I know most people already know this but grrrr.
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人 means person
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At the beginning of a word it is read as:
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hito- (kun yomi – japanese reading)
nin- (on yomi – chinese reading)
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人手 \*hito\*de – starfish
人間 \*nin\*gen – human
but…… at the end of a word it is read as:
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\-ri (kun)
\-jin (on)
一人 hito\*ri\* – 1 person
(Why not 人人？because fuck you that’s why.
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一 is read “itsu” btw, because fuck you
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人人 is read hito hito, because fuck you)
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日本人 nihon\*jin\* – japanese person
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but sometimes the ending reading can be used as a beginning reading:
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人物 \*jin\*butsu – person
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Now, does mido\*ri\* use 人 at the end?
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Nope.
Midori is 緑.
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\*pulls hair out\*
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I guess it is somewhat similar to how tomb, comb, bomb all have different readings for -omb, but basically everywhere in the language instead of isolated examples.
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And some kanji can have 5 to 10+ readings
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Oh, and remember the word for starfish 人手 (hitode)? Well, 手 is read as \*te\*, except when it is in a compound kanji of two or more, then te becomes de, because, well, you know.
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Honestly, I am amazed any Japanese people become literate at all in such a masochistic system. I mean couldnt they have just used kun readings? They are speaking Japanese after all, not Chinese. They didnt need to integrate chinese words at all.
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I know it is what it is, but there doesnt seem to be any good way to go from rtk to actually reading without just bashing yourself over the head with a brick until you stop forgetting that reading 3b is used in this word, but 2a is used in this word.
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When I see 水 I immediately think みず (mizu), which is pretty much never the reading except in 水着 (swimsuit) because who knows why. Instead, it is usually read as すい (sui). Why? すい means pancreas, sour acid, chic, lightly, essence, cone, (my god are you serious? those have nothing to do with each other) but not water.
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And every kanji is like this for me. I either immediately go to the meaning word or my brain just shuts off because it has no idea which of the 5 readings should be used. Very frustrating.
19 comments
just get used to it and stop thinking so hard
haha
ok take a deeeeeep breath
This perfectly encapsulates why learning vocabulary alongside kanji is as important, if not more so.
This is why **experienced** people keep saying over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,
Just learn words. All of these complaints would be non-issues if people just took that advice.
You’re trying to apply false logic.
Japanese is an old OLD language with a spoken history far exceeding its written history. Characters were imported from China and retroactively used to write already existing words.
There are millions of words and only so many sounds to be rendered with kanji. There will be double ups and times where things don’t make perfect sense but that is fine.
It’s a language, not mathematics.
So the solution is to learn words and try not to come up with your own rules about how this stuff works.
So, the Kanji aren’t words, per se. The vocab are. If you learn the readings for all the vocab, you’ll be doing what you need to do to learn Japanese. (Or any language, really).
**The Kanji get their readings from the vocab**, *not the other way around*! Just remember the meanings of the Kanji and use readings as hints, not rules.
Reminds me of the computer. 30 years ago you needed to learn some code just to use it. Now it’s simplified and can do almost anything easily. Japanese do not want to simplify. They are stubborn like that which sometimes is good. But their writing/reading system is needlessly complicated
This is like people who are learning English complaining about homophones.
“Why is lead pronounced both as leed and led? Because fuck you, that’s why.”
Sometimes, you just gotta remember it and move on. Or else you’ll be stuck in this stage for a verrrrrrrry long time. Learn the words not the individual kanji. You’ll learn the kanji naturally when you pick up vocabs. Doesn’t work? Well write it out, sound it out, read it 600 times until it gets stuck in your head and repeat.
Add to your list 村人, you might think well the end character is going to be either nin or jin but you would be wrong, in this case it’s bito. Fun times. むらびと – Villager.
Looking forward to your rant on 生
Just think of the written kanji system as symbols reperesenting the vocab/word.
As many have pointed out, you’ve got to focus on the words not individual characters to remember their pronunciation.
It’s a little surprising when I started learning their multiple readings system as a chinese speaker; as there’s rarely more than one sound representing each character.
Learning a new language requires one to broaden your views and acceptance, it is how the locals roll after all, if that’s your goal of communicating/understanding/blending with the locals.
I know you’re ranting and upset, but take it from me who went through the same thing you did. I gave up learning Japanese when I was 16, 19, and 23 because every time I got to Kanji I tried to learn each one individually with all their readings and it’s NOT effective at all, especially because many kanji have irregular readings that you’ll almost never encounter outside of names (春日 anyone?).
