How do you pronounce new kanji?

4 comments

1. Instead of just studying the kanji alone, study through vocabulary that way you will learn the prononciations with the kanji.

2. There’s no “guaranteed” way of deriving the meaning or reading of a kanji you don’t know, but you can guess based off context (just meaning) and radicals (meaning and reading) if you are familiar with the radicals in the character, as most kanji are [keisei moji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Types_of_kanji_by_category) (形声文字), in which one radical hints a semantic context and one radical hints the onyomi reading.

   This is far from a surefire way, but imo its good to build the habit of paying attention to kanji composition so you may as well venture a guess before looking it up in a dictionary.

3. to clarify, i think the OP isn’t asking whether there’s a way but rather, when you really don’t know it, what should one do in one’s head. that’s a rough one, there will always be unknown words. if you can guess at the pronunciation given the radicals, then give it a shot in one’s head, otherwise skip it or give a filler like なになに or なにか.

4. Ask you start to learn more kanji you’ll learn both the meaning of the kanji and the way its commonly pronounced.

   For example　脱税 If you’ve learned　脱 from words like 脱走　or 脱出 you’ll know 脱 can be pronounced だつ (だっ). And you know it means the kanji is used for “escape”

   You also know　税　(ぜい) is used for tax, 税金　国税、免税

   You put those sounds together and you have　だつぜい　脱税 . Now you put the meaning together and you have “tax escape” or in other words “tax invasion ”

   I used this example because it’s one I encountered just the other day and was able to piece it together without searching it up using this logic.

   The more your vocabulary grows and the more kanji you learn, the more words you’ll be able to read and understand without even studying the word.

   Not all words can be read without knowing them but a fair amount can.