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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kanji (漢字, pronounced [kaɲdʑi] (About this soundlisten)) are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system.[1] They are used alongside the Japanese syllabic scripts hiragana and katakana. The Japanese term kanji for the Chinese characters literally means "Han characters".[2] It is written with the same characters as in Traditional Chinese to refer to the character writing system, hanzi (漢字).[3]

LanguagesOld Japanese, Japanese, Ryukyuan languages
Time period
5th century AD present
Parent systems
Sister systems
ISO 15924Hani, 500
Unicode alias



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 era probably had no comprehension of the script, and would remain illiterate until the fifth century AD.[5] According to the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, a semi-legendary scholar called Wani (Japanese: 王仁) 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]


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]


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

A young woman practicing kanji. Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Yōshū Chikanobu, 1897.

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.


Kyōiku kanji

The kyōiku kanji (教育漢字, lit. "education kanji") are the 1,026 first 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 Jinmeiyō kanji; some are used to write prefecture names: , , , , 鹿, , , , , 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;



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.


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.


Borrowing typology of Han characters
Meaning Pronunciation
a) semantic on L1 L1
b) semantic kun L1 L2
c) phonetic on L1
d) phonetic kun L2

Because of the way they have been adopted into Japanese, a single kanji may be used to write one or more different words—or, in some cases, morphemes—and thus the same character may be pronounced in different ways. From the reader's point of view, kanji are said to have one or more different "readings". Although more than one reading may become activated in the brain,[21] deciding which reading is appropriate depends on recognizing which word it represents, which can usually be determined from context, intended meaning, whether the character occurs as part of a compound word or an independent word, and sometimes location within the sentence. For example, 今日 is usually read kyō, meaning "today", but in formal writing is instead read konnichi, meaning "nowadays"; this is understood from context. Nevertheless, some cases are ambiguous and require a furigana gloss, which are also used simply for difficult readings or to specify a non-standard reading.

Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi (音読み, literally "sound reading", from Chinese) or kun'yomi (訓読み, literally "meaning reading", native Japanese), and most characters have at least two readings, at least one of each.

However, some characters have only a single reading, such as kiku (, "chrysanthemum", an on-reading) or iwashi (, "sardine", a 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 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 okurigana: 生 for details.


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 would not normally be expected to have on'yomi, but there are exceptions, such as the character "to work", which has the kun'yomi "hataraku" and the on'yomi "", and "gland", which has only the on'yomi "sen"—in both cases these come from the on'yomi of the phonetic component, respectively "" and "sen".


  • 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.
  • 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.
Examples (rare readings in parentheses)
bright myō mei (min)
go gyō

extreme goku kyoku
pearl shu shu ju (zu)
degree do (to)
transport (shu) (shu) yu
child shi shi su
clear shō sei (shin)
capital kyō kei (kin)
soldier hyō hei
strong kyō

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 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), futon (布団, 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 (多音字 pinyin: duōyīnzì) such as (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. Thus most on'yomi are composed of two morae (beats), the second of which is either a lengthening of the vowel in the first mora (to ei, ō, or ū), the vowel i, or one of the syllables ku, ki, tsu, chi, fu (historically, later merged into ō and ū), or moraic n, chosen for their approximation to the final consonants of Middle Chinese. It may be that palatalized consonants before vowels other than i developed in Japanese as a result of Chinese borrowings, as they are virtually unknown in words of native Japanese origin, but are common in Chinese.

On'yomi primarily occur in multi-kanji compound words (熟語, jukugo) words, many of which are the result of the adoption, along with the kanji themselves, of Chinese words for concepts that either did not exist in Japanese or could not be articulated as elegantly using native words. This borrowing process is often compared to the English borrowings from Latin, Greek, and Norman French, since Chinese-borrowed terms are often more specialized, or considered to sound more erudite or formal, than 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)


For instance, the character for east, , has the on'yomi , from Middle Chinese tung. However, Japanese already had two words for "east": higashi and azuma. Thus the kanji had the latter readings added as 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 , from , and there are even some, such as sen "gland", that have only an on'yomi.



  • 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).
  • 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 hanashi 2+1=3, from 話す hana(su).
  • is a triple compound.
    • It has an alternative spelling 御言宣 mi-koto-nori, hence 1+2+2=5.


Ateji (当て字, 宛字 or あてじ) 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.






