Kanji of the Week
Kanji Rule (2): Pictures Became Kanji.
Pictures became kanji. When you look at a picture, you know what it means. When you look at the kanji made from a picture, you can guess what it means. The kanji for "bird" is a picture of a bird.
Kanji usually have at least two readings. One is called on-yomi or the Chinese reading, and the other is kun-yomi or the Japanese reading.
- Meaning
bird
- Reading
On-reading: chou
Kun-reading: tori
-
Mnemonics
The four slashes on the bottom are the bird's feet. Above the feet are the wings and above the wings is the head. There is an eye on the face. The beak is on the top of the head. Can you see a shape of the bird from this character?
Click here to learn more about this kanji character. Click here to learn another kanji character with "bird" symbol. To learn vocabulary for birds, click here.
