Kanji - Level 2 - Kanji

Question 1

玉

Answer 1

Ball
Radicals: 王 king + 丶drop
The king has something in his hand that he’s dropping… but it bounces too! He’s bouncing a ball.
Reading: たま
Think of someone curled up in a ball. It is someone you know / someone famous named “Tom” (たま).

Question 2

本

Answer 2

Book
Radicals: 本 book
The kanji and the radical are the same, so remembering the meaning of this kanji is as simple as making sure you know the radical for book first! If you know the radical, you know this kanji means book as well.
Take note that the second, third, and fourth meanings of this kanji are origin, real, and main. You can figure this out by thinking about how books mainly have their origins in real life.
Reading: ほん
Books are one of the best ways to hone (ほん) your intellect, you know?

Question 3

子

Answer 3

Child
Radicals: 子
The child radical and the child kanji are exactly the same.
Readings: し, す
To remember the sounds し and す we’ll use these mnemonics:
There is a child standing in front of you. You look closely at the child but something seems wrong. You rub your eyes and when you open them again there is a sheep (し) in a suit (す) in front of you. You yelp, blink, and it’s back to being a child. Are… all children really just sheep in suits?!

Question 4

丸

Answer 4

Circle
Radicals: 九 nine + 丶drop
What’s something with nine sides? Just add a drop and you’ll have something that’s almost a circle.
Reading: まる
Do you know about the adorable cat Maru? If not, you should check it out. May seem like a distraction, but if you come back knowing the reading for this kanji, then it’s totally worth while.
When you think about a circle, think about Maru all rolled up in a little circle, being super adorable. Don’t tell me it doesn’t melt your heart just thinking about it.
Alternatively, you could also look at this kanji and think of Maru inside of a box, with his little tail sticking out of it. Whatever works best for you, just get yourself to “Maru.”

Question 5

正

Answer 5

Correct
Radicals: 一 ground + 止 stop
There is a line on the ground so you stop and a giant sign pops up that says CORRECT! You obeyed the rules of the road and did the correct thing.
Readings: せい, しょう
You did the correct thing, so the Shougun (しょう) shows up to reward you! He holds out a shiny new saber (せい) in his hand, gently taps it onto each of your shoulders, and then hands it to you. It’s big, curved and you love it.

Question 6

土

Answer 6

Dirt
Radicals: 土 dirt
The dirt radical and the dirt kanji are the same!
Readings: ど, と
Who spends a lot of time in dirt? Dogs (ど) do! Dogs dig in dirt, they roll in dirt, sometimes they try to eat dirt (which isn’t so great).

Question 7

犬

Answer 7

Dog
Radicals: 犬 dog
The dog radical and dog kanji are exactly the same!
Reading: いぬ
You see an emu running towards you from off in the distance (strange to see an emu in these parts…). As it gets closer, you realize that it’s not an emu at all, it’s something that sounds the same, or similar… an inu!

Question 8

夕

Answer 8

Evening
Radicals: 夕 evening
The evening radical and the evening kanji are the same. If you know the radical you know the meaning of the kanji.
Reading: ゆう
The evening is when all the youths (ゆう) come outside to play.

Question 9

出

Answer 9

Exit
Radicals: 山 mountain
There are two mountains in front of you… and probably a bunch more around you too. You are in a pass, and don’t know how to get out. You are frantically looking for the exit before you freeze to death. The most important thing is to find the exit from this mountain range - your life depends on it.
Reading: しゅつ
As you’re trying to exit this mountain range, you suddenly realize that someone is actually hunting you. What? Make sure to feel that sudden realization. It’s crazy. Then, you find the exit and run towards it. Sadly, the hunter is waiting there, and he shoots you (しゅつ) through the leg, knocking you down.

Question 10

目

Answer 10

Eye
Radicals: 目 eye
The eye radical and eye kanji are the same as each other, so now you know them both.
Reading: め
Your eyes are important to you, right? Sadly, one of your eyes is missing right now, because a sheep grabbed it and pulled it out, and is now running away from you, yelling his sheep call…. “Mehhhhhh (め)!”