Mixed readings

A jūbako (重箱), which has a mixed on-kun reading
A yutō (湯桶), which has a mixed kun-on reading

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). It is the other way around with yutō (kun-on).

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 hybrid words. Other examples include basho (場所, "place", kun-on), kin'iro (金色, "golden", on-kun) and aikidō (合気道, the martial art Aikido", kun-on-on).


Special readings

Gikun (義訓) and jukujikun (熟字訓) are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' 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 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 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 (麦酒, 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 karuta (かるた) from Portuguese "carta" (Eng: card), tempura (てんぷら) from Portuguese "tempora", and pan (ぱん) from Spanish "pan" (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 黄金虫, normally read as koganemushi, is shortened to kogane in 黒黄金虫 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 yusuri (強請, 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).




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, "meter" + "thousand").

Other readings



When to use which reading



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, "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, 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 -no or 〜な -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 indicate which kun'yomi to use, as in 食べる ta-beru versus 食う ku-u (casual), both meaning "(to) eat", but this is not always sufficient, as in 開く, which may be read as a-ku or hira-ku, both meaning "(to) open". 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 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. "north" and "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: 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; is read i when it means "simple", but as eki when it means "divination", both being on'yomi for this character.


Similarly, some on'yomi characters can also be used as words in isolation: ai "love", Zen, 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 may be read as kin "gold" or as kane "money, metal"; only context can determine the writer's intended reading and meaning.




Place names

Several famous place names, including those of Japan itself (日本 Nihon or sometimes Nippon), those of some cities such as Tokyo (東京 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, 青森 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) and Kobe (神戸) 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) and Narita (成田)—is formed similarly, although the reading of 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 Yamada, 田中 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 verification. Parents can be quite creative, and rumours abound of children called 地球 Āsu ("Earth") and 天使 Enjeru ("Angel"); neither are common names, and have normal readings chikyū and tenshi respectively. Some common Japanese names can be written in multiple ways, e.g. Akira can be written as , , , , , , , , , , , , 秋良, 明楽, 日日日, 亜紀良, 安喜良 and many other characters and kanji combinations not listed,[25] Satoshi can be written as , , 哲史, , 佐登史, , , 哲士, 哲司, , , , 佐登司, , 里史, 三十四, , 智詞, etc.,[26] and Haruka can be written as , 春香, 晴香, 遥香, 春果, 晴夏, 春賀, 春佳, and several other possibilities.[27] 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:

English name Japanese name
Rōmaji Katakana Kanji
Harbin Harubin ハルビン 哈爾浜
Ürümqi Urumuchi ウルムチ 烏魯木斉
Qiqihar Chichiharu チチハル 斉斉哈爾
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:

English name Mandarin name (Pinyin) Hokkien name (Tâi-lô) Cantonese name (Yale) Japanese name
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 (formerly Peking) Beijing Pak-kiann Bāk Gīng 北京 ペキン Pekin
Nanjing (formerly Nanking) Nanjing Lâm-kiann Nàahm Gīng 南京 ナンキン Nankin
Taipei Taibei Tâi-pak Tòih Bāk 台北 タイペイ / たいほく Taipei / Taihoku
Kaohsiung Gaoxiong / Dagou Ko-hiông Gōu Hùhng 高雄 / 打狗 カオシュン / タカオ Kaoshun / Takao


  • 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 or タカオ in Japanese.
  • Taipei is generally pronounced たいほく in Japanese.


Pronunciation assistance


Spelling words



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 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.


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.


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, is composed of (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 sakaki tree, formed as "tree" and "god", literally "divine tree", and tsuji "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) that were not present in ancient China, including a very large number of fish, such as (sardine), (codfish), (seaperch), and (sillago), and trees, such as (evergreen oak), (Japanese cedar), (birch, maple) and (spindle tree).[28] In other cases they refer to specifically Japanese abstract concepts, everyday words (like ), or later technical coinages (such as ).

