Individual kanji may be used to write one or more different words or
morphemes, leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading may be determined by contextual cues (such as whether the character represents part of a compound word versus an independent word), the exact intended meaning of the word, and its position within the sentence. For example, is mostly read , meaning "today", but in formal writing it is read , meaning "nowadays". is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings. Readings are categorized as either (literally "meaning reading"), native Japanese, or (literally "sound reading"), borrowed from Chinese. Most kanji have at least a single reading of each category, though some have only one, such as or ; Japanese-coined kanji () often only have readings. Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is , which is read as , , , , , , , , , , , and , totaling eight basic readings (the first two are , while the rest are ), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct.
(Sino-Japanese reading) The , the
Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern descendant of the Japanese approximation of the base Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. It was often previously referred to as
translation reading, as it was recreated readings of the Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English pronunciation of Latin loanwords. There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple , and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan () would not normally be expected to have , but there are exceptions, such as the character "to work", which has the "" and the "", and "gland", which has only the ""—in both cases these come from the of the phonetic component, respectively "" and "".
(native reading) The , the native reading, is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native
Japanese word, or , that closely approximated the meaning of the
Chinese character when it was introduced. As with , there can be multiple for the same kanji, and some kanji have no at all. ====== are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of , narrowly ). Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also
special cases where the reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading. The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in
Chinese varieties, where there are
literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters—borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form
doublets and are generally similar, analogous to different , reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese.
Gairaigo Longer readings exist for non- characters and non-kanji symbols, where a long
gairaigo word may be the reading (this is classed as —see
single character gairaigo, below)—the character has the seven reading "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading .
Mixed readings There are many kanji compounds that use a mixture of and ; these may be considered
hybrid words. Readings in which the first kanji is ''on'yomi
and the second is kun'yomi
are classified as , while kun-on
words are classified as . The words jūbako
and yutō'' are themselves examples of the reading patterns they represent (they are
autological words). Other examples include , and . often use mixed readings. For instance, the city of
Sapporo (), whose name derives from the
Ainu language and has no meaning in Japanese, is written with the compound (which includes as if it were a purely compound).
Special readings and are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to the characters' individual or . From the point of view of the character, rather than the word, this is known as a , and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character. are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading (meaning "cold") as ("winter") rather than the standard readings or , and instead of the usual spelling for of . Another example is using () with the reading ("tobacco") rather than the otherwise-expected readings of or . Some of these, such as for , have become
lexicalized, but in many cases this kind of use is typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers. Aided with , could be used to convey complex literary or poetic effect (especially if the readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious. are when the standard kanji for a word are related to the meaning, but not the sound. The word is pronounced as a whole, not corresponding to sounds of individual kanji. For example, ("this morning") is . This word is not read as , the expected of the characters, and only infrequently as , the of the characters. The most common reading is , a native bisyllabic Japanese word that may be seen as a single
morpheme, or as a compound of (“this”, as in , the older reading for , “today”), and , “morning”. Likewise, ("today") is also , usually read with the native reading ; its , , does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in the broader sense "nowadays" or "current", such as ("present-day"), although in the phrase ("good day"), is typically spelled wholly with rather than with the kanji . are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as
Yamato or , the name of the dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some old borrowings, such as (, literally "willow leaf fish") from Ainu, (, literally “smoke grass”) from Portuguese, or (, literally “wheat alcohol”) from Dutch, especially if the word was borrowed before the
Meiji period. Words whose kanji are are often usually written as (if native), or (if borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as , especially Portuguese loanwords such as () from Portuguese "" (English "card") or () from Portuguese "" (English “times, season”), as well as (). A case where
jukujikun is used for
Sino-Japanese is the word
kyōdai, which, prototypically, means "brothers" and is spelt ("big and little brothers"). However, the meaning has been expanded to "siblings" in general, and can assume such spellings as ("(big and little) sisters", alternatively pronounced
shimai), ("big brother and little sister") and ("big sister and little brother"). It is also possible to say
otoko kyōdai ("male siblings; brothers") and
onna kyōdai ("female siblings; sisters"). Sometimes, can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being (, “woodpecker”), (, “silver berry, oleaster”), and (, a surname). This phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound names, for example when , normally read as , is shortened to in , although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji. Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example , or the historical male name suffix , which was shortened from the word . The kanji compound for is often idiosyncratic and created for the word, and there is no corresponding Chinese word with that spelling. In other cases, a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and may or may not be used in Japanese. For example, ("reindeer") is for , from Ainu, but the reading of is also used. In some cases, Japanese coinages have subsequently been
borrowed back into Chinese, such as (, "
monkfish"). The underlying word for is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have an existing kanji spelling (either or ) or for which a new kanji spelling is produced. Most often the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb form or a fusional pronunciation. For example, the word (, "
sumo") is originally from the verb (, “to vie, to compete”), while (, "today") is fusional (from older , "this" + , "day"). In rare cases, is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word. The most common example of an inflectional is the adjective (, “cute”), originally ; the word is used in
Chinese, but the corresponding is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either (, as ) or (, as ). Which reading to use can be discerned by the presence or absence of the ending (). A common example of a verb with is (, “to spread, to be in vogue”), corresponding to (). A sample deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is (, "extortion"), from (, “to extort”), spelling from (, "extortion"). Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly, compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read using the usual . Examples include (, "interesting", literally "face + white") and (, "sly", "cunning, crafty + clever, smart"). Typographically, the for are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to the entire word—rather than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual phono-semantic readings.
