{"id":106746,"date":"2023-09-20T00:22:57","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T04:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/onyomi-and-kunyomi\/"},"modified":"2025-02-25T04:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T09:05:16","slug":"onyomi-and-kunyomi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/japanese\/onyomi-and-kunyomi\/","title":{"rendered":"Onyomi vs. Kunyomi: When to Use Each Type of Kanji Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that in some cases, a kanji can have more than seven readings?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This may seem overwhelming at first, but there’s a method to the madness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once you understand where all of this came from, you\u2019ll understand more about how kanji readings work. Let’s go over the history of these kanji readings, when they’re used and how to learn them.<\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The History Behind Japanese Kanji and Their Readings<\/h2>\n

For a long time, Japan didn’t have a written language of its own.<\/p>\n

Rather, kanji is believed to have made its way to Japan from China sometime between the fifth and eighth centuries AD<\/a>. At least, that’s what the evidence suggests\u2014we know that there were groups in Japan that studied the Chinese language around this time. (On another note, the katakana and hiragana writing systems<\/a> came about in the ninth century AD.)<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, any time a language translates from one culture to another, things get changed around. Because of word adoptions, trades and just your regular garden variety interpretations, Japanese became a language made up of many parts.<\/p>\n

Of course, before its writing system developed into what it is today, Japan had a spoken language<\/a> prior to the arrival of Chinese characters. The subsequent attempts to merge the two helped to create these natural variations in kanji readings.<\/p>\n

Onyomi and Kunyomi: What\u2019s the Difference?<\/h2>\n

As a result of the abovementioned history, Japanese learners have to adapt to the fact that there are two types of kanji readings: onyomi<\/strong> and kunyomi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Onyomi<\/strong> translates roughly to \u201csound reading.\u201d It means that the kanji is using the Japanese phonetic approximation of that character’s Chinese pronunciation. Kunyomi<\/strong>, on the other hand, is the fully Japanese version of the kanji reading.<\/p>\n

For example, the onyomi reading of the character for “water” (\u6c34) would be \u3059\u3044, which almost sounds like the Chinese shu\u01d0<\/em>. The kunyomi reading would be \u307f\u305a. Before Chinese characters were introduced to Japan, \u307f\u305a was how the native Japanese sounded out the word for “water” in their language. That pronunciation eventually merged with the Chinese character associated with that concept.<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting that I used an oversimplified example to illustrate the main difference between onyomi and kunyomi. Chinese and Japanese words didn’t always have a one-to-one match, and over time, the Japanese language added its own connotations as needed. Hiragana was later added to kanji, tweaking readings and bringing more meaning to each kanji they\u2019re associated with.<\/p>\n

Now that you understand why Japanese words have onyomi and kunyomi readings, it’s time to talk about when <\/em>to use each reading.<\/p>\n

When Should You Use Onyomi?<\/h2>\n