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I am currently teaching myself japanese and I was listening to a japanese song and one of the words in that song was 生きて and as I am learning, I wanted to see what the first letter meant (or radical, whatever its called) and saw it is pronounced "nama" but when in the 生きてform is pronounced as "i". Why is this and how exactly should i know what to say if it changes?

Eiríkr Útlendi
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Gabe
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    Try searching for 音読み (onyomi) and 訓読み (kunyomi) readings on this site, or on Google in general. Short answer: there is no way to know other than experience, but there are some guidelines. Try this link for starters: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/17696/how-are-the-different-pronunciations-of-kanji-used-such-as-onyomi-and-kunyomi – user3856370 Jul 08 '19 at 21:32
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    FWIW, 生 is one of, if not **the** single kanji with the highest number of readings. See this [dictionary entry](https://jisho.org/search/%E7%94%9F%20%23kanji). – istrasci Jul 08 '19 at 21:45
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    生命【せいめい】, 生涯【しょうがい】,誕生日【たんじょうび】,平生【へいぜい】,作麼生【そもさん】,生真面目【きまじめ】,生花【いけばな】,生井【いくい】,居心地【いごこち】,生意気【なまいき】,芝生【しばふ】,生【う】みの親【おや】,生湯【うぶゆ】,生【お】い育【そだ】つ,生業【すぎわい】,生【は】え変【か】わる,苔【こけ】の生【む】すまで,生【な】さぬ仲【なか】,生憎【あいにく】,弥生【やよい】 – blutorange Jul 08 '19 at 21:57
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    Possible duplicate of [How are the different pronunciations of kanji used, such as onyomi and kunyomi?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/17696/how-are-the-different-pronunciations-of-kanji-used-such-as-onyomi-and-kunyomi) This is also a good starter: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/onyomi-kunyomi/ – naruto Jul 08 '19 at 23:52
  • @blut, 「居心地」って、「生」の字が入ってないですけどね。。（「[生業]{なりわい}」って「すぎわい」とも読むって知らんかった） – Chocolate Jul 09 '19 at 02:58
  • It not just on-yomi and kun-yomi, but the same kanji can have different readings based on the word it's in. By itself 生 means raw, while in a verb (生きる is the base form) it means to live (both are kun-yomi). Most words have a logic to how they are read, but there are always some exceptions -- and some kanji like 生 have a lot of different readings, like mentioned already. – vlumi Jul 09 '19 at 05:45

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