Questions tagged [readings]

読み. The reading of a kanji character or a word written in kanji characters refers to how it is “read” in terms of kana characters. Please use this tag rather than 'pronunciation' if it fits your question.

The reading (読み) of a kanji character or a word written in kanji characters refers to how it is “read” in terms of kana characters. For example, kanji character 日 has two common readings にち and ひ.

There are two kinds of readings of a kanji character: on readings (音読み) and kun readings (訓読み). On readings are derived from Chinese pronunciations at some point in history, and kun readings are native Japanese words corresponding to the meaning of the kanji characters. In the above example, にち is an on reading and ひ is a kun reading of kanji character 日. Most kanji characters have at least one on reading and at least one kun reading.


See also

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How to choose between "よん" (yon) vs "し" (shi) for "四" (4) and "しち" (shichi) vs "なな" (nana) for "七" (7)?

Two numbers in Japanese have two pronunciation alternatives. 四 / 4 can be pronounced either "よん" (yon) or "し" (shi) 七 / 7 can be pronounced either "しち" (shichi) or "なな" (nana) I know that "し" (shi) can be avoided because it has the same…
hippietrail
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Why is 二十歳 pronounced はたち?

二十歳 is a (to me) bizarre exception to the usual number+さい rule for discussing age. Is this rooted in 20 being the Japanese age of majority? Added: To be more specific: why isn't it pronounced にじゅうさい like the rest of the さい words for age?
sartak
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Reading (and usage) of 他: when is it 【た】, when is it 【ほか】?

他 is one of these common words that still to this day confuses me... My general assumption is that: used as a prefix, it should always be read 【た】, e.g.: 他人【たにん】 when treated as a "substantive" (that is essentially, followed by の), it is 【ほか】:…
Dave
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When to read "その後" as "そのご", "そのあと" or "そののち"?

I've recently been seeing あと as well as ご as Furigana on top of 後 in その後, but is there a difference in usage or meaning between the different readings? Looking at the Yahoo thesaurus, it seems it can also be read as のち. When would this reading be…
cypher
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Is there a difference between さみしい and さびしい?

Both mean "lonely" and appear to be valid readings for 寂しい. Is there a difference in nuance? Is this difference due to dialect?
pinguish
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Words/characters for fast food meal sizes: 並, 大, 特

When dining at Yoshinoya I never know how to ask for the size meal I want. Their sizes are 並, 大, and 特. I only know that "大" means big, but it also has two readings so I have no idea whether to ask for "dai" or "ooki". And since the word/character I…
hippietrail
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What does the highlighted portion of this handwritten Kanji say?

知恵袋で***いてるし… I tried searching Google, hoping it's a phrase that might come up more often, but none of the Kanji that came up looked even remotely like the one written here. Thank you!
Bibliocharylodis
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What is the difference between 「食う」 and 「食べる」?

I've often seen 「食べる」 used, when should we use 「食う」 ? Are these two interchangeable ? Can you provide examples ?
Aki
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Does anyone have advice on how to get over/through/around the intermediate language plateau? (Self-learner)

How do you get through this? Especially in regards to reading. How do you practice reading at beyond the beginner level (No little black sambo's or whatever other children's books like I found in the local free bin when I was a teenager) when a…
Joshua Olson
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Reading of 入る - 「はいる」 vs 「いる」

Sometimes I'm having trouble choosing the reading for 入る. There was a related question about the reading of 入れる, however my JMdict-based dictionary marks both 入る{はいる} and 入る{いる} as intransitive verbs (自動詞) - is it correct? If so, then how to…
kroki
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Pronunciation of "何" as "なん" or "なに"

"何" is pronounced as "なん" before counter-words like in "何時{なんじ}", "何歳{なんさい}" etc; or before particles like in "何で", "何とか" etc. However, it remains to be pronounced as "なに" in some words like "何事{なにごと}", "何色{なにいろ}", "何者{なにもの}" etc. It can also be…
Lukman
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How do attendance checklists in Japan deal with multiple possible name readings?

Even though there are several recurring, easily guessable family name readings ([田中]{たなか}、佐藤{さとう}、田村{たむら}) in Japanese, there are usually many possible readings to people's names Kanji, especially first names (良 could be あきら, りょう, まこと etc). How do…
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When Chinese personal names are written in Japanese in kanji is there always an obvious reading?

In their comment to an answer on the question "Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana rather than Romaji?", user sawa says: ... Chinese names should be written in kanji rather than katakana and read by the Japanese pronunciation.…
hippietrail
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How many unique on'yomi are there?

This question is of interest to me because of my own difficulty with remembering on'yomi, as there are fewer possible on'yomi than kun'yomi. So there must be a finite number of valid on'yomi pronunciations, right? The question is, what is this…
Lou
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How to read: the "~" (tilde) in "3~4 行"

How should I read the "~" mark that stands for range, as described in the title? I saw this in the following sentence: 3~4行ごとに1行あけると読みやすい。
Eric
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