Hello, everyone! :D I've been learning Japanese for quite a while now but I'm a noob… - Feed Post by sheroics
Hello, everyone! :D
I've been learning Japanese for quite a while now but I'm a noob here after being away for a long while.
Could somebody please tell me the difference between Kunyomi and Onyomi?
I know Kunyomi is the Japanese reading and Onyomi is the Chinese reading. I kinda get the gist of it once but I need a concrete explanation so that I wouldn't get confused later on.
Thank you very much! <3
I've been learning Japanese for quite a while now but I'm a noob here after being away for a long while.
Could somebody please tell me the difference between Kunyomi and Onyomi?
I know Kunyomi is the Japanese reading and Onyomi is the Chinese reading. I kinda get the gist of it once but I need a concrete explanation so that I wouldn't get confused later on.
Thank you very much! <3
posted by sheroics
Comments 10
Hello :D- I'm a noob too! :D
Also, is there any significance as to why we must know it and when do we use one of the readings and such?
I don't know kanji that well. But the pronunciation can be different when written, rather than when said.
- @Japan123 Thanks! :]
Well, as long i've studied, kun and on reading are used in different situations based on historic context or generally when you have words with 2 or more kanjis, which if they're named with kun reading, aesthetically they won't fit well, then it's more convenient use on reading to name that word.
Just my point, you don't need to agree.
Usually the kunyomi is used when the word has only one kanji and the onyomi is used when it has more than one. But that's not always the case. IMHO you don't need to learn if a pronunciation is kun or on. Just learn vocabulary pronunciaton using the kanji.
On'yomi (sound readings) are SOUNDS—sounds originating from the old Chinese pronunciations of the kanji.
Kun'yomi (meaning readings) are WORDS—words native to Japanese which were originally created without having anything to do with kanji.
Single meaningless sounds (on'yomi) are not often used on their own to make a Japanese word. Multiple meaningless sounds (on'yomi) combined together through applying the meaning of each kanji became an effective way to easily create more complex vocabulary: compound kanji words.
As for the words (kun'yomi) which came into existence without any link to kanji, these originally did not have any way of being written. Therefore, for each of these words, a kanji with the closest matching meaning had to be decided upon for how to write each native Japanese word (kun'yomi). For some words, multiple kanji had fairly closely matching meanings; for some kanji, multiple different native Japanese words came to use the same kanji.
Hiragana and katakana came along later. Hiragana helps make it easier to figure out which reading is needed. Okurigana (hiragana that makes up the end part of a word after the kanji) became useful for showing which kun'yomi word is being used. Okurigana is especially helpful for displaying verb conjugation endings.
But basically...
音（おん, on）= sound / noise
訓（くん, kun）= instruction / explanation (meaning)
読み（よみ, yomi）= reading
音読み（おんよみ, on'yomi）= meaningless sounds of the kanji
訓読み（くんよみ, kun'yomi）= actual words themselves
...more or less. ^^- @djgrs @deconocio @mog86uk
Thank you very much for imparting some of your knowledge! I'm truly grateful. :D Sorry for the late reply.
Thankfully, I managed to attend Japanese classes that also managed to answer my question.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your answers! :) Thank you~ - It's ok
