I noticed a pattern with some kanji:
寮, 僚, 療 etc. They are all read as リョウ. Then 義, 儀, 議 etc. are all read as ギ. There are also many others which follow this pattern.
The thing they have in common are their kanji components and their onyomi reading. Is there a word or term to describe this phenomenon/pattern?
3 comments
Yes! They are called 形声文字, characters with a phonetic and semantic component. So, one part of the kanji tells you how it’s pronounced, and one part of the kanji gives you a hint as to the meaning. So for instance, 議 is a character read as ギ that has something to do with talking.
There are a TON of 形声文字 in Japanese so it’s a very good idea to learn some of the basic phonetic components – they’re a huge help in learning the on readings of kanji.
RTK helped a lot with this for me
Especially since I read 3 novels right after completing it
Because in Chinese they’re of different tones, sometimes the same, but they get merged into the same reading because Japanese vowels and dipthongs are small compare to whatever Chinese languages, nor does Japanese has tones.