Why do Japanese kanji have different pronunciations?

Because of the way they have been adopted into Japanese, a single kanji may be used to write one or more different words—or, in some cases, morphemes—and thus the same character may be pronounced in different ways. From the reader’s point of view, kanji are said to have one or more different “readings”.

Why are there multiple kanji for one word?

Sometimes in Japanese, a single word is spelled with different kanji. This can happen for multiple reasons. Primarily, those different kanji may have slightly different meanings, and in writing they can specify which is the meaning of the word. This happens when a word can be used in multiple different ways.

Can one kanji mean different things?

There are a number of words that have more than one reading in Japanese. Sometimes, as shown by this webpage, it’s a matter of the reading changing over time. However, some words have different readings and different meanings to go with them. …

Can a kanji have more than one meaning?

In addition to the variety of Chinese-derived readings, a kanji may have several native Japanese kun-yomi readings when a kanji used for more than one meaning. For example, 行 has two kun-yomi readings, iku and okonau. Different kun-yomi can usually be distinguished by kana placed after the kanji, called okurigana.

What are the kan’yō-on readings of kanji?

In addition, there are Kan’yō-on ( 慣用音) readings which are mistakes which became established. In addition to the variety of Chinese-derived readings, a kanji may have several native Japanese kun-yomi readings when a kanji used for more than one meaning. For example, 行 has two kun-yomi readings, iku and okonau.

What is the difference between onyomi and kanji?

Most Chinese characters came to Japan between the fifth and ninth centuries. The on-yomi is an approximation of the Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. Some kanji were introduced more than once from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on-yomi readings.

What are some examples of the same sounding words in Japanese?

There are many same sounding words in Japanese, for example: 漢字 and 感じ are both pronounced kanji, but the first one means “Chinese characters” and the second means “feeling”. Since they’re written differently despite sounding the same, a Japanese speaker is able to differentiate the meaning by the Chinese characters.