Question 11

了

Answer 11

Finish
Radicals:亅 barb
Think about it this way. There is a famous fishing lure inventor, working on his best work ever. He’s old, and he’s been trying to make the best fishing lure for the last 50 years, and knows this will be his last invention. Then he figures it out. He takes one barb, and connects the end of it to the top of another barb. When he does this, he knows his work is finally finished.
Reading: りょう
How does the fish lure maker test his newly finished lure out? The one he just finished? He gets in a row (りょう) boat and rows out into the sea.

Question 12

火

Answer 12

Fire
Radicals: 火 fire
The fire radical and the fire kanji are the same as each other.
Reading: か
Whenever we need to remember か, we use the word car.
For this kanji, when we think fire, we ought to think of something on fire. What’s on fire? It’s obviously your very own car (か)! Oh Goddd NOOO!

Question 13

五

Answer 13

Five
Radicals: 五 five
The five radical and the five kanji are the same.
Readings: ご
Five is the number of buildings Godzilla (ご) will knock down. Oh, look! There he goes now.

Question 14

四

Answer 14

Four
Radicals: 口 mouth + 儿 legs
Imagine contorting yourself in such a way that your legs end up inside your mouth. You have bent your body in all the wrong ways in order to achieve this. In fact, if you look at yourself, you look like a square now… You’re just a person with four sides.
Readings: し
This amazing feat, which turned you into a four sided square, has you looking like a four sided animal: the sheep (し). Look at yourself in the mirror and see an adorable four-sided sheep looking back at you. (You can’t see the other sides because mirrors aren’t 3D and whatnot. So you’re a bit cartoonish.)

Question 15

才

Answer 15

Genius
Radicals: 一 ground +亅 barb +丿slide
On the ground you put barbs at the bottom of a slide because you’re a genius trying to catch another genius.
Reading: さい
You check your genius trap, and there’s a genius stuck in the barbs! You know it’s a genius because they’re actually a cyborg (さい).

Question 16

手

Answer 16

Hand
Radicals: 手 hand
The hand radical and the hand kanji are identical in looks and meaning! That should make things easy!
Reading: て
To remember the reading て we will use the word “Television.” You have great hands. Go ahead and look at them. OH MY GOD. You have little televisions (て) on your hands. They are playing the dumbest show you can think of, too, both hands at the same time.

Question 17

天

Answer 17

Heaven
Radicals: 天 heaven
The radical heaven is the same as the kanji heaven, making this an easy kanji to memorize.
Reading: てん
Heaven… nowadays, people aren’t all that good. Things have gotten bad. That’s why the acceptance rate to get into heaven is only ten (てん) percent!

Question 18

王

Answer 18

King
Radicals: 王 king
The king radical and the king kanji are the same!
Reading: おう
When you see the king you need to say, “Oh (おう) King! Oh King, oh no, oh why are you looking at me like that? Oh King… you aren’t going to chop off my head are you? OH NO!”

Question 19

左

Answer 19

Left
Radicals: ナ narwhal + 工 construction
Narwhals do construction with their left hands (or flippers, I guess). That’s because all narwhals are left-handed!
Reading: さ
In their left hands, the narwhals all hold saws (さ). That’s because the ice for their homes is already there, so they just need to saw away at them to make the shapes they want. Narwhal construction is actually very simple.

Question 20

中

Answer 20

Middle
Radicals: 中 middle
The radical Middle and the kanji Middle are both the same. So if you know one, you know the other.
Reading: ちゅう
To remember the reading for this kanji, we use the word Chewbacca to pull up ちゅう in our memory.
If you remember back to the radical 中, the middle of your mouth was stabbed with a stick. You look up to see who did it. There stands Chewbacca, doing his Chewbacca yell. And it isn’t a stick in your mouth, it’s an arrow from his crossbow (a bowcaster, actually). It just so happens Chewbacca’s bowcaster looks just like this kanji too. Go figure.

