Tuttle Learning Japanese Kanji. Glen Nolan Grant
u·ri ie う · り いえ
4. Kanji that appear alone (that is, they are not part of a compound in a sentence) are usually read with their kun-yomi.
| KANJI (+ HIRAGANA) | PRONUNCIATION | MEANING |
| 小さい | chii·sai ちい · さい | small |
| 犬 | inu いぬ | dog |
| 東 | higashi ひがし | east |
| 来る | ku·ru く · る | to come |
You may have noticed words such as “usually” and “almost always” in the above rules. One thing you will soon learn about kanji is that they seem to take delight in turning up exceptions to every rule. The best thing to do is make use of these exceptions as a means to memorize the words in which they appear. Put another way, you will be much further ahead if you learn to love headstrong words that live by their own rules!
Voiced and Unvoiced Sounds
An important consideration in learning to read Japanese is understanding the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds. Think of this difference by saying aloud the English words “brink” and “bring”; the “k” of “brink” is unvoiced, while the “g” of “bring” is voiced (you need to vibrate your vocal cords to say it). This is the same distinction, for example, between the Japanese sounds “ka” and “ga” (か and が). What you need to know is that certain kanji can turn from being unvoiced to voiced, depending on where they appear in a compound. The first entry of the previous section above provides an example: the unvoiced on-yomi SAN (サン) changes to the voiced ZAN (ザン) in the first sample word shown. Although there are an assortment of rules that explain when such changes take place, it is best to develop a “feel” for when these phonetic transformations might occur. Once this happens, your ear will develop to the point where certain compounds begin sounding more natural with one of their kanji voiced.
Irregular Readings
It sometimes occurs in Japanese that a kanji compound has an irregular reading. Known as jukujikun, such readings have no relation to the normal on- or kun-yomi of their component kanji. Rather, these irregular readings are assigned to entire compounds rather than to their component kanji.
You will encounter the first of these in Entry 2. In all three such irregular readings shown there, the reading of the kanji “人” is completely different from what we would expect it to be normally. In a sense, this is much like the problem foreigners face when learning English; the pronunciation of the word “cough”, for example, has little connection with the normal sound of the letters from which it is made. Fortunately there are not many irregular readings to be learned (less than fifty appear in this book), but as they are all in common use it is best to come to grips with them the moment they are encountered, by memorizing them as individual words. All irregular readings in this book will be presented separately from the “COMMON WORDS AND COMPOUNDS” section, to make it clear that these are some truly oddball pronunciations.
A Method for Memorizing the Visual and Aural Aspects of Kanji
As we have seen, kanji are typically more visually complex than hiragana and katakana. Because of this, a good way to simplify the task of committing kanji to memory is to look at their constituent parts. We will do just that, breaking the characters down piece-by-piece and assigning meanings to these components based exclusively on how they look. When these various components then join together to build kanji, we will make use of short stories featuring the pieces as “actors”, accompanied by drawings to help solidify the appearance of the characters in a unique way. This part of our memorization approach, therefore, will focus exclusively on the visual aspect of each kanji.
For the aural side of the equation, we need to take one other difference between the on- and kun-yomi into account when devising our memorization strategy: there are far fewer on-yomi to learn than kun-yomi. This is because on-yomi are not often complete words on their own – it helps to think of them as short “blocks” of sound that in most cases form words only when they are strung together. (It is worth keeping in mind, though, that the kanji for numbers are a notable exception to this.) Given that roughly 300 on-yomi suffice to cover the entire range of Japan’s 2,136 general-use characters, a single reading can be attached to many different kanji. SHŌ (ショウ), for example, is an on-yomi for more than 60 characters. We will be taking advantage of this aspect of Japanese to cut down on the work involved in memorizing these readings.
Our basic plan for committing both the on-yomi and kun-yomi to memory will be to come up with English keywords that approximate their sounds as closely as possible, and to use these in sentences that also contain a word encompassing the general meaning of the character.
As an example, the kanji for “two” has an on-yomi of NI (ニ), and a kun-yomi of futa (ふた). If we choose the word “knee” to suggest NI, and the phrase “who ta ns” for futa, a possible sentence might be the following: “TWO knees? Who ta ns only those?”. This second side to our approach, therefore, will focus exclusively on the aural aspect of a kanji.
A useful shortcut will involve using the same on-yomi keyword every time a kanji having that reading appears (recall that many kanji can share the same on-yomi). In the preceding example, therefore, the word “knee” will be used each time a kanji with the on-yomi “NI” crops up, and will simply be combined with the different kun-yomi and meaning of the new kanji. A major advantage of this approach is that it will make easily confused on-yomi such as HŌ (ホウ) and HO (ホ) absolutely distinctive in your mind, as you will have assigned different keywords to each of these. Given their importance (they will need to be used over and over again with different kanji), the creation of on-yomi keywords will be left up to you once a few examples have been provided at the beginning of Chapter 1 – your sentences will be more memorable if these words have a distinct personal meaning for you. The On-Yomi Keyword Table at the end of the book will help you manage your list of these keywords as it grows, and is designed to be filled in as you encounter each on-yomi in the pages ahead. By keeping all these readings in one place, you can refer to them quickly when needed.
The kun-yomi, on the other hand, are far greater in number, and therefore best learned individually. Fortunately, they tend to be more distinctive than the on-yomi, and are, as a result, often easier to remember once a unique keyword phrase has been created. In order to help with the workload in this respect, suggestions for kun-yomi keywords are provided through the first ten chapters of this book, but you should not hesitate to use an idea of your own should one spring immediately to mind.
Presentation of the Entries in This Book
Each entry will offer one kanji along with a word embracing its broadest possible meaning, followed by a grid showing its stroke order. Next, you’ll see a list of the components making up the character, together with reference numbers indicating the points at which these have been introduced earlier in the book. After a short background section describes the various shades of meaning the character conveys, a story (when required) and illustration are presented to help you memorize the kanji visually. A pronunciation section then lists the most common on- and kun-yomi for the character followed by readings that you will encounter less frequently. Entries conclude with a section showing the character’s use in a number of common Japanese words,