Kanji
Before you start diving into kanji I highly recommend being comfortable with at least Hiragana, enough to at least read it. That is because then you will be able to read Furigana, or the small Hiragana sometimes printed over kanji. As there are a lot of kanji and I will not be covering all of them, below is a search field you can use to look them up.
Kanji Search
Use the search field below to enter a kanji and see its readings and meaning.
Furigana
Here is an example of furigana above the kanji for water.
水
In this case, the same kanji can have different readings depending on its context. For example, when talking about drinking water we would say mizu. When talking about the days of the week, Wednesday or Water Day, would be pronounced as Suiyoubi.
水
水曜日
That is why being able to read Furigana can be very helpful when you are learning kanji.
Numbers
In Japanese, numbers can be written in kanji or in Arabic numerals (ex. 1, 2, 3 ). Things like phone numbers are usually written as Arabic numerals but other values can be written as kanji so it is important to know them. Here are the first ten.
水
In this case, the same kanji can have different readings depending on its context. For example, when talking about drinking water we would say mizu. When talking about the days of the week, Wednesday or Water Day, would be pronounced as Suiyoubi.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
As you can see, the numbers 4, 7 and 9 have two different pronounciations, and how they are pronounced depends on the context. The reason behind this is because some carry a negative connotation. For example, the number 4, “shi”, is very close to the word for death, “shin”. As a sidenote, don’t bring 4 of something as a gift to someone; they may interpret it incorrectly.
To create numbers greater than ten, you simply stack them. If you want to write 11, you would write the kanji for ten and one next to each other. If you wanted to write 25, you would write the kanji for two, ten, and five. This works until 99. After that there is a special kanji for 100, 1000, and 10,000.
| 十一 | 二 十五 | 九 十九 |
| 11 | 25 | 99 |
Stroke Order
Now lets take a look at the stroke order for these ten kanji. As you know, Japanese goes left to right, top to bottom. So for the first three numbers, draw the strokes from left to right, starting from the top stroke.
1. Ichi
2. Ni
3. San
Number 1 is just a horizontal dash. Number 2 is a set of two dashes, with the first one shorter than the second. Number 3 is a set of three dashes with the middle one being the shortest.
4. Yon
Number 4 is a bit different because it is one of those box kanji. All box kanji are similar. You start on the left side and draw the left border of the box by going top to bottom. Then, you draw the top and right side of the box as one continuous line. You start from the top of the first stroke, and draw from left to right and then top to bottom.
Since this box has two strokes inside, you first draw the left one by starting from the top and going down. Then you draw the right stroke, also by starting from the top. After that, you finish it off by drawing the bottom part of the box from left to right.
5. Go
Number 5 starts off like number 1, with a cross stroke. Then you start from the top and draw the down stroke. After that, it’s kind of like the second part of the box where you have one continuous stroke going left to right and then top to bottom. The last stroke is left to right on the bottom.
6. Roku
Number 6 is fairly simple. You start with the dot on top. Then you do the cross stroke. After that, you do the left and right stroke.
7. Nana
For number 7, start with the cross stroke and then draw the down stroke from top to bottom.
8. Hachi
Number 8 is a set of two down strokes and although they may look connected, they aren’t. They just start close on top and diverge towards the bottom.
9. Kyuu
Number 9 starts with the down stroke on the left. Then, you draw the contionuous stroke from left to right and then top to bottom, with the bottom having a curve.
10. Juu
Finally, number 10 is simple a cross stroke, followed by a down stroke.
This is just the stroke order for the first ten kanji. I will not be including stroke order for all of the kanji, as there are too many of them. However, most kanji follow these general patterns and if you are ever unsure, I recommend looking it up before getting into a habit of writing it incorrectly.
Conclusion
This is only meant as an introduction to kanji, and I hope you gained a better understanding by reading this. Just like with hiragana and katakana, flashcards make learning kanji much easier. Write the knaji on one side and the translation and readings on the other.
