The Kanji Code
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A good example to il ustrate how the meaning of the radical and the phonetics can combine to create the meaning of the whole kanji character is the phonetic CHUU 中 which carries the meaning centre.
As a phonetic, it tel s you that there is a good chance that the ON
reading is CHUU. It also tel s you that the meaning is related to the idea of centrality, whether figuratively or literal y. Let’s look at two characters that contain this phonetic.
Phonetic’s Phonetic’s
Kanji meaning sound
仲
middle CHUU
忠
centre CHUU
By adding the information supplied by the radical to the table, we now have a category for each character. When we combine the meanings of the radical and the phonetic we get a little phrase or riddle that leads us to the meaning of the character.
Phonetic’s
Phonetic’s Combination
Kanji’s
ON
Character meaning
Radical Meaning
sound
of 2 meanings meaning
reading
仲
middle
person a person CHUU
middle
go-
CHUU
of some
person/
between,
人
kind
middle man
mediator
忠
centre
heart
mental/
CHUU
centre of
loyalty,
CHUU
心
emotion-
your heart
devotion
related
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These are fantastic examples because the meanings of the radical and the phonetic clearly combine to create the character’s meaning.
The ‘translation’ from Japanese to English is almost literal. You could also read it left to right, or top to bottom, as in: The person in the middle.
The middle of your heart.
The table had to get pretty wide to show all these hints. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by this large table, its width is cause for celebration.
Once you learn the radicals and the phonetics, you realise that many characters are clearly telling you both their meaning and their ON reading.
Admittedly, radicals and phonetics do not always combine to create a kanji’s meaning in such a literal way. Nevertheless, when you put together your radical and phonetic knowledge, you’ll be able to use it to remember not only the meaning but also the sound of 435 kanji.
Better stil , you will understand how the components work together –
and feel a lot more kanji-confident in the process.
Phonetic breakdown
Part 1: Standard phonetics
Key phonetic components that appear in common kanji characters and Japanese vocabulary will be introduced in this section. Some of the phonetics are not much more complex than a hiragana or katakana symbol, so you should be able to learn them just as quickly. And unlike with the kana symbols, you only need to recognise the phonetics as an initial step. For example, some common phonetics and the ON reading they represent are listed below.
可
KA
士
SHI
干
KAN
丁
TEI
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Part 2: Rhyming phonetics A number of phonetics that indicate rhyming readings will be listed in this section. These phonetics do not represent a specific ON reading, but kanji characters that contain them often have readings that rhyme. I’m calling this
‘rhyming’ for the sake of simplicity, although it doesn’t strictly follow rhyme in the English sense. Rather, the last – and sometimes second last – sounds are the same. For example, in one group all the kanji have ON readings that end in OKU, and in another they all end in a vowel + I.
Kanji 1
ON reading Kanji 2
ON reading Final sound
浴
YOKU
俗
ZOKU
~OKU
米
BEI
迷
MAI
Vowel + I
因
IN
恩
ON
Vowel + N
I also introduce the idea of using sound effects or onomatopoeia to group kanji characters together by sound. For example, several kanji characters that contain the sword radical 刂 have a double-barrelled ON reading that ends in TSU (SATSU, BATSU, SETSU). This makes me think of the sound a sword might make when cutting through cloth. These are useful mnemonics that allow you to remember ON readings through associations with radicals.
Choice of phonetics
Many teachers of Japanese agree that phonetics have some use for learners (Toyoda, 2013). But which phonetics should be taught first? There are so many that students could feel just as overwhelmed by the phonetics as they do by kanji. To avoid this, I have careful y curated 150 phonetics based on my own experience as a non-native who learned to read Japanese mostly through self-study. The phonetics I think will be easiest for intermediate students to learn:
• are simple – starting with two and three stroke components like 几 and 干, and gradual y increasing in complexity
• are visual y distinct and therefore easier to remember
• have an ON reading connection that is strong and repeated, with few exceptions
• appear in kanji characters and kanji words that are relatively common
• are the ones that I have intuitively found to be the most reliable and the most useful.
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Phonetic entries
Is it the only ON reading for that phonetic?
The ON reading assigned to each phonetic is not necessarily its only ON
reading. For example, 生 can also be read as SHOU in addition to the reading listed here, SEI. However, to make it more learnable I’ve only listed one reading per phonetic. The full kanji index lists all the ON
and kun readings for each kanji character in this book.
Order of the phonetics
The phonetics are presented in Japanese kana order as shown below.
A (e, i, o, u, etc.) K S T H N M R Y
Format of the readings
• ON readings are written in capital letters
• Kun readings are written in lower case letters
• Letters that appear after a kanji reading in brackets refer to additional sounds not included in the character’s reading. These are usual y written in hiragana to complete the word and are known as okurigana.
Names of phonetics
I believe things are easier to learn when you can put a name to them, so I have included a unique name for each phonetic, to make them a companion set with the radicals. You do not have to memorise these names, but doing so will help you identify the phonetics as you encounter them. While most names are based on kanji names and research, I have invented a few where a clear meaning could not be found. All invented component names are marked as creative components. If you can think of different names that are more meaningful to you, by all means use them.
To name the phonetics, I adhered to the following process:
• If it is a kanji character, one of the most memorable words that describes that character is used.
• If it is a radical, the radical’s English name is used.
• If it is neither a kanji character nor a radical, it is referred to as a component. If a meaning can be readily found for this, that meaning has been used.
• If a component does not have a known meaning in Japanese but a relevant Chinese meaning exists, that is used. For example, 㑒
means all/unanimous in Chinese and this
idea can be related to the kanji characters it appears in:検 means examine (examine all the parts); 験 means test (test all the elements).
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Creative components
• I invented some names based on the radicals within the component
– they are indicated with the 想 (idea) symbol. For example,