This article is a review, once you’ve completely finished reading the following series of articles about the Japanese Kanji, proceed to reading this one.
So you’ve successfully read and understood what is explained in the earlier articles, and you’re ready to learn some more Kanjis. Before we do so however, let’s proceed to a short and quick review exercise.
Simply match up the meaning with the appropriate Kanji in the table right below:
a) _____ as in quickly
b) _____ as in person
c) _____ as in river
d) _____ as in mouth
e) _____ as in seven
f) _____ as in mountain
g) _____ as in blue
h) _____ as in companion
i) _____ as in car
j) _____ as in eye
k) _____ as in tree
l) _____ as in to slip
m) _____ as in heart
n) _____ as in two
o) _____ as in knife or sword
p) _____ as in one
q) _____ as in sky
r) _____ as in three
s) _____ as in seven
t) _____ as in ten
A : 1 B : 4 C : 7 D : 9 E : 20 F : 11G : 14 H : 16 I : 19 J : 13 K : 2 L : 3 M :12 N : 17 O : 5 P : 10 Q : 15 R : 8 S : 20 T : 18
If you haven’t made any mistakes, congratulations! You’re along the right path in learning to read (and write) Japanese. If you’ve made some mistakes, take some notes in order to identify which Kanji you find more difficult. Take some time to associate the Kanji with a familiar picture or make up your story like we’ve done before. It is important to really have those 20 Kanjis clear in your mind before progressing any further. Trying to rush things will only turn out to be disappointing in the long run as you’ll find out that you can’t remember what you studied before.
Don't worry, however, as I’ll keep using the Kanjis I’ve introduced before in order to make sure that they’re not forgotten.
六
This Kanji stands for the number “6”. Since we’ve already covered most numbers from 1 to 10, it seems logical that we should add this one in. It might seem a bit confusing but it’s actually not that hard to remember once you’ve got a good story figured out. Let’s first have a look at the writing.
And now for the actual kanji:
Simply picture a person walking. Each part of its “body” counts for 1: head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg and right leg. A total of 6 body parts.
Let’s move on to the next Kanji, 五。
Now remembering this Kanji is a bit trickier. Suppose I told you this Kanji represents a number, would you be able to guess which one it stands for?
It actually somewhat looks like the shape of the number 5. Look at the picture below to get a better idea:
Let’s move on to the last Kanji, a very common one:
The meaning of this Kanji can almost be guessed without any prior Japanese knowledge. The general meaning of this Kanji is “in” or “inside”. Simply remember that the last stroke in drawing this Kanji is inside the rectangle.