Kanji
Foreword
Intro
Note: Items marked ★ are important topics. The others topics are optional reading which I recommend. You can always check them out at a later time.
Since Kanji is used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, I will try to include links and resources for learners of these where possible. It's interesting to see and compare how the characters are used or differ.
Contents
Beginner: Intro
- Background
- Scripts
- Primer (Radical Component)
- ★ Brush Stroke Order
- Pronunciation Reading
- Jouyou Kanji
- Kyouiku Kanji
- Kanken
- JLPT N5 Kanji
- JLPT N4 Kanji
Intermediate: Study
- JLPT N3 Kanji
- JLPT N2 Kanji
- JLPT List
Advanced
- JLPT N1 Kanji
- Yojijukugo
- Kanbun
Reference
- Kanken List
- RTK List
- JLPT List
- Man'yougana
1. Background
Reading (optional)
Scripts
Oracle Bone Script
2. Primer (Radical Component
Overview
List
1 stroke | |||
---|---|---|---|
# | Kanji | Name | English |
1 | 一 | いち ichi | one, horizontal |
2 | 丨 | たてぼう・ぼう tatebou / bou | vertical |
3 | 丶 | てん・ちょぼ ten / chobo | dot |
4 | 丿 | の・はらいぼう no / haraibou | left curve |
5 | 乙 乚 | おつ・おつにょう・つりばり otsu / otsunyou / tsuribari | bend (2nd celestial stem) |
6 | 亅 | はねぼう・かぎ hanebou / kagi | hook |
2 stroke | |||
# | Kanji | Name | English |
7 | |||
8 | |||
9 | |||
10 | |||
11 | |||
12 | |||
13 | |||
14 | |||
15 | |||
16 | |||
Reading (optional)
- How to find the kanji radical (Tofugu)
- List of kanji radicals (JapanDict)
- Radical Index (Jiten Online)
3. Brush Stroke Order
秘学
Kanji
部首 | ぶしゅ bushu | Radical |
総画数 | そうかくすう soukakusuu | Total Brush Strokes |
成り立ち | なりたち naritachi | Principles of Formation |
音読み | おんよみ on'yomi | Chinese Reading |
訓読み | くんよみ kun'yomi | Japanese Reading |
Font
- 篆書体 (てんしょたい) Tensho-tai (Seal Script)
- 隷書体 (れいしょたい) Reisho-tai (Clerical Script)
- 楷書体 (かいしょたい) Kaisho-tai (Regular Script)
- 明朝体 (みんちょうたい) Minchou-tai (Ming Dynasty script)
- ゴシック体 Goshikku-tai (Gothic Script)
196 additional kanji included in 2010 as general use kanji.
Compulsory education in Japan is age 6 to 15. In elmentary school (age 6-12), a total of 1,006 kanji is studied, known as 教育漢字 (きょういくかんじ kyouiku kanji; educational kanji) while the remainder 1,130 are studied in the three years of junior high (age 12-15).
小学校1年生(小1) | 漢字80字 |
小学校2年生(小2) | 漢字160字 |
小学校3年生(小3) | 漢字200字 |
小学校4年生(小4) | 漢字200字 |
小学校5年生(小5) | 漢字185字 |
小学校6年生(小6) | 漢字181字 |
中学校1年生(中1) | 漢字316字 |
中学校2年生(中2) | 漢字285字 |
中学校3年生(中3) | 漢字333字 |
中学校3年生(中3相当) | 漢字196字 |
2020, another 20 kanji was added.