Question 21

月

Answer 21

Moon
Radicals: 月 moon
The moon kanji is made up of the moon radical. This kanji is also used to mean month.
Readings: げつ, がつ
The moon really gets (げつ) to your guts (がつ). Staring at the moon for too long will give you terrible indigestion, so be careful!

Question 22

々

Answer 22

Repeater
Radicals: 勹 prison + 丶drop
This is a strange kanji because it doesn’t really mean anything at all. In fact, what it does is it repeats the kanji that comes before it. For example: 人々 is actually 人人. This kanji shows up whenever there’s a repeating kanji, because it’s often easier to write than writing a more complicated kanji twice. That’s why this kanji is the repeater. It repeats what comes before it.
To remember that this kanji is the repeater, though, think of a drop of water dripping into a prison. Drip drop drip drop. It does that over and over again, driving the prisoners nuts. But it never stops. It just repeats over and over.
Reading: のま
In Japanese, this symbol is often called the のま because it looks like the katakana characters ノ and マ put together. If you know katakana then this will be easy to read. If you don’t, think of it this way:
Your mom is the repeater. She is trying to force feed you over and over again until you explode (literally). You keep yelling “No ma!” (のま) but she doesn’t stop. She’s on a repeating track, never stopping, repeating forever.

Question 23

田

Answer 23

Rice Paddy
Radicals: 田 rice paddy
The rice paddy radical and the rice paddy kanji are the same, making this one super easy to remember, at least meaning-wise.
Reading: た
To remember the reading た, we use the word “taco.”
You’re in the rice field… but when you lean down to examine the rice more closely, you see that it’s not rice that’s growing, it’s a bunch of little tacos (た), blossoming out of the ground.

Question 24

右

Answer 24

Right
Radicals: ナ narwhal + 口 mouth
Narwhal mouths are on the right side of their head. In fact, some people didn’t think they had mouths at all because they weren’t looking from the right. Rookie mistake.
See how the “mouth” radical is to the right of the “narwhal” radical? That should help you remember that this means right.
Readings: ゆう, う
How did we know to look from the right, though? Because the youths (ゆう) figured it out. Youths think in ways that older people usually don’t. That’s why they can see the swirls on cereal, hear the music behind noise, and of course, look at things from the right side.

Question 25

六

Answer 25

Six
Radicals: 亠 lid + ハ fins
Just imagine a beast with a lid for a head and fins for feet, running around looking as insane as possible (really imagine it!). When it runs up to you, it shows you the top of its lid-head. On it is written the numbers 666. Why? Because it’s a spawn of the devil, and the number six is the devil’s number.
Reading: ろく
Whenever we need to remember the reading ろく we just use the word rock.
So, think about the devil and the devil’s number. What is often associated with those things? Why, rock (ろく) and roll is. Imagine the lid-head fin-legged beast suddenly blasting out rock music in the middle of his destructive mayhem.

Question 26

小

Answer 26

Small
Radicals: 小 small
The small radical and the small kanji are exactly the same.
Reading: しょう
This small kanji would be the perfect gift to give to the Shougun (しょう). The Shougun loves little things, and the little kanji represents all of that.

Question 27

立

Answer 27

Stand
Radicals: 立 stand
The radical stand and the kanji stand are the same thing, so now you know them both.
Readings: りつ, りゅう
Think of someone who has to stand up straight for you. These people are pros in hospitality. These are the doormen at the Ritz (りつ).

Question 28

丁

Answer 28

Street
Radicals: 丁 street
The kanji and the radical that look like this are exactly the same. They are both street.
Readings: ちょう, てい
So you’re walking down this street, and off in the distance you see the silhouette of somebody. A lady. Big, black curly hair and red eyes. It is the street-woman, Mrs. Chou (ちょう).

