Kanji Readings

In our earlier post, we discussed about what is Kanji and why do we need Kanji. In this article, we will see how to read Kanji. Almost every Kanji (not necessarily all though) can be read in two different ways. They are:

1. Onyoumi – The ON reading
2. Kunyoumi – The KUN reading

Theoretically, they say the On reading is derived from the original Chinese pronunciation whereas the Kun reading is the actual native Japanese pronunciation. Most of the books or websites or any other resources teaching Kanji will have the On reading written in Katakana and the Kun reading in Hiragana just for the differentiation sake and it don’t really have any other significance.

Knowing about Onyoumi and Kunyoumi is not really a big task but knowing when to use what is. As clearly defined by the Kanji site,

The "kun" reading is used when kanji are used on their own, either as complete nouns in their own right or as adjective and verb stems. The "on" readings are typically used when a kanji is part of a compound, i.e. written with at least one other kanji to form a word.

Let’s consider a very simple Kanji letter for example.

人

This Kanji means “person”. It doesn’t signify any gender if it’s a female or a male. It just gives the meaning, “person”.

The On reading for this letter is either Jin (ジン) or Nin (ニン) The Kun reading is Hito (ひと)

As per the definition quoted above, if the kanji 人 is used separately then it should be read with the Kun reading, Hito (ひと). This Kanji can be used as

アメリカ人.

How would read this now? America-hito? NO!!

Here the kanji 人 is used along with the letter アメリカ (America) and hence it should be read as アメリカジン (America-Jin) which literally means American.

Hence to summarize, when a Kanji appears in a sentence by itself then Kun reading is applied. If a Kanji is combined with two or more other Kanji/Kana to make a Jukugo (meaning compound word) then the On reading is applied. So, it is advisable to learn not only the Kanji but also both their readings in parallel.

Just know that there are some Kanji which has only On reading. For example,

茶 – Cha (tea)

There are also some Kanji which has more than one On reading. As we will see in our up coming lessons, exceptions are always there in each and every language.
PS: The word America is a foreign word with respect to Japanese and hence it is written in Katakana. Remember? That is what Katakana letters are for – to write foreign words in Japanese