Focus on learning vocabulary first and getting exposed to the kanji as you go along. Buy a kanji textbook to slowly ease yourself into it (Learning 300 Kanji through Stories is an excellent beginner’s book used in Japanese classrooms in Japan).
I’m 31 now and I have N1 and let me tell you, Kanji is always going to have some sort of difficulty to it. The Kanji Test is an actual exam given to Japanese people to test their kanji knowledge, and passing the highest levels is difficult even for native speakers.
Set your frustrations (as reasonable or not as they may be) aside and take it slow. You’ll get it with time, but it’s going to take a lot of it. The same goes for anyone.
Learn Chinese, that’ll help you remember on-yomi so that when you see compound words (like 水泳), you’ll remember the reading quicker.
Learn Chinese, that’ll help you remember on-yomi so that when you see compound words (like 水泳), you’ll remember the reading quicker.
**A complete novice who barely started learning the language has an opinion about how illogical the Japanese writing system is! News at 11!**
This might blow your mind, but English spelling conventions (for just one example) are equally as — if not more — nonsensical and random as how kanji are used in Japanese. And for good reason; the language evolved organically and wasn’t developed in a lab by engineers in order to make logical sense. You just don’t care/notice this because you’re a native speaker.
Likewise, the Japanese writing system works just fine for native speakers — which is all that really matters.
If you want to learn Japanese, learn it. If you want to learn a “logical” language, learn something artificial like Esperanto or Klingon. If you just want to learn Japanese to complain about it…well, I guess you have the right to do that, too.
Just don’t expect anyone to change the language to make it easier for you, any more than someone is going to change the English language to make it easier for Japanese people to learn.
oh another one of these? get back to studying.
How the hell did you get absolutely everything wrong while trying to make a meaningless point about the difficulty of kanji readings? Bruh.
>At the beginning of a word it is read as:
>hito- (kun yomi – japanese reading)
>nin- (on yomi – chinese reading)
>but…… at the end of a word it is read as:
>-ri (kun)
>-jin (on)
No it’s not. It’s entirely dependent on the word, and there’s no set pattern like “this goes at the start of a word and this goes at the end”. Also, “ri” isn’t a standard reading for 人, it’s literally only used in 一人 and 二人.
>一人 hito*ri* – 1 person
>一 is read “itsu” btw, because fuck you
Wrong again. Hitori is an exceptional reading only for 人, not for 一. Go check out the readings for 一, it has kunyomi ひと.つ and onyomi いち/いつ. 一人 uses the kunyomi.
> 人人 is read hito hito, because fuck you)
Nope, it’s read hitobito, japanese does this a lot with repeating kanji being used to indicate “a collection of things” like hitobito being “some people” and tokidoki being “sometimes”.
>Now, does mido*ri* use 人 at the end?
>Nope.
>Midori is 緑.
What the fuck? That’s just a completely different _single_ word of its own, it’s not a compound word and doesn’t have anything to do with “person”. Why the fuck would it use 人?
>Well, 手 is read as *te*, except when it is in a compound kanji of two or more, then te becomes de, because, well, you know
You’ve already been proven wrong with about twenty different words in another comment so I’ll leave it at that.
>When I see 水 I immediately think みず (mizu), which is pretty much never the reading except in 水着 (swimsuit) because who knows why. Instead, it is usually read as すい (sui). Why? すい means pancreas, sour acid, chic, lightly, essence, cone, (my god are you serious? those have nothing to do with each other) but not water.
Here’s a general rule that you don’t seem to be mentioning at all, so I’m assuming you’re not aware: kunyomi for individual words, onyomi for compound words. Obviously there are many exceptions, and you’ll just have to learn them. Mizugi is one of the exceptions for mizu, congratulations on learning it!
Also, sui does _not_ mean all those things you mentioned. Sui is simply the reading for the concept of water.
There are thousands of kanji, and 50 phonetic alphabets. There are only so many combinations of onyomi you can make before multiple kanji have the same onyomi. This does _not_ mean that kanji with the same onyomi have anything to do with each other. How is this not blatantly obvious?
>And every kanji is like this for me
Take a break fam. Try a structured textbook instead of self study where you form all the wrong preconceived notions that I see in this post. You seem to be oddly attached to these notions for some reason, so, and I don’t mean this in a malicious way, quit if you find it too frustrating. The only way you’re gonna get any learning done is dropping the idea in your head that everything surrounding the concept of kanji is esoteric and obsolete.