi readings. Most of the common family names are pronounced using the kunyomi version of the kanji.
Just like with the family names, though, there are some exceptions of note. When you start learning Japanese, you first learn hiragana , and then you learn katakana , and then— the dreaded KANJI!
While hiragana and katakana can both be sounded out by syllable, kanji must simply be memorized. Some have even more than 10 pronunciations! And how do you know which to use when, and WHY??? So, long long ago, before Japan had a written language, Chinese characters started making their way across the sea from China to Japan. Japan began to adopt those characters in their own language and tried to use the Chinese pronunciations too. Seems simple enough. Except to top it all off, different accents and dynasties and pronunciations all came over for hundreds of years and Japan decided to keep them ALL.
Excellent question! Figuring out what to learn and when to use which kanji reading is a lot simpler than everyone makes it out to be. We're going to show you how to do this so you can apply it to your own kanji studies. Kanji will make more sense, and you'll be able to focus on what's actually important: learning how to read Japanese.
Prerequisite: By the way, this article is going to use hiragana, one of Japan's two phonetic alphabets, so if you don't know it yet, if you're a little iffy, or if you just want a refresher, take a look at our hiragana guide first.
It usually only takes a day or two with the help of mnemonics to get it down pat. Before you read any further: we also recorded a podcast on on'yomi and kun'yomi. We highly recommend you read the article and listen to the podcast episode instead of just one or the other for a deeper understanding of the concept. Trust us, your understanding of kanji readings will be so much better when you know about on'yomi and kun'yomi!
Now you can subscribe to the Tofugu podcast and come back later once you finish reading this article. Japan was sooOOOooo in love with China at the time they adopted the Chinese writing system and applied it to their own language. But the sounds of the Chinese language and the Japanese language are completely different.
Despite this, Japan went ahead and adopted the Chinese readings for the kanji too. Wouldn't that mean Japanese people started speaking Chinese? Short answer: no. Japan had their own language, and while it isn't the same as Japanese today , it wasn't Chinese either. They had their own words for things like water, fire, food, and all the other stuff that exists in life. Instead of converting the Japanese language into Chinese, they decided each kanji will have a Chinese way of reading it and a Japanese way of reading it.
Notice how I said the on'yomi were derived from Chinese pronunciations? The Japanese didn't bring over the Chinese pronunciation for kanji wholesale. Japanese is a very simple language in terms of the number of sounds available to it. The Chinese language has far more sounds than the Japanese language does. Things like distinct pitches can lead to a complete change of meaning.
Thus, Japan had to convert these Chinese readings into something that could be said within the Japanese alphabet of sounds. This, as well as Japan's lack of tones, is why they're sometimes similar, but not exactly the same as the originals.
Thanks to this adoption of characters and readings, almost all kanji have at least one on'yomi Chinese origin and one kun'yomi Japanese origin reading. So if you want to easily read Japanese you'll need to know them both. Here are some examples of kanji where both readings are commonly used:. Note: Sometimes you'll see on'yomi readings written in katakana or English, and kun'yomi readings written in hiragana.
This is a dictionary-only method used for differentiation. We won't be using them here. Multiply this by pretty much every other kanji. Sure, some kanji will have one reading that is way more useful than the others, but for the most part, there will be an on'yomi and kun'yomi reading worth learning. I'm going to leave it at that for now, so we can look beyond "one on'yomi and one kun'yomi," because, unfortunately, kanji readings are not that simple.
Although most kanji have both an on'yomi and kun'yomi reading, there are exceptions. There are kanji that only have one or the other. Remember these language transitions were happening way back in history and Japan was not yet the unified group of islands we know today. They were fractured, unrelated groups with unique leaders and systems of government that happened to live together on a couple of big islands.
Not only did they enjoy fighting among themselves, they also did not have the Internet. On the flip side, there are also kanji characters that only have kun'yomi readings because they are kanji created in Japan. So, you can't always assume a kanji will have two readings: an on'yomi and a kun'yomi.
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