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Thread: How many of the actual ON/KUN readings are used today?

  1. #1
    Junior Member Male
    Join Date Jul 2, 2012
    Location Attica
    Posts 21
    Greece

    How many of the actual ON/KUN readings are used today?


    国際交流パーティー - Tokyo International Party

    I've been learning Kanji for some time now and I have been learning pretty much all the ON and KUN readings, but I was wondering, is it really necessary to learn all of them? How many of them are actually used?
    Am I cluttering my brain with useless, obsolete readings or are they actually useful ?
    Thanks
  2. #2
    Regular Member Male
    Join Date May 19, 2006
    Location Sydney
    Posts 521
    Australia
    You don't need to learn all the reading of a kanji, just the main one. Usually one onyomi and one kunyomi, the kanjis you learn at latter stages usually only have one onyomi and no kunyomi.
    日本語能力試験  JLPT: N5, N4 & N3
    日本漢字検定   Kanken: Lv. 10, 9, 8 & 7
    HSK: Lv. 1, 2 & 3
    和魂洋才
  3. #3
    Regular Member Male
    Join Date Jan 3, 2012
    Location Ha Noi
    Posts 203
    Vietnam
    There are many different reading, depend on sentence structure and usage. I focus on ON first because it is easy and feel a little similar to my native language.
  4. #4
    Regular Member Female
    Join Date Jan 14, 2009
    Location Somerset
    Posts 324
    United Kingdom
    Kanji are not always read with on/kun readings, there are other readings as well (for example words like 大人 and 今日)

    Learn a few words, rather than learning readings out of context. There are some readings which are relatively uncommon (白 as びゃく I think is far less common then the other readings) or are attached only to certain meanings. For example, 日 is never read ジツ when in compounds where it means "Japan"; it will be ニチ , and there are sound changes, so 日系 (person of Japanese descent), is read にっけい not につけい.
  5. #5
    Tubthumper Male
    Join Date Mar 5, 2006
    Location Japan
    Age 30
    Posts 1,423
    Japan-Kyoto
    You should focus on learning words, not individual readings. Once you've got a fair amount of kanji knowledge under your belt, then you can look at studying readings to polish it off.
  6. #6
    Junior Member Male
    Join Date Jul 2, 2012
    Location Attica
    Posts 21
    Greece
    Thank you all for your input

    I will study Kanji in words now,rather than just learn them without any context. Probably one kun and one on reading will do the job just as good, so that I can free more time to learn new kanji/grammar etc.

    I will also use furiganizer to learn new words from Japanese lyrics , and other sources.
  7. #7
    Regular Member Male
    Join Date May 19, 2006
    Location Sydney
    Posts 521
    Australia
    kanji is fun..not

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