Tuttle Learning Japanese Kanji. Glen Nolan Grant
| SAMPLE SENTENCE: | ||
| 一時 | に | 会いましょう。 |
| ICHI·JI | ni | a·imashō. |
| One o’clock | let’s meet | |
| = Let’s meet at one o’clock. |
KANJI #4
| 二 | TWO |
Meaning
All things to do with two, including the ideas of “double” and “bi-”, etc. Note that the top line is drawn slightly shorter.
Remembering this kanji
On day TWO, things began to emerge in the form of a hamburger-like object.
Common Pronunciations
Common ON reading: NI (ニ)
Common kun reading: futa (ふた)
After that bruising encounter with the pronunciation of 一, things become much simpler with 二, although as you can see below there are also three irregular readings that need to be learned with this character. To suggest our on-yomi, let’s use “KNEE”, and for our kun-yomi, “who ta ns”. After entering KNEE in your on-yomi table, write the following sentence in the box below: “Two KNEES? Who ta ns only those?”
Less Common Pronunciations
Less common ON reading: none
Less Common kun reading: none
Here are three irregular readings that will be frequently encountered.
| IRREGULAR READINGS | ||
| 二日 | two + sun (day) = second day of the month | futsuka ふつか |
| 二十曰 | two + ten + sun (day) = twentieth day of the month | hatsuka はつか |
| 二十歳 | two + ten + annual = twenty years old | hatachi はたち |
| COMMON WORDS AND COMPOUNDS | ||
| ニ | two | NI ニ |
| ニつ | two (general counter) | futa·tsu ふた.つ |
| 二月 | two + moon (month) = February | NI.GATSU ニ.ガツ |
| 二十 | two + ten =twenty | NI.JŪ ニ.ジュウ |
| 二百 | two + hundred = two hundred | NI.HYAKU ニ.ヒャク |
| ニ時 | two + time = two o’clock | NI.JI ニ.ジ |
| 二週間 | two + week + interval = two weeks | NI.SHŪ·KAN ニ.シュウ.カン |
| SAMPLE SENTENCE: | ||||
| 二月 | の | オーストラリア | は | 美しい。 |
| NI·GATSU | no | ōsutoraria | wa | utsuku·shii. |
| February | Australia | beautiful | ||
| = Australia is beautiful in February. |
KANJI #5
| 三 | THREE |
Meaning
Three/Triple/Tri-, etc.
Remembering this kanji
On day THREE, the full hamburger - in all its glory - came into being.
Common Pronunciations
Common ON reading: SAN (サン)
Common kun reading: none
It’s now time to begin making use of our key shortcut for learning the on-yomi. As we have already created a keyword for SAN (recall the on-yomi for “山” in Entry 1), we will now use that same word here. Let’s keep things simple and have “Three SANDWICHES” as our phrase. As always, write this in the box below.
Less Common Pronunciations
Less common ON reading: none
Less Common kun readings: mi- (みっ); mi (み)
Here we have our first examples of some less common readings, in this case the two kun-yomi “mi-” and “mi”. Keep in mind that “less common” does not equate with “unimportant,” as to read Japanese fluently these pronunciations will all have to be learned in time. At this stage, however, it is far more useful to solidify the common readings in your memory and take up the others when they are encountered in the future. When you reach that stage, the appropriate phrase for the respective kanji (e.g. “Three SANDWICHES”) can simply be extended to accommodate additional mnemonic words.
In the present example, the first kun-yomi appears in only two words, and always “doubles up” in the same way “ITSU” (the on-yomi for “一”) does when preceding voiceless consonant sounds (this is indicated by the short dash after mi). In a sense, this reading is unusual enough to merit the words being learned as if they were irregular readings: 三日 [mik·ka (みっ.か)] “the third day of the month”, and 三つ [mit·tsu (みっ.つ)] the general counter for “three”. The second less common reading is more typical of the pronunciations you will find in this section. The words in which it occurs are obscure; it is enough to be aware that such less common readings exist for some of the kanji in this book, but that you don’t need to worry about them for now.
| COMMON WORDS AND COMPOUNDS | ||
| 三 | three |
SAN サン
|