# Sound vs. Meaning: on'yomi (音読み) and kun'yomi (訓読み) kanji readings in Japanese > What’s the deal with all these different readings for kanji?You’re not alone in your confusion! Let’s take a look at the difference between onyomi and kunyomi readings, and the best way to learn Japanese kanji. **URL:** https://migaku.com/blog/japanese/kanji-onyomi-vs-kunyomi **Last Updated:** 2025-09-21 **Tags:** discussion --- It’s a rite of passage for every Japanese learner. You’ve spent hours with flashcards, you finally know the kanji for "person" (人 ), and you proudly read it as *hito*...... But then you see the word 日本人 and you’re told it’s read Nihon-jin, not Nihon-hito. Wait, *what?* Where did jin come from? Well, it comes from something called on’yomi (音読み , the "sound reading") and kun’yomi (訓読み , the "meaning reading"), and how the Japanese language developed. In this guide, we’ll explain what both of these different readings are, why they exist, and offer some tips and a cheatsheet for knowing which one to use in what circumstance. --- ## A tale of two languages: why multiple readings for kanji exist So where does this whole issue come from? It all stems from how the Japanese language was formed. You may never have thought about how languages are born, but it has a huge effect on how the language works! > ✨ **_Story Time_** ✨ Mukashi, mukashi, Japan was a country with a rich, expressive spoken language...but no native writing system of its own. Meanwhile, across the sea in China, a sophisticated writing system using logographic characters _(in which symbols, not letters, represent ideas)_ had been in use for thousands of years. Starting around the 5th century, through cultural and religious exchange, Japan began to import these Chinese characters, now known as kanji (漢字 ). This created a fascinating situation. When the Japanese adopted a character like 山 (meaning "mountain"), they had two options: - They could pronounce it using the original Chinese sound for that character at the time: san. - They could attach it to their own, pre-existing native Japanese word for mountain: yama. Instead of choosing one, they did both. Skipping a lot of history—[it's interesting, if you've got half an hour](https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=honorscollege_anthro)—the result of this was the dual-reading system you are currently exasperatedly Googling trying to figure out. Many characters have two ways of being pronounced in Japanese, and [some monstrosities have more than ten readings](https://jisho.org/search/%E7%94%9F%20%23kanji). That's, unfortunately, just how it is. The bad news is we can't change the fact that 山 is pronounced _yama_ in some situations and _san_ in others. The good news is that, with a few rules of thumb, you can relatively reliably guess when it should be _yama_ and when it should be _san_

--- ## What is on’yomi (音読み), the "sound reading"? As mentioned above, the on’yomi is a reading or pronunciation for a character which is based on the original Chinese sound (音 means "sound") of the character. In practice, though, the system isn't perfectly consistent for two main reasons: - **Drift over time** → This process happened over the course of centuries several hundreds of years ago; modern Mandarin/Cantonese readings have drifted quite a bit from Japan's on'yomi readings (and the readings were actually borrowed from multiple _different_ Chinese languages) - **Phonetic limitations** → Japanese syllables can't end in a consonant (other than N). Many of the Chinese languages that readings were borrowed from had syllables that could end in consonants. Japan did the best it could to adapt these pronunciations, but sometimes their best wasn't that close. As such, while these readings are _based_ on the original Chinese readings, they often differ a fair bit. ### When to use on'yomi Primarily, on'yomi is used in jukugo (熟語 ), or compound words. > 💡 Insight 💡
