Tuttle Learning Japanese Kanji. Glen Nolan Grant
specified by the kanji preceding it. Look for JIN in the first position and at the end of words signifying countries, and be aware that the kun-yomi is always voiced (changes from hito to bito) when it appears outside of the first position, as it does in the sixth compound below.
We now need our keywords and sentence for the three readings. For JIN and NIN let’s choose “JEANS” and “NINCOMPOOP”. As you did in the previous entry for 山, turn to the on-yomi table at the end of the book, but this time write “Jeans” in the space next to JIN and “Nincompoop” in the space next to NIN. For the kun-yomi “hito” we’ll use “heat open”. We can now throw everything together into the sentence “That Person is a NINcompoop because they heat open their JEANS”. For future review, write this sentence in the box below.
Here are our initial encounters with irregular readings. Note that the irregular reading in the first two examples belongs to 人; as you will learn in the next two entries, “一” and “二” are read with their normal kun-yomi. In the final compound, both readings are irregular. All three of these words are best thought of as special cases, and memorized individually.
| IRREGULAR READINGS | ||
| 一人 | one + person = one person | hito.ri ひと.り |
| 二人 | two + person = two people | futa.ri ふた.り |
| 大人 | large + person = adult | otona おとな |
| COMMON WORDS AND COMPOUNDS | ||
| 人 | person | hito ひと |
| 白人 | white + person = caucasian | HAKU·JIN ハク.ジン |
| 人口 | person + mouth = population | JIN·KŌ ジン.コウ |
| 三人 | three + person = three people | SAN·NIN サン.ニン |
| 四人 | four + person = four people | yo·NIN よ.ニン |
| 村人 | village + person = villager | mura·bito むら.びと |
| 外国人 | outside + country + person = foreigner | GAI·KOKU·JIN ガイ.コク.ジン |
| SAMPLE SENTENCE: | ||||||
| あの | 人 | の | 手 | は | 小さい | です。 |
| ano | hito | no | te | wa | chii·sai | desu. |
| that | person | hand | small | is | ||
| = That person’s hands are small. |
KANJI #3
| 一 | ONE |
Meaning
One. It’s hard to find an easier kanji to remember than this!
Remembering this kanji
Despite its simplicity, we need to complicate things a little in order to make use of this character in other kanji. As a result, this character will mean the “top of a hamburger bun” when appearing over all other parts of another character, and the “bottom of a hamburger bun” when it shows up beneath them. But what of a horizontal line found in the middle of a character? Well, that would be the patty (which vegetarians may wish to picture being made of tofu).
“In the beginning, there was ONE shapeless… bun.”
Common Pronunciations
Common ON readings: ICHI (イチ); ITSU (イツ)
Common kun reading: hito (ひと)
Though this is the simplest kanji in a visual sense, knowing when to use which of its readings can be tricky. Now that we have some understanding of the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds, however, it’s much easier for us to make sense of it all. Basically, whenever this kanji appears as the first character in a compound it is almost always read with its on-yomi, and its pronunciation of ICHI or ITSU will depend on whether the initial sound of the following kanji is voiced or voiceless (look closely at the sixth compound of the common words section below to see how the sound of ITSU “doubles up” with the sound of the next kanji in this situation). Don’t worry if this sounds complicated for now; rest assured it will soon become intuitive as compounds begin sounding more natural with one reading or the other.
We now need a sentence with all three common readings together with the word “one”. To suggest the sounds ICHI and ITSU, let’s use “EACH EEL” and “EAT SOUP”. Write these in their respective places in the on-yomi table at the back of the book. For the kun-yomi “hito”, we’ll use “he told”. Let’s choose the following sentence: “One,” he to ld us, “EACH EEL must EAT SOUP.” As before, write this sentence in the box below for future reference.
Less Common Pronunciations
Less common ON reading: none
Less Common kun reading: none
Here is another irregular reading; the word “day” appears in brackets to make the logic behind the compound clearer by indicating a secondary meaning of 日 (Entry 6).
| IRREGULAR READING | ||
| 一日 | one + sun (day) = first day of the month | tsuitachi ついたち |
Note that the same compound is shown below with a different pronunciation and meaning. Context will determine which is the appropriate reading to apply; when 一日 is seen at the top of a newspaper page, for example, it clearly refers to the first day of the month and would thus be read “tsuitachi” (ついたち).
| COMMON WORDS AND COMPOUNDS | ||
| 一 | one | ICHI イチ |
| 一つ | one (general counter) | hito·tsu ひと.つ |
| 一日 | one + sun (aay) = one day | ICHI·NICHI イチ.ニチ |
| 一月 |
|