There are hundreds of kokuji in existence.[29] 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:

  • どう , 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.
  • こ(む) ko(mu), used in the fundamental verb komu (込む, "to be crowded")
  • にお(う) nio(u), used in common verb niou (匂う, "to smell, to be fragrant")
  • はたけ hatake "field of crops"
  • せん sen, "gland"
  • とうげ tōge "mountain pass"
  • わく waku, "frame"
  • へい hei, "wall"

jinmeiyō kanji

  • さかき sakaki "tree, genus Cleyera"
  • つじ tsuji "crossroads, street"
  • もんめ monme (unit of weight)


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


Historically, some kokuji date back to very early Japanese writing, being found in the Man'yōshū, for example— 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. For example, some characters were produced as regular compounds for some (but not all) SI units, such as ( "meter" + "thousand, kilo-") for kilometer, ( "liter" + "thousand, kilo-") for kiloliter, and ( "gram" + "thousand, kilo-") for kilogram—see Chinese characters for SI units for details. However, SI units in Japanese today are almost exclusively written using rōmaji or katakana such as キロメートル or for km, キロリットル for kl, and キログラム or for kg.[31]

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 radical to each character—the characters were "made in Japan". However, is not considered kokuji, as it is found in ancient Chinese texts as a corruption of (魚匽). is considered kokuji, as it has not been found in any earlier Chinese text. Casual listings may be more inclusive, including characters such as .[32] Another example is , which is sometimes not considered kokuji due to its earlier presence as a corruption of Chinese .


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:

Char. Japanese Chinese
Reading Meaning Pinyin Meaning
fuji wisteria téng rattan, cane, vine[33]
oki offing, offshore chōng rinse, minor river (Cantonese)
椿 tsubaki Camellia japonica chūn Toona spp.
ayu sweetfish nián catfish (rare, usually written )
saki blossom xiào smile (rare, usually written )

Types of kanji by category


Shōkei moji (象形文字)

Shōkei (Mandarin: xiàngxíng) characters are pictographic sketches of the object they represent. For example, 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 "up" or "above" and "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 (rest) from (person radical) and (tree). Another is the kokuji (mountain pass) made from (mountain), (up) and (down). These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters.

Keisei moji (形声文字)


Tenchū moji (転注文字)


Kasha moji (仮借文字)


Related symbols

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, "various") and tokidoki (時々, "sometimes"). This mark also appears in personal and place names, as in the surname Sasaki (佐々木). This symbol is a simplified version of the kanji , a variant of (, "same").

Another abbreviated symbol is , in appearance a small katakana "ke", but actually a simplified version of the kanji , a general counter. It is pronounced "ka" when used to indicate quantity (such as 六ヶ月, rokkagetsu "six months") or "ga" in place names like Kasumigaseki (霞ヶ関).

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 as well as , and . To produce , type 「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.





Kanji education

An image that lists most joyo-kanji, according to Halpern's KKLD indexing system, with kyo-iku kanji color-coded by grade level

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, are 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.



See also


  6. ^ a b Miyake (2003), 9.
  7. ^ "Kanji History in Japan". Les Ateliers de Japon.
  9. ^ Tamaoka, K., Makioka, S., Sanders, S. & Verdonschot, R.G. (2017). 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.
  11. ^ JIS X 0212:1990.
  12. ^ JIS X 0213:2000.
  13. ^ Introducing the SING Gaiji architecture, Adobe.
  14. ^ OpenType Technology Center, Adobe.
  17. ^ Kuang-Hui Chiu, Chi-Ching Hsu (2006). Chinese Dilemmas : How Many Ideographs are Needed Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, National Taipei University
  18. ^ Shouhui Zhao, Dongbo Zhang, The Totality of Chinese Characters—A Digital Perspective
  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". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 66 (10): 2023. doi:10.1080/17470218.2013.773050. PMID 23510000.
  22. ^ "How many possible phonological forms could be represented by a randomly chosen single character?". Retrieved July 15, 2017.
  23. ^ a b "How do Japanese names work?". Retrieved November 14, 2017.
  24. ^ 【名字】小鳥遊
  25. ^ "ateji Archives". Tofugu. Archived from the original on December 25, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  26. ^ "Satoshi". Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  27. ^ "Haruka". Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  28. ^ Koichi (August 21, 2012). "Kokuji: "Made In Japan," Kanji Edition". Tofugu. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  29. ^ "Kokuji list", SLJ FAQ.
  31. ^ "A list of kokuji (国字)". Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  33. ^ the word for wisteria being "紫藤", with the addition of "紫", "purple"


  • Kaiser, Stephen (1991). "Introduction to the Japanese Writing System". In Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide. Tokyo: Kondansha International. ISBN 4-7700-1553-4.

External links

Glyph conversion

This page was last edited on 28 June 2020, at 02:04