What Is Kanji? A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Characters

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So, you’ve started learning Japanese. You may already know some kana, the two Japanese phonetic scripts. Then you run into kanji, and the writing system can suddenly look much bigger. “What is kanji? Why is it here?”

If you’ve stumbled upon kanji, you may have a million questions, such as…

• “Are kanji Chinese or Japanese? I thought they were Chinese?”
• “Why are kanji so complex? Why do I have to learn stroke order?”
• “Why does Japanese use several scripts? Does it really need kanji?”
• “How do I pronounce kanji? How will I ever read this?”

Breathe. Kanji takes time, but you do not need to learn every character before you can read useful Japanese. This guide explains what kanji does and how to start learning it in words.

It helps to learn kana alongside kanji, because Japanese words often combine both. If kana is new to you, start with our kana guide.

Editor's note: Before we get started, if you’re looking for an online Japanese course, here’s the course we recommend: Japanese Uncovered – Learn Japanese Through the Power of Story, a course with a fascinating new method by Olly Richards. You can try it for free for 7 days!

What is Kanji?

Kanji are logographic characters used in Japanese. They are one of the three scripts in the modern mixed writing system; the other two are hiragana and katakana, collectively called kana.

Hiragana and katakana are phonetic kana scripts with different uses. Hiragana commonly writes grammatical elements and many native words, while katakana commonly writes loanwords, foreign names and onomatopoeia.

Kanji carry meaning and can represent words or parts of words. A kanji may stand alone, combine with other kanji in a compound, or take a kana ending in a verb or adjective.

A character’s reading depends on the word it appears in, which is why memorising one fixed pronunciation per kanji does not work. Recognising a character’s broad meaning can give you a useful clue, but you still need the vocabulary and grammar around it to understand the sentence.

For example, 水 (mizu, “water”) uses the reading mizu in 水着 (mizugi, “swimsuit”), but it uses sui in 水曜日 (suiyōbi, “Wednesday”). Learn readings with whole words, because a kanji does not have one fixed pronunciation.

Kanji can therefore help you scan a sentence and separate meaningful word units, even when you still need to look up a reading or unfamiliar word.

What does kanji, written 漢字 (kanji), mean? It literally means “Chinese characters”: 漢 (kan) refers to Han or Chinese, and 字 (ji) means a written character. That should clue you in on the next part.

On-yomi, Kun-yomi and Furigana

The two main kinds of kanji reading are 音読み (on’yomi, “sound reading”) and 訓読み (kun’yomi, “meaning reading”). On-yomi are Sino-Japanese readings that developed from Chinese pronunciations, while kun-yomi connect a character with a native Japanese word.

Two-kanji compounds often use on-yomi, while a character used alone or with a kana ending often uses kun-yomi. 水 by itself is usually みず (mizu, “water”), a kun-yomi; in 水曜日 it is すい (sui), an on-yomi. These are tendencies, not guarantees. 水着 uses mizu even though it is a compound, and names can be especially unpredictable. Learn the reading as part of each word.

Kana attached to a kanji to show inflection are called 送り仮名 (okurigana, “accompanying kana”). In 会う (au, “to meet”), for example, 会 carries the core meaning and う is the okurigana.

You will also see 振り仮名 (furigana), small kana printed above or beside kanji to show a reading. In plain text, a word may be shown as 日本語（にほんご） (nihongo, “Japanese language”). Furigana appears in learner materials, children’s books, manga, names and words a publisher expects readers may not know.

This is one reason to get comfortable with hiragana early. Furigana lets you read material above your current kanji level and connect a word’s spelling, sound and meaning. As you improve, cover the furigana occasionally and test whether you can recall the word without it.

About Japanese Kanji: Where Did They Come From?

Kanji originated in China and reached Japan over several centuries, often through the Korean peninsula. Sustained use of Chinese characters as a writing system developed more fully from around the 5th century onward.

Later traditions credit Wani, a scholar said to have come via Korea, with bringing Chinese learning to Japan. Historians treat that story cautiously; what is clear is that Japanese writers adapted Chinese characters to a language with very different grammar.

Kanji did not match Japanese grammar directly. Writers used characters phonetically as well as for meaning. Cursive forms developed into hiragana, while abbreviated parts of characters used in annotation developed into katakana.

In the Heian period, hiragana became especially important in court literature, including writing by women such as Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji. She did not invent the script, but her work is a major example of its literary use.

Are Kanji Pictographs?

It’s a common misconception that kanji are pictographs, meaning they look like the word they represent. While that is true of some early characters, it is not true of the writing system as a whole.

Many kanji are phono-semantic characters: one component gives a clue to the broad meaning category and another gives a clue to an older Chinese pronunciation. Those clues can help you remember or look up a character, but they do not guarantee its modern Japanese meaning or reading.

Why Do We Need Kanji, Anyway?

Japanese uses kanji, hiragana and katakana because each helps signal meaning, grammar and word origin. Writing systems change over time, but kanji remains a normal part of contemporary Japanese literacy.