茨媛岡潟岐熊香佐埼崎滋鹿縄井沖栃奈梨阪阜
How to learn kanji
- correct brush stroke order
- understand the components that make up a kanji
- look up example sentence to grasp usage/meaning and sentence structure
- memorize pronunciation
Kanji Sequence
Source | Kanji | Description |
---|---|---|
Japanese School Grades | 2,136 | 1,006 kyouiku and 1,130 in secondary. 1 (80), 2 (160), 3 (200), 4 (200), 5 (185), 6 (181), S1 (316), S2 (285), S3i (333) S3ii (196) |
JLPT (2020) | ||
Kanji Learner's Course | ||
Jouyou (2020) | ||
Frequency in Media | ||
Kanji Kentei | ||
Remembering the Kanji (6th Edition) | ||
Hadamitzky/Spahn |
Outdated Kanji
JLPT | Jouyou Kanji | Old | Variant | Replaced By | 音読み | 訓読み |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 一 | (弌) | 一 | イチ・イツ | ひと、ひと・つ、はじ・め | |
1 | 三 | (弎) | 三 | サン | み、み・つ、みっ・つ | |
N4 | 2 | 賣 | (卖) | 売 | バイ | う・る、う・れる |
N5 | 2 | 讀 | (读) | 読 | ドク・トク・トウ | よ・む、-よ・み |
N5 | 1 | 學 | (斈) | 学 | ガク | まな・ぶ |
N4 | 2 | 樂 | (乐) | 楽 | ガク・ラク・ゴウ | たの・しい、たの・む |
N4 | 1 | 花 | (芲) | 花 | カ、ケ | はな |
N4 | 2 | 會 | (㑹) | 会 | カイ、エ | あ・う、あ・わせる、あつ・まる |
N5 | 2 | 國 | (圀囶囻囯) | 国 | コク | くに |
N2 | 1 | 絲 | (丝) | 糸 | シ | いと |
1 | 圓 | (圎圆) | 円 | エン | まる・い、つぶら・か、まど・か、まろ・やか |
Kanji Quiz
- Real Kanji
- Study Kanji N5 (52 kanji - multiple choice)
Brainscape Flash Cards
- JLPT N5 Vocabulary
- JLPT N5 Kanji (198 cards)
- JLPT N5-N4 Kanji (813 cards)
- JLPT N4 Vocabulary (605 cards)
- JLPT N4 Kanji (603 cards)
- JLPT N3 Vocabulary (730 cards)
- JLPT N3 Reading (971 cards
- JLPT N3 Writing (970 cards)
- JLPT N3 Kanji (1,299)
- JLPT N2 Kanji (906 cards)
- Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course (1,294 cards)
- WaniKani 1-11 (599 cards)
- WaniKani 12+ (1,863 cards)
- Remembering the Kanji (3,000 cards
- Genki 1 Kanji (629 cards)
- Duolingo Kanji (685 cards)
- GCSE Kanji (989 cards)
- Minna no Nihongo (410 cards)
- Tae Kim Japanese Grammar Guide (246 cards)
Notes for Chinese learners
The brush stroke order of some kanji differs from Chinese
Notes on Japanese style
Different stroke order
- 国 (China)
- 出 (China)
- 生 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 北 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 書 (Taiwan, South Korea)
- 男 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 毎 (China, Taiwan, South Korea) it's not 每
- 母 (China)
- 花 (Taiwan)
- 右 (China, Taiwan)
- 魚 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
Different style
- 後 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 今 (China)
- 新 (China, Taiwan)
- 立 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 高 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 六 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 下 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 道 (Taiwan, South Korea)
- 電 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 校 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 空 (China, South Korea)
- 食 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 南 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 店 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 週 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
- 雨 (Taiwan)
- 飲 (China, Taiwan, South Korea)
Some brush strokes to take note of (personal opinion):
- 国 (4th) vertical before 2nd horizontal
- 年 (3rd) 2nd horizontal line before the left horizontal line
- 本 (5th) no hook
- 出 (1st) starts with horizontal line
- 長 (1st) starts with vertical line, not horizontal line
- 後 (1st)
- 生 (3rd) vertical line before 2nd horizontal line
- 東 (6th) straight line down with no hook
- 今 (2nd)
- 新 (1st)
- 立 (1st)
- 手 (4th)
- 学 (6th) 了 is not one stroke
- 高 (1st)
- 六 (1st)
- 下 (3rd)
- 気 (5th) cross is from right
- 山 (1st) vertical middle first
- 北 (1st) horizontal not vertical
- 書 (5th) vertical is last
- 水 (3rd) right component is two strokes not one
- 電 (5th) the dots slant left to right (rather than down, in, in out)
- 男 (3rd) vertical before horizontal inside 口
- 南 (2nd) straight not slanted
- 週 (4th) vertical first (vs. China) and left component is 3 strokes instead of 4
- 母 (3rd) two dots before middle bar
- 万 (2nd) right hook before slant
- 店 (1st) straight not dot
- 毎 (5th) different from 每, just a cross
- 雨 (4th) right slanting dots only
- 魚 (5th) vertical before horizonal cross
- 右 (1st) down slant first
Kanji
- List of Jouyou Kanji (Wikipedia (Print)
- Kakijun.jp
WaniKani
- WaniKanji is not upfront about their service. It requires you to create an account to access a free trial (up to Level 4) which gets you 100 kanji and 200 words. The website makes an unfair comparison that this is more than what first year Japanese students learn in an entire school year without clarifying that this refers specifically to children of around 6 years old. A better comparison would;ve been to contrast against how many kanji are taught to adult learners.
