Is there any way to tell if there is a hiragana attached to a kanji? I have some japanese books… - Feed Post by Matthewmatt
Is there any way to tell if there is a hiragana attached to a kanji? I have some japanese books but I can't tell if I need the Kunyomi or Onyomi reading because I can't tell if the Hiragana is attached to the kanji or not.
posted by Matthewmatt
Comments 1
tell from just looking at it (without any prior knowledge)? no not really. It is either okurigana (hiragana attached to the kanji) which you can tell by knowing the word that is being used. Or grammar, which again you would recognize as such when knowing the grammatical construct that is being used. (or in some cases just an actual word they for some reason or an other like to write fully in hiragana).
My advice: get some basic grammar patterns down along with verb and adjective inflections, at that point you can probably see where most words end and what the dictionary form should look like. At which point you can use a dictionary to help with pronunciation.
Furthermore, yes it is (mostly?) true that you use kunyomi when the word contains okurigana, but the reverse is not necessarily true. specifically one kanji words and names (e.g. 箱、猫 or 田中).