Single character gairaigo In some rare cases, kanji may have a reading borrowed from a modern foreign language (
gairaigo), though usually
gairaigo are written in . Notable examples include , , , and . These are classed as , because the character is used for its meaning—the ''kun'yomi
label may sometimes be misleading, since most kun'yomi'' are native Japanese readings. The readings are also rendered in , unlike the usual for native . Note that most of these characters are for units, particularly
SI units, in many cases using new characters () coined during the
Meiji period, such as . ====== Some kanji also have lesser-known readings called , which are mostly used for names (often
given names) and, in general, are closely related to the . Place names sometimes also use or, occasionally, unique readings not found elsewhere.
When to use which reading Although there are general rules for when to use and when to use , many kanji have multiple on- or kun-readings, and the language is littered with exceptions; how a character was meant to be read is sometimes ambiguous even to native speakers (this is especially true for names, both of people and places). A single kanji followed by ( forming part of a word)—such as the inflectable suffixes forming native verbs and adjectives like 赤い (
akai; red) and 見る (
miru; to see)—
always indicates . can indicate which to use, as in () versus (), both meaning "(to) eat", but this is not always sufficient, as in , which may be read as or , both meaning "(to) open". Kanji compounds (), especially
yojijukugo, usually, but not always, use , usually (but not always) . In , 解 is read with its
kan-on reading instead of its more common
go-on reading, . Exceptions are common— (; information), for example, is
go-kan. (; beef) and (; mutton) have readings, but (; pork) and (; poultry) have readings. Examples of fully ''kun'yomi
compounds include (; letter), (; parasol), and the infamous (; divine wind). Some kun'yomi'' compounds have non-inflective , such as (; Chinese-style fried chicken) and (); many can also be written with the omitted. Kanji in isolation are typically read using their ; exceptions include the ''on'yomi
(; love), (), and (; mark, dot). Most of these on'yomi'' cases involve kanji that have no . For kanji with multiple common isolated readings, such as , which may be read as (gold) or (money, metal), only context can determine the intended reading. The isolated kanji versus compound distinction gives words for similar concepts completely different pronunciations. Alone, (north) and (east) use the and , but (northeast), uses the . Inconsistencies also occur between compounds; is read as in (; teacher) but as in (; one's whole life) (both ''on'yomi''). Multiple readings have given rise to a number of
homographs, in some cases having different meanings depending on how they are read. One example is , which can be read in three different ways: (skilled), (upper part), or (
stage left/house right). In addition, has the reading (skilled). More subtly, has three different readings, all meaning "tomorrow": (casual), (polite), and (formal). Conversely, some terms are homophonous but not homographic, and thus ambiguous in speech but not in writing. To remedy this, alternate readings may be used for confusable words. For example, (privately established, esp. school) and (municipal) are both normally pronounced ; in speech these may be distinguished by the alternative pronunciations and . More informally, in legal jargon (preamble) and (full text) are both pronounced , so may be pronounced for clarity, as in "Have you memorized the preamble [not 'whole text'] of the constitution?". As in these examples, this is primarily done using a for one character in a normally term.
Legalese Certain words take different readings depending on whether the context concerns legal matters or not. For example:
Ambiguous readings In some instances where even context cannot easily provide clarity for
homophones, alternative readings or mixed readings can be used instead of regular readings to avoid ambiguity. For example: There are also cases where the words are technically heterophones, but they have similar meanings and pronunciations, therefore liable to mishearing and misunderstanding.
Place names Several famous place names, including
those of Japan itself ( or sometimes ), those of some cities such as
Tokyo ( ) and
Kyoto ( ), and those of the main islands
Honshu ( ),
Kyushu ( ),
Shikoku ( ), and
Hokkaido ( ) are read with ; however, the majority of Japanese place names are read with : , , . Names often use characters and readings that are not in common use outside of names. When characters are used as abbreviations of place names, their reading may not match that in the original. The
Osaka () and
Kobe () baseball team, the
Hanshin () Tigers, take their name from the of the second kanji of and the first of . The name of the
Keisei () railway line—linking Tokyo () and
Narita ()—is formed similarly, although the reading of from is , despite already being an in the word .
