In order to use kanji in the Japanese language, some kanji characters needed to be accompanied by kana. Such kana are called okurigana. Okurigana are particularly important for verbs and adjectives, which need inflectional elements, although they may also be used for other types of words, including nouns and adverbs. For example, in the following words, the kanji 高, meaning expensive or high, and the kana that follow jointly represent the pronunciation of the whole word, successfully representing its complete meaning:
| 高い | takai | expensive(plain present affirmative) |
| 高くない | takakunai | not expensive(plain present negative) |
| 高かった | takakatta | was expensive(plain past affirmative) |
In this book, the okurigana are preceded by “-” when first presented in kun-readings.
Furigana
Kanji characters are occasionally provided with kana that shows how they are intended to be read in the given context. Such kana used as a pronunciation guide are called furigana. For example, the hiragana characters placed right above the kanji in the following word are furigana:
高い
Furigana is often used for children or learners of Japanese. This can be a great help for you at the beginning! It is also used in newspapers for unusual readings and for characters not included in the officially recognized set of essential kanji. Japanese comic books use furigana generously!
How are kanji used in compounds?
Some Japanese words are represented by only one kanji (e.g., 赤, aka, red), but many Japanese words are represented by a kanji with okurigana (e.g., 高い, takai, expensive) or by a kanji compound. Kanji compounds constitute a large proportion of Japanese vocabulary. For example, 先生, written sensei in Roman letters, is a compound meaning teacher. It consists of two characters, 先 (ahead) and 生 (live). In general, on-readings are used for compounds, but occasionally, kun-readings are also used.
By the way, when you write a compound, there is no need to add a space between the kanji characters in it, but don’t try to squeeze the characters together to fit in one-character space. Each character in a compound should take one-character space. For example, notice the difference between 女子(girl) and 好(to like). The first item (女子) is a kanji compound that consists of two kanji characters, 女(woman) and 子(child). By contrast, the second item (好) is a single kanji character that consists of two kanji components, 女and 子.
Some kanji compounds were created in Japan and have been brought back to China and are now being used there. Examples include 電話 denwa (telephone), 化学 kagaku (science), and 社会 shakai (society). Many kanji compounds are also used to represent Japanese culture, concepts, and ideas (e.g., 神道 Shinto) as well as to name Japanese people (e.g., 田中 Tanaka), institutions and companies (e.g., 三菱 Mitsubishi), places (e.g., 東京 Tokyo), and eras (e.g., 明治 Meiji). Regardless of their origin, kanji compounds form an essential part of the lives of Japanese people.
There are two special cases where you may have a hard time reading kanji compounds: jukujikun and ateji. A jukujikun is a unique kun-reading assigned to an entire kanji compound rather than to each kanji character separately. For example, the compound 明日 (tomorrow) can be read as myōnichi using the on-reading of each character in the compound one after another, as in the majority of typical kanji compounds, but can also be read as asu, which is a jukujikun. In the latter case, it is impossible to tell which syllable corresponds to 明 and which syllable corresponds to 日 because the reading is assigned to the whole compound. Other examples of jukujikun include 一日 tsuitachi (the first day of the month), 五月雨 samidare (early summer rain), 海老 ebi (shrimp), and 土産 miyage (souvenir).
Ateji are kanji characters whose sounds are used to represent native Japanese words or non-Chinese loanwords regardless of the meanings of the kanji. For example, the kanji compound 寿司 is made of ateji. It is pronounced sushi, and means sushi, the food, even though 寿 means one’s natural life span and 司 means to administer, neither of which are directly related to food. Other examples of ateji include 目出度い medetai (happy), 出鱈目 detarame (random), and 珈琲 kōhī (coffee). Many ateji for non-Chinese loanwords, including proper names, have been replaced by katakana, but some are still used. In addition, new ateji are occasionally created.
What are radicals?
Most kanji characters are composed of two or more components. Each component may contribute to the kanji’s meaning, sound, or merely its shape. For example, 日 is an independent kanji character meaning sun, but is also a component that lends meaning to many kanji. For example:
明 bright 時 time 晴 clear up
There are many kanji-components, but the most basic and identifiable elements of kanji are called radicals. For hundreds of years, Chinese dictionaries have organized kanji characters according to their radicals. Each Chinese characters was assigned a radical and placed in an appropriate section of a dictionary according to the designated radical.
It is not always clear which component of a kanji is the radical, but this workbook shows the radical for each kanji at the upper right corner of the page. Whenever you learn a new kanji using this book, check its radical. It will help you understand and remember the meaning and the internal composition of the kanji. Eventually, you will be able to identify the radical just by looking at a kanji. There is an index of characters organized by radical near the end of this book.
Depending on its position in a kanji character, radicals are classified into seven categories, as shown in the chart on the opposite page:
How do I look up a kanji in a Japanese dictionary?
Many dictionaries list kanji characters according to their pronunciation, for both on-readings and kun-readings, either in kana or in Roman letters. So, if you know the reading of a kanji character, you can easily find it in such a dictionary using its pronunciation-based index. For example, The Original Modern Reader’s Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Andrew N. Nelson (Tuttle Publishing), has an on/kun index in the back, and kanji characters are alphabetically listed according to both their on-readings and their kun-readings in Roman letters with a unique code number provided for each character. Using that code number, you can easily find the page you should go to in the dictionary.
What if you see a kanji, but you don’t know how to read it? You could then use the radical index included in most dictionaries. In a radical index, hundreds of radicals are listed according to the radical’s total number of strokes. For example, 日 is the radical of 明, and it has 4 strokes. You can find the radical 日 in the radical list under the section for four-stroke radicals in just a few seconds. There you will find a code number, which will guide you to the list of all the kanji with the radical 日. For example, you will see many kanji, including 明, 晴, and 時, on the page specified by the code number for the radical 日. They are ordered according to their total stroke count. You can easily find the kanji character you want in the list.
If you have no clue about either the pronunciation or the radical of the kanji, you can use the kanji’s total stroke count as a reference. This book specifies the total stroke count for each kanji at the upper right corner of each page, but if you always write kanji in the correct stroke order and with the correct stroke count, you can figure it out by yourself.
How are kanji characters written?
To write kanji properly and legibly, it is very important to know how each stroke in a kanji is drawn. Here are some principles and tendencies for stroke endings, stroke directions, and stroke orders.
Stroke Endings
