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 syllabaries. 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 do the Japanese use so many writing systems? Why do they even 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 Japanese characters, and one of three writing systems in Japanese. The other two are hiragana and katakana, collectively called kana.

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

Kanji are logographic characters that carry meaning and can represent words or parts of words.

Kanji symbols can stand alone, or combine with other kanji or kana to create more words, ideas, or turn a kanji into a verb. Their pronunciation and readings vary based on what other kanji or kana they’re connected with — that’s the difficult part. The easy part is that they make reading easier.

Even if you don’t know how to pronounce the kanji, if you recognize it’s word meaning, you can get the idea of the sentence.

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

Don’t worry, I’ll explain that more later. For now, just know kanji can combine with other kanji to create new meanings, and sometimes they change sounds.

Now, what is kanji in Japanese? What does kanji — written 漢字 — even mean? It literally means “Chinese characters,” which should clue you in on this next part…

About Japanese Kanji — Where Did They Come From?

Kanji originated in China and entered Japan over several centuries, with writing and literacy developing 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, and simplified forms eventually developed into hiragana and 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 often a misconception that kanji are pictographs, meaning they look like the word they represent. While that’s true of some kanji, it’s not true for the writing system as a whole.

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。

Both of those sentences mean exactly the same thing and are pronounced exactly the same way. But one has kanji and one is only written in kana. They both say “I plan to meet a friend next Saturday.” But it’s a lot easier to read when you know this:

来週 (next week) の 土曜日 (Saturday) には 友達 (friend) に 会う (meet) つもりです。

The kana are extra pieces of information, part of basic grammar. But without the kanji, it would be a jumble and hard to tell what it meant. If you only knew the English word meaning of those kanji, you could still read and understand that sentence.

Besides that, many words are pronounced the same but have different kanji. The word “kanji” itself could mean “Chinese characters” or “feeling/emotion.” It all depends on which Japanese characters you use: 漢字 or 感じ.

How Many Japanese Kanji are There?

There are tens of thousands of kanji because kanji has morphed so much over the past couple millennia.

There are 2,136 kanji that the Japanese Ministry of Education says are “essential.” These kanji are called jouyou kanji.

While there are more in regular use, especially in scholarly or news articles, this is the baseline for education and literacy in Japan. Don’t let that freak you out though! There are ways to get by, and it’s easier than you think.

Kanji Translation: How to Translate and Read Kanji

So we talked about how these Japanese symbols and meanings have different readings. And how combining kanji with kana or other kanji to create new words. But how do we know how to translate kanji, or read kanji, or pronounce kanji?

That’s where a kanji dictionary comes in! The best Japanese dictionary is Jisho.org. Anytime you need help with kanji, Jisho (which means “dictionary,” by the way) has got you covered. You can search by English word, input the kanji to learn its reading, look up words based on grade or JLPT level, and more. They also have a kanji chart where you can search by Japanese radical.

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

What are Kanji Radicals?

If you’re looking for a “kanji alphabet,” kanji radicals are the closest thing you’re going to get.

A radical is the component used to classify a kanji in dictionaries. Other components can contribute meaning or sound; in phono-semantic kanji, a phonetic component, which is not necessarily the radical, often suggests the reading.

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

For instance, some of the most common Japanese kanji are also radicals in larger kanji. Take the kanji 土 (tsuchi or do). Its English translation is “soil” or “earth.” So, any time we see this as part of another kanji, we know the meaning probably has something to do with dirt, land, or nature. In the word 地域 (chiiki), it appears in both kanji, and means “area” or “territory.” Another (unfortunately) common one is 地震 (jishin) or “earthquake.”

How to Best Learn Kanji

A good practice for learning kanji is to start by looking at a Japanese kanji list of the most important kanji and radicals.

An easy place to start is with our beginner kanji guide. The JLPT does not publish one fixed official kanji list for each level, so use it as a study guide rather than a complete exam specification. Begin with frequent words and the kanji that appear in them.

The only downside to learning the most common kanji characters is that they often have the most readings.

When starting with kanji, first focus on the kanji meaning rather than the reading. So, memorize that 水 means “water” rather than “water, mizu, sui.” If you try to remember the English meaning and all the various readings, you’ll confuse yourself and get overwhelmed.

You want to learn the English meaning with the kanji first because you can learn the most common readings quickly once you start learning vocab. You’ll see the kanji with words you’re already learning, in context. So it’s faster to memorize the kanji reading with a vocab word together. Knowing what the kanji means will help you remember the whole word.

Anki is a great place to start with memorizing kanji. You can download a jouyou kanji deck, and practice daily. You can come up with mnemonics for your kanji, and input them as notes or hints on your Anki deck.

I would suggest getting in practice on paper as well to solidify your skills. You’ll want to learn proper stroke order: 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, but stroke order alone does not distinguish two otherwise identical kanji.

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.

Don’t Cringe at Kanji Anymore!

Now you know the answer to the question “what is kanji?”, and how to get started learning it. So you can really start reading and writing in Japanese!

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.

But most of all… 頑張ってね！ Give it your best!