How To Know Which Kanji Reading To Use
In Chinese it is possible to know the reading of a character without knowing the meaning. Lets take a look at the kanji character for 水 water.
Kanji has a radical bushu 部首 which contributes the primary meaning.
How to know which kanji reading to use. How do you read it. The same with Kanji for us. You can also use kanji radicals to simply remember kanji.
Most kanji have both readings just like 山 san for onyomi yama for kunyomi you mentioned in your question. If you want to understand about 95 of what you read just 1000 kanji will get you there. Theres really only one way to tell the right reading of a kanji in Japanese.
The kanji compound 水曜日Wednesday is read as suiyoubi. Otherwise I agree with silvermaple that the best way probably is to memorize the most common onyomi and then memorize the most common exceptions.
For silent reading it doesnt matter which one you should choose. Kanshudos search function lets you search for voicings and contractions separately so you can pinpoint the precise reading you are looking for. If 海山 is someones family name first make sure it is really pronounced as うみやま.
If all you want to do is speak the language the answer is none. The on-reading for the character is sui and the Kun-reading is mizu 水 mizu is a word in its own right meaning water. But they have patterns.
The rule of thumb is that when a kanji appears by itself it will use the kunyomi like in the word 新しい atarashii for new and it will use the onyomi when kanji are used in compound words like 新聞. For example this kanji 秒 which means second as in hour minute and second has only onyomi byou.
This is true only of kanji. Different from English speakers we Japanese use the right brain when we learn and use kanji characters.
Enter a kanji followed by a colon followed by the reading - ie kanjireading. 2136 joyo kanji gives you the government mandated minimum literacy and pushes you up over a 99 comprehension rate.
It all depends on which kanji it s used with. You can find kanji that you dont know very well fairly quickly by isolating the radicals and using them to look up new words. I don t have time to actually show them here but.
In Chinese each character only has one reading in any given dialect. Its a good idea to memorize each reading really well for these common kanji. Exemple if you show the kanji for village and your kanji 人 it ll be murabito.
As for hiragana and katakana we use the left brain just like. How many kanji do you need to know to be fluent. On its own its mise.
If the furigana a word is read one way you read it that way. There are also kanji like 重 ちょう and じゅう where both readings are common so you pretty much have to memorize all the common combinations. Its a absolute and undeniable.
How does kanji work. Some of them have only one type of reading. Instead of them being a giant mess of strokes you can break them down into radicals.
Nanori 名乗り Special readings when kanji are used in a persons name. For example to search for all words which use 本 with the reading ほん just search for 本ほん.
This can make identifying them and writing them if you need to a lot easier. However most kanji have multiple ways of being read and can. Well its always safe to use the hiragana.
You could technically write Japanese entirely in kana although it would become very difficult to read and lack the context clues provided by kanji. How do you learn itJoey-sensei is here to give you all the tips and tricks around itWANT TO LEARN MORE JAPANESEht. It doesnt matter if you think its wrong it doesnt matter if the dictionary says its wrong the reading aid known as furigana is how you should read.
The non-radical component tends to refine the meaning and contribute the reading.