Question 29

日

Answer 29

Sun
Radicals: 日 sun
The sun radical and sun kanji are the same, huzzah! Also, if you want to remember day as well, you can just think about how a day is the time it takes for the sun to cross the sky.
Readings: にち, じつ
There are so many on’yomi for this kanji, but since this kanji is so important and common, you’ll end up learning them all eventually whether you want to or not. For now, you’re only going to have to learn one of the readings, and that one is にち.
The sun is so hot. It focused its rays to take out one man… and that man is Friedrich Nietzsche (にち), famous philosopher. He philosophized one too many things about the sun, so the sun decided it was time he paid.

Question 30

刀

Answer 30

Sword
Radicals: 刀 sword
The radical and the meaning of this kanji are almost the same! The radical is sword, but we’re learning Japanese, so can you name a Japanese sword? That’s right, the most common is a katana, which happens to be the meaning of this kanji as well.
Reading: とう
So now you have this sweet katana in your hands and you’re swinging it around like an idiot. Feel free to make whooshing noises as you swing it around. To become a master katana wielder, you decide to travel to とうきょう (That’s Tokyo!). とうきょう has the best sword and katana schools in the world, so it makes sense to travel to とうきょう.

Question 31

千

Answer 31

Thousand
Radicals: 千 thousand
This kanji looks like and means the same thing as the radical, which makes it particularly easy to remember.
Reading: せん
Remember the thousand crosses you got stuck under while learning the radical 千? You’re still under it. Then, suddenly, someone pops his head over you and says “Hey, I’ll save you… but only for a thousand cents (せん). Go ahead and try to calculate what that would come out to. It’s not that expensive, actually.

Question 32

木

Answer 32

Tree
Radicals: 木 tree
This is another kanji that is the same as the radical. Both tree and tree are the same in looks and meaning.
Readings: もく, ぼく
You’re walking through the trees, looking at them. They look ominous. Suddenly, you trip and fall. The trees start to mock you. Even the mocking birds mock you. It’s terrible. It’s painful. You’re being mocked as you pull yourself up off the ground.

Question 33

水

Answer 33

Water
Radicals: 水 water
The water radical and the water kanji are the same.
Reading: すい
Imagine a lake (i.e. a whole bunch of water). When you think of water, you should try to think of this beautiful lake. It’s sunny, the trees smell nice (imagine a tree smell if you can – the more senses you use the better!) and on that tree there is an awesome tire swing (すい). You get onto the tire swing and you are swinging back and forth. The water is right in front of you, and you are able to use the swing to throw yourself into the water. It’s a lot colder than you expected, and you come back to the surface, gasping for breath. The water gets into your mouth and you taste it. How strange, it’s very, very sweet. Imagine the sweetness of the water and how weird it is (really really sweet, this water is).

Question 34

白

Answer 34

White
Radicals: 白 white
The radical white and the kanji white are the same.
Reading: はく
The white team was the first to be able to hack (はく) the white iPhone.

Question 35

文

Answer 35

Writing
Radicals: 文 writing
The kanji and the radical are the same, so remembering the meaning of this kanji is as simple as making sure you know the radical for writing first! If you know the radical, you know this kanji means writing as well.
Readings: ぶん, もん
This kanji has more than one important reading you need to learn, sorry! But don’t worry, here’s a mnemonic to help you:
When you’re writing you need things to fuel you. That’s why you always eat buns (ぶん) while you write. Bread bun, hot crossed buns, whatever as long as they’re buns, they’re great writing fuel.
When buns aren’t enough, you call in the monster (もん) that lives under your bed. It pretends to chase you, motivating your writing even further, because if you don’t write fast, you’ll die by monster bites.

Question 36

円

Answer 36

Yen
Radicals: 冂 head + 亠 lid
The combination of radicals for this kanji may not be obvious at first, but if you look carefully you’ll see it. The lid is inside the head for this kanji because it’s holding something in. Imagine the top of someone’s head being closed by a lid. Open that lid up and peer inside… it’s full of yen coins, the currency of Japan!
Reading: えん
What does the word yen sound like? It sounds like えん. Why? because back in the day, Japanese used to have a “ye” sound, but now it doesn’t. Instead, it’s an “e” sound, which is why yen = えん!