Japanese family names are also usually read with : , , . Japanese
given names often have very irregular readings. Although they are not typically considered or , they often contain mixtures of , and , such as [], []. Being chosen at the discretion of the parents, the readings of given names do not follow any set rules, and it is impossible to know with certainty how to read a person's name without independent verification. Parents can be quite creative, and rumors abound of children called ("Earth") and ("Angel"); neither are common names, and have normal readings and respectively. Some common Japanese names can be written in multiple ways, e.g., Akira can be written as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and many other characters and kanji combinations not listed, Satoshi can be written as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , etc., and Haruka can be written as , , , , , , , , and several other possibilities. Common patterns do exist, however, allowing experienced readers to make a good guess for most names. To alleviate any confusion on how to pronounce the names of other Japanese people, most official Japanese documents require Japanese to write their names in both and kanji. Chinese place names and
Chinese personal names appearing in Japanese texts, if spelled in kanji, are almost invariably read with . Especially for older and well-known names, the resulting Japanese pronunciation may differ widely from that used by modern Chinese speakers. For example,
Mao Zedong's name is pronounced as in Japanese, and the name of the legendary Monkey King,
Sun Wukong, is pronounced () in Japanese. Today, Chinese names that are not well known in Japan are often spelled in instead, in a form much more closely approximating the native Chinese pronunciation. Alternatively, they may be written in kanji with . Many such cities have names that come from non-
Chinese languages like
Mongolian or
Manchu. Examples of such not-well-known Chinese names include: Internationally renowned Chinese-named cities tend to imitate the older English pronunciations of their names, regardless of the kanji's or the Mandarin or Cantonese pronunciation, and can be written in either or kanji. Examples include: Notes: • Guangzhou, the city, is pronounced , while Guangdong, its province, is pronounced , not (in this case, opting for a reading rather than the usual reading). • Hangzhou (expected ) is often pronounced to disambiguate with Guangzhou. • Kaohsiung was originally pronounced (or similar) in
Hokkien and Japanese. It received this written
name (kanji/Chinese) from Japanese, and later its spoken Mandarin name from the corresponding characters. The English name "Kaohsiung" derived from its Mandarin pronunciation. Today it is pronounced either or in Japanese. • Taipei is generally pronounced in Japanese. In some cases the same kanji can appear in a given word with different readings. Normally this occurs when a character is duplicated and the reading of the second character has voicing (), as in "people" (more often written with the
iteration mark as ), but in rare cases the readings can be unrelated, as in .
Pronunciation assistance Because of the ambiguities involved, kanji sometimes have their pronunciation for the given context spelled out in
ruby characters known as , (small written above or to the right of the character, e.g. ) or (small written in-line after the character). This is especially true in texts for children or foreign learners. It is also used in
newspapers and for rare or unusual readings, or for situations like the first time a character's name is given, and for characters not included in the officially recognized set of
essential kanji. Works of fiction sometimes use to create new "words" by giving normal kanji non-standard readings, or to attach a foreign word rendered in as the reading for a kanji or kanji compound of the same or similar meaning.
Spelling words Conversely, specifying a given kanji, or spelling out a kanji word—whether the pronunciation is known or not—can be complicated, due to the fact that there is not a commonly used standard way to refer to individual kanji (one does not refer to "kanji #237"), and that a given reading does not map to a single kanji—indeed there are many homophonous
words, not simply individual characters, particularly for (with ). It is easiest to write the word out—either on paper or tracing it in the air—or look it up (given the pronunciation) in a dictionary, particularly an electronic dictionary; when this is not possible, such as when speaking over the phone or writing implements are not available (and tracing in air is too complicated), various techniques can be used. These include giving for characters—these are often unique—using a well-known word with the same character (and preferably the same pronunciation and meaning), and describing the character via its components. For example, one may explain how to spell the word via the words , , and —the first two use the , the third is a well-known compound—saying ", , as in ."
Dictionaries In dictionaries, both words and individual characters have readings glossed, via various conventions. Native words and Sino-Japanese vocabulary are glossed in (for both and readings), while borrowings ()—including modern borrowings from Chinese—are glossed in ; this is the standard writing convention also used in . By contrast, readings for individual characters are conventionally written in for
on readings, and for
kun readings. Kun readings may further have a separator to indicate which characters are , and which are considered readings of the character itself. For example, in the entry for , the reading corresponding to the basic verb may be written as (
ta.beru), to indicate that
ta is the reading of the character itself. Further,
kanji dictionaries often list compounds including irregular readings of a kanji. ==Local developments and divergences from Chinese==