The website claims students can learn 2,000 kanji and 6,000 words within a year or two. Their method of teaching is to make use of mnemonics (rather than rote memory), to learn kanji with the least brush strokes (as opposed to the most frequently used kanji), and made up their own names for 26 radicals (deeming the traditional names unhelpful). The review method is by way of flash cards which uses an SRS algorithm to display with priority the cards which the user has failed to answer correctly.
- Created their own names for 26 of the 214 radicals
- Uses mnemonics to memorize pronunciation
- Claims students can learn 2,000 kanji and 5,000 words in 1-2 years
- Learn from kanji with least strokes
- Recommends learning hirgana first
- Flash card system to review and recall from memory
- Lessons (Name, Examples), Quiz
In order
- Intro to WaniKani
- Is it free?
- Premium membership
- Prerequisites
- Lessons
- Radical names
- How to find radicals (Tofugu)
- Hiragana (Tofugu)
- Japanese input
- Double N
- How to type (Tofugu)
- Script compatibility mode
- Small vs. Big Characters
- Reading
- SRS algorithm
- Stroke order
- Review queue
- Waiting for reviews
- Review forecast
- Unlocking kanji
- Unlocking vocabulary
Tofugu
Kanji
- Bunka.go.jp (PDF)
- Bunka.go.jp
- Kyouiku Kanji
- Kyouiku Kanji (Junior High)
- Advanced Kanji for 3rd Graders
- Kanji Cards
- Kanjitisiki
Sources
Radicals
- 214 radicals in Kangxi
一 いち | ⼁ たてぼう | ⼂ てん | ⼃ の | ⼄ おつ | ⺃ おつ |
JLPT
- Previously 4 grades (1級, 2級, 3級, 4級 with 1級 being the hardest). Revised to 5 grades (N1, N2, N3, N4, N5 with N1 being hardest.
- Each grade has 5 components Grammar (文法), Vocabulary (語彙), Reading Comprehension (読解), Listening Comprehension (聴解), and Kanji (漢字)
- 演繹(えんえき) deductive reasoning
Four Character Idioms 四字熟語(よじじゅくご)
N2 Level
四捨五入 (ししゃごにゅう) rounding (fractions); rounding half up N4 Level
(N4) 一生懸命 (いっしょうけんめい) very hard; with utmost effort; as hard as one can; with all one's might; for dear life; eagerly; desperately 魑魅魍魎 (ちみもうりょう) evil spirits of rivers and mountains 花鳥風月 (かちょうふうげつ) beauties of nature; the traditional themes of natural beauty in Japanese aesthetics 百鬼夜行 (ひゃっきやぎょう) nightly procession of monsters, spirits, etc. / veritable pandemonium; large number of people plotting and doing evil; creepy characters roaming about 日進月歩 (にっしんげっぽ) steady progress; rapid advance 聖人君子 (せいじんくんし) person of lofty virtue; man of noble character; perfect person; saint 聖人無夢 孤軍重囲 泰然自囲 融通無碍 旧態依然 有為転変 丁丁発止 (ちょうちょうはっし) with (the sound of) clashing swords / (arguing) fiercely; heatedly; vehemently 四苦八苦 四面楚歌 四神相応 孤角四面 孤軍重囲 孤軍重囲 聖人賢者 (person of lofty virtue and great wisdom) person of lofty virtue and great wisdom 平平凡凡 津津浦浦 生生世世 戦戦慄慄 Idioms 慣用句
- 尻に敷く(しりにしく)
- 人間万事塞翁が馬 (にんげんがんじさいおうがうま) (ref)
- 猫に小判(ねこにこばん) (giving) a gold coin to a cat
- 豚に真珠(ぶたにしんじゅ) casting pearls before swine
Tags: scripts