Kanji make many Japanese sentences easier to scan, especially where kana-only text would leave word boundaries or homophones less obvious. Kana-only writing is still possible and common in some learner and children’s material, but it can take more effort to parse as sentences grow longer.

Take a look at this example:

来週の土曜日には友達に会うつもりです。
らいしゅうのどようびにはともだちにあうつもりです。
Raishū no doyōbi ni wa tomodachi ni au tsumori desu.

The two Japanese lines say the same thing and have the same pronunciation; the first uses kanji and the second is all kana. In a likely first-person context, the sentence means “I plan to meet a friend next Saturday”, although Japanese leaves the subject unstated.

Here is the same sentence divided into useful units: 来週 (raishū, “next week”) の 土曜日 (doyōbi, “Saturday”) には 友達 (tomodachi, “friend”) に 会う (au, “meet”) つもりです (tsumori desu, “plan/intend to”).

The kana are not merely extra pieces. In this sentence, の (no) links “next week” to “Saturday”, には (ni wa) marks Saturday as the time/topic, and に (ni) marks the person being met. Kana endings can also show inflection. The kanji make the content words easier to spot, but their English keywords alone are not enough to recover the full grammar or exact meaning.

Kanji also distinguish many words that sound alike. 漢字 (kanji) means “Chinese characters”, while 感じ (kanji) can mean “feeling” or “impression”. The pronunciation is the same here, but the spelling and context tell you which word is meant.

How Many Japanese Kanji are There?

Historical dictionaries and specialist character sets contain tens of thousands of kanji, but many are rare, archaic, name-specific or limited to specialist fields.

For everyday modern writing, Japan’s official 常用漢字表 (Jōyō Kanji Table) lists 2,136 characters, with approved readings and examples. It is a guideline for kanji use in general social life and a basis for school literacy goals, not a claim that no other character may be used.

You will still meet characters outside the list, especially in personal and place names, historical writing and specialist vocabulary. Treat 2,136 as a long-term reference point, not a beginner deadline.

Kanji Translation: How to Translate and Read Kanji

A kanji dictionary helps when you meet an unfamiliar character or word. Look up the whole word first whenever possible, because the correct reading and English meaning depend on context.

Jisho.org is a useful free Japanese-English dictionary. 辞書 (jisho) means “dictionary”. You can search by English keyword, Japanese word, kanji, reading, grade or JLPT level, and use its radical search when you do not know the pronunciation. Treat any isolated English keyword as a starting clue, then check the word and example context.

But what are radicals? I’m glad you asked.

What are Kanji Radicals?

Kanji do not have an alphabet-like inventory. Radicals, called 部首 (bushu), are the components dictionaries use to classify and index characters.

Other visible components can also contribute meaning or sound. In a phono-semantic kanji, the phonetic component that hints at a reading is not necessarily the dictionary radical.

Radicals are useful for looking up and grouping kanji, but they do not by themselves determine every character’s meaning or reading.

Some simple kanji also serve as radicals inside more complex characters. Take 土 (つち, tsuchi, “soil” or “earth”; on-yomi ド, do). The 土 component appears on the left of both characters in 地域 (chiiki, “area” or “region”), and it also appears in 地震 (jishin, “earthquake”). Here it gives a useful land-related clue, but component clues are tendencies rather than complete definitions.

How to Best Learn Kanji

If you want a guided first set, this video walks through 100 beginner kanji often studied around JLPT N5. The JLPT does not publish a fixed official kanji list, so treat it as a learning sequence rather than a complete exam specification.

An easy place to start is our beginner kanji guide. Begin with frequent words and the characters that appear in them.

Some frequent kanji have several common readings, which is another reason to learn them inside words. Use a rough core meaning as a memory hook, but do not try to memorise every reading in isolation. For 水, learn useful words such as 水着 and 水曜日, each with its own reading and meaning.

Anki can schedule reviews so words return before you forget them. Build or choose cards around useful vocabulary and sentences, then add mnemonics for your kanji as hints when a character will not stick. Consistent reviews matter more than racing through a huge deck.

Mix flashcards with real reading. Graded readers give you controlled vocabulary; manga with furigana lets you check unfamiliar readings; easy news and learner texts show the same characters in new sentences. A short, regular habit helps you recognise whole words instead of collecting isolated character facts.

Practise on paper as well if handwriting matters to you. Stroke order is the conventional direction and sequence of the strokes that make up a kanji. Broad principles include writing from top to bottom and from left to right. Following standard order helps produce consistent, legible handwriting and makes stroke-based lookup easier, though individual characters still need their own model.

Learning the jōyō kanji is a long-term project, and the pace varies widely. Keep connecting characters to vocabulary, reading and listening rather than treating a character count as a deadline. Japanese can become more manageable once you have a routine.

Keep Going With Kanji

Now you know what kanji is and how to get started learning it. You can begin reading and writing useful Japanese without waiting until you know every character.

If you’re ready for your next Japanese mission, try your hand at the 101 core Japanese words. You can also get started with basic Japanese grammar.

Most of all, 頑張ってね (ganbatte ne, “Keep at it!”). This is a warm, casual way to encourage someone.