By now you are probably aware that Japanese consists of two 'syllabaries' (hiragana and katakana) which can be used to spell out any word, as well as several thousand kanji, of which 2136 are designated as 'Jōyō' (for daily use) ¹.

Unfortunately, the picture gets a bit more complicated, because most of those kanji can actually be 'read' in multiple ways. In other words, depending on the context, the pronunciation of the kanji, i.e. the way you would say it out loud, and the kana you would use to spell it, can be different. In fact, of the 2136 Jōyō kanji, only 893 ² are typically only read in a single way - in other words, 1243 have multiple readings. 138 kanji are commonly read in more than three ways!

While this seems confusing at first glance, a similar situation actually also occurs in English. Words that are pronounced differently but spelt the same way are called 'heteronymns' ³. However, there are far fewer heteronymns in English - only about 80 common ones, in fact ⁴.

As you learn kanji, you will learn to internalize the correct way to read a kanji based on its context in just the same way.

Since almost all kanji used in Japanese came from China ⁵, they all came with associated sounds (i.e., the way the kanji were read out loud in Chinese). Most of these readings have survived, modified to fit within the sounds of the Japanese language, as 'on' readings of kanji. It is customary to write on readings in katakana. 'On' comes from

おん

音

, which means 'sound'.

Before kanji were imported, the Japanese language already existed completely independently, so every word that could be written with kanji already had a Japanese equivalent. These Japanese words were assigned to kanji with similar meanings, and became known as the 'kun' readings such that the kanji could be 'read' with either the original Chinese pronunciation, or the original Japanese word. It is customary to write kun readings in hiragana, and 'kun' comes from

くん

訓

which means 'teaching'.

Since Chinese kanji were imported to represent concepts, they came without grammar, and for the most part they became nouns modified with Japanese grammar. This is why so many する verbs exist - as a way to turn a noun into a verb. Since Japanese verbs and adjectives need to be inflected, the inflections need to be represented with additional characters, and it is customary to write inflections using hiragana known as okurigana.

Let's take an example: 大, which means 'big'. This is one of the most common kanji in Japanese. Here's how it's presented in Kanshudo in search results:

The three Jōyō readings are included in the short form presentation: ダイ, タイ, and おお. The Jōyō readings are the 'official' readings of a kanji, set out in the government's guide to the Jōyō kanji - see section 5.

Two of the readings are written in katakana: ダイ and タイ. These are the 'on' readings. The sound of these readings bears a strong resemblance to the sound of 大 in Mandarin even today ⁶.

The kun reading is おお, written in hiragana. You'll see that the on reading おお is presented as part of a word - おおきい. The last part, きい, is in a lighter color to indicate that it is 'okurigana' - the kana used to form the word ending. The actual kun reading is おお, the part that is used to replace the kanji, as used in おおきい, おおいに and some other common words.

Here's the golden rule for learning kanji readings:

When you encounter a kanji, rather than trying to memorize a dry list of different ways it can be read out of context, instead focus on identifying the most useful words that use each reading. Kanshudo makes this very easy for you - whenever you see a kanji in its blue box, click the box to see an expanded list of information. There you'll find a summary of each reading used in one or more of the 10,000 most useful words in Japanese. For even more depth, you can click through to the kanji's details page, where you'll find an analysis of all readings used in *all* words in Japanese!

Let's take another example - 見, another of the most common kanji in Japanese:

To learn the readings, click the kanji's blue box to get the 'quick view'. In the quick view, you'll see a summary of each of the readings for the kanji used in the most common 10,000 words in Japanese, along with the most useful word that uses each reading.

As you'll see, みる appears as the most common word using the kun reading み - this is one of the most useful verbs in Japanese, and worth learning right away!

The most useful word using the on reading ケン is

いけん

意見

- a common word meaning 'opinion'. So instead of trying to learn 'けん', learn the word いけん. A good way to do this is to think of 見 as 'the み of みる (see), and the けん of いけん (opinion)'. In fact, this is exactly how a Japanese person would typically describe a kanji to someone: 「見」は「みる」の「み」.

When you are learning your first few kanji, you will probably not know the other kanji in the words you learn. For example, you'll probably learn 意 (the い of いけん) some time after learning 見. Don't worry about that - just focus on learning the word itself, as you would in English: いけん means 'opinion'. As time goes by you'll fit the new kanji you learn into the right blanks.

Going back to the 大 example above, notice that there are two on readings - ダイ and タイ. ダイ is very common - it's used in the very common words

だいがく

大学

and

だいぶ

大分

, for example, which are two of the first words you'll learn in Japanese. However, the most useful word using the reading タイ is

たいかい

大会

, meaning 'convention' or 'tournament'. While this is a common word in daily (adult) Japanese, it is not as useful for a beginner learner as say 大学. So it is generally a good strategy to leave this word, and the reading タイ, until you encounter it.

When you are first learning Japanese words, it can help you a lot to be able to guess how a word is read. It will be quicker to look the word up, and it lets you ask someone the meaning without having to show them the word!

However, there is a more significant reason: your 'guess' is the reading you will find easiest to remember. So if you can develop your 'intuition' for how words should be read, you will find your ability to assimilate new vocabulary will also increase.

The following guidelines will help you make an educated guess how to read any word you encounter for the first time.

In practice, many standard Jōyō readings are actually not commonly used. They may be included by the government because they are used in words required for official situations, or words every Japanese person would know but that don't come up on a daily basis.

In addition, many common words use readings that are not listed in the Jōyō guide. The guide does not list voicings, contractions, and incorporations of existing readings as separate readings, but illustrates them as examples of the base form.

On Kanshudo, the short form of a kanji (the blue box visible in search results) shows the official Jōyō readings, including ones that are not especially common, and excluding any that are commonly used but not 'official'. In the details view of a kanji, you'll see all readings, with data on usage and frequency. We also treat inclusion of a word as an example of a kanji reading in the official Jōyō guide as a ranking factor in our vocabulary usefulness ranking.

Kanshudo's search function lets you search for voicings and contractions separately, so you can pinpoint the precise reading you are looking for.

For your interest below we've included some links for additional information. The kanji reading statistics are based on Kanshudo research.