I get private questions from users about learning Japanese, and I'd like to start collecting the answers here. If you have any advice about Japanese (or studying Japanese), please put it here in Q/A form! I will move this to a more visible place in renshuu sometime in the future.
Q: How can I know the difference between onyomi and kunyomi when reading kanji?
A: Onyomi readings are taken from or adapted from Chinese readings of the kanji, whereas kunyomi readings were made for the Japanese language. When reading Japanese, there is unfortunately no 100% rule to determine which of the readings you should use for a kanji. However, there are several rules that are usually true, and if you have to guess, they are good to follow.
1. If a word has two or more kanji in it (a compound), it is usually an onyomi reading for each of kanji.
Ex. 勉強 - べん.きょう
2. If a word is a verb or adjective that has hiragana following it, it is usually a kunyomi reading.
Ex. 美しい (うつくしい), 食べる (たべる)
3. If a word is just one kanji, it is often the kunyomi reading.
I definitely would, and that is usually how it is done in a classroom environment. It's a lot of muscle memory (being able to write the kanji), so the more repetitions you get in, the better!
Got a question about a word. 今日 means "today". I recognized the word through the two kanji together, but forgot the reading. The individual Onyomi for both have nothing to hint that the reading is きょ。
My questions are how come two kanji (who I can usually figure out the On reading by the first few sounds), have a completely different reading together and is there a way for me to remeber.
(P.S. I like how when you learn a kanji, the little kana on top disappeared in the lessons so you remeber better😁 it's a fun feeling when I remeber a reading correctly.)
Reading up on that it seems that there was the pronunciation of it before the kanji was associated to it. So the reading existed and then the kanji was associated to it without matching the pronunciation (opposite of ateji, which is an arbitrary kanji which matches the pronunciation). Source
You can only learn this by making your own bridges or just rote memorization, there's no real way to predict this... But this word occurs often enough that you won't have problems.
Hi! Quick question from another self teaching learner, how would you say “with ___” ? Like if I were to say “with kao Chan.” Would it be 「とかおーちゃん」？ I’m thinking about it from a perspective where someone asked a question like “who did you talk with?” Or “who did you talk with” and the verb is already implied. ありがとう
