silly question, what is the onyomi and kunyomi when you look into the individual kanji? - Feed Post by xLittleWolf

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  fuonk

  I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Are you asking about one specific kanji, or are you asking what onyomi and kunyomi are in general? Onyomi are "sound readings", pronunciations based (sometimes distantly) on how the kanji were pronounced in Chinese words at the various times they were imported into Japanese. Kunyomi are "meaning readings", pronunciations based on native Japanese words with meanings similar to the meanings of the kanji as Chinese words.

  January 17, 2016 at 12:39am
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  Lucinda

  I'm not quite sure what you mean as well. Kunyomi is usually written in Hiragana and Onyomi in Katakana...

  January 17, 2016 at 6:06am
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  xLittleWolf

  Thank you fuonksan, that did help a little bit ! i would assume in the Kanji tests they use the first meaning and hiragana ? Some of the Kanji has so many ! ^^
  and thank you Lucindasan ^^ that helps too.

  January 17, 2016 at 7:36am
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  fuonk

  xLittleWolfsan, I see the problem now. Let me explain a bit more about how Japanese words are written. Some words used onyomi of kanji-- for example, the word for library is 図書館 = toshokan. In this case, "to", "sho" and "kan" are onyomi of the three kanji. There is no other way of reading this word. Some words use kunyomi of kanji-- for example the word for "to write" is 書く = kaku, in which the kanji that was pronounced "sho" in 図書館 is pronounced with the kunyomi "ka". You don't have a choice how to read the kanji in these two words; the correct reading is determined by the word itself. When you learn a word, you have to learn how each of the kanji in the word is pronounced; there's no way of knowing that just by looking at the word.
  A word with several kanji in a row often uses onyomi, but that isn't always the case, and it wouldn't solve the problem if it were, because some kanji have more than one onyomi. A word with only one kanji often uses kunyomi, but that isn't always the case, and some kanji have more than one kunyomi, too.
  Before you throw up your hands in despair, note that in English you also have to know the word to know how the individual letters are pronounced-- consider the different ways the vowel combination "ei" is pronounced in the words "their", "height", "weight" and "seize", for example. The problem of which pronunciation of a kanji to use is a bit harder in Japanese, but it isn't an entirely new problem. (In contrast, the kana are always pronounced the same way, with a very small number of exceptions.)
  がんばってね (words of encouragement). :-)

  January 17, 2016 at 9:35am
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  xLittleWolf

  Fuonksan, that is really helpful ! i guess the more i do the clearer it will also become ? Thank you so much for the help !

  January 17, 2016 at 12:24pm