When a word is formed from two or more kanji sitting next to each other, they will almost always use their on'yomi readings. These words often represent more abstract, technical, or academic concepts. Let’s look at some examples of jukugo featuring on'yomi pronunciations: - 火山 (ka-zan) — 火 (ka, "fire") + 山 (zan, "mountain"), meaning “volcano” - 人気 (nin-ki) — 人 (nin, "person") + 気 (ki, "chi"), meaning “popular” - 電話 (den-wa) — 電 (den, "electricity") + 話 (wa, "conversation"), meaning “telephone” - 科学 (ka-gaku) — 科 (ka, "science") + 学 (gaku, "study"), meaning “science” Now, to be super clear: this is sort of an "everybody just agreed it worked that way" situation. In an alternate universe, 火山 might be pronounced as _hiyama_, using the kun'yomi reading for both 火 and 山, while still retaining the exact same "fire mountain = volcano" meaning. For better or worse, though, the established vocabulary word is _kazan_, and nobody says _hiyama_. Another tricky point: Sometimes a single kanji will have multiple on'yomi. This is because characters were imported from different regions of China (with different dialects) and during different historical periods. For example, the kanji 行 can be read as: - (as in 行事 , "event") - (as in 銀行 , "bank") - \ (as in 行灯 , lantern) You *don't* need to memorize that 行 can be read as , , and \. We'll talk about how to go about dealing with kanji with multiple readings a bit later in the article. For now, just know that most kanji you encounter _will_ have multiple ways of being pronounced. ## What is kun’yomi (訓読み), the "meaning reading" ? The kun'yomi is a kanji reading that is based on the original indigenous Japanese word for a concept. Or, to be clear: - Japanese people originally had a word for mountain: _yama_ - At some point in history, Japanese people borrowed the kanji 山 from China - Japanese people decided to attach the character 山 onto the word _yama_ - And thus the word _yama_ could now be written as 山 The pronunciation _yama_ existed in Japan long before the character 山 was adopted, so _yama_ was kept. ### When to use kun'yomi Just like on'yomi, kun'yomi has its own specific use cases. > 💡 Insight 💡
When a word consists of a single character, or a single character followed by hiragana characters (called [送り仮名 , *okurigana*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana)), it will usually be read with its kun'yomi reading. Here's a few examples of standalone nouns that utilize kun'yomi readings: - 火 (hi) — meaning “fire” - 山 (yama) — meaning “mountain” - 人 (hito) — meaning “person” And then some verbs and adjectives: - 食べる (ta-beru) — meaning “to eat” *(The kun'yomi of 食 is ta)* - 話す (hana-su) — meaning “to speak” *(The kun'yomi of 話 is hana)* - 新しい (atara-shii) — meaning “new” *(The kun'yomi of 新 is atara)* --- ## Remember these 4 rules to know whether to use onyomi or kunyomi So, good news and bad news: - The good news is that, with just a few rules, you can relatively reliably guess whether a character should be pronounced with its on'yomi reading or kun'yomi reading - The bad news is that, even if you know that you should use an on'yomi reading for a particular word, there's no way to guess _which_ on'yomi reading to use *(By the way, you might have noticed that I said “on'yomi” and “kun’yomi” above, but use “onyomi” and “kunyomi” in this section header. Good eyes! The proper English transliteration is “on'yomi” and “kun’yomi” with the apostrophe, but you'll often see “onyomi” or “kunyomi” online. Don’t get tripped up!)* ### \[Rule 1\] Two or more kanji together? Think on'yomi. This is the golden rule and your most reliable guide. When you see a compound word made of multiple kanji, your default assumption should be that it uses the on'yomi reading for each character. - 簡単 (kantan, "simple"), isn’t it? - If you keep this in mind while 読書 (dokusho, "reading"), you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble! ### \[Rule 2\] A single kanji by itself? Think kun'yomi. This is the other major rule. If you see a kanji standing all by itself, functioning as a complete and standalone word, it will almost certainly use its kun'yomi reading. These are often the first words you learn in Japanese. - So when you’re sitting in the grass, staring up at the 空 (sora), - and see a 鳥 (tori), you can rest assured that you know just how to pronounce them. ### \[Rule 3\] Kanji with hiragana attached? It's kun'yomi. If a word consists of a kanji character followed by okurigana (hiragana), you can assume they’ll use the kun'yomi reading. Think about it this way: if a word is "finished" with native Japanese characters (hiragana), it makes sense that the root of the word uses the native Japanese reading, right? There are thousands of such words in Japanese, but to give a few examples: - Verbs: 高い (taka-i, "high ), 新しい (atara-shii, "new"), 楽しい (tano-shii, "fun") - Adjectives: 話す (hana-su, "to speak"), 見る (mi-ru, "to see"), 書く (ka-ku, "to write") If you just remember that these okurigana-ending words almost always use the kun'yomi reading, you’ll be in very good shape. ### \[Rule 4\] Names and places? Welcome to the wild west. Now things get a bit more complicated. When it comes to names and places, rules pretty much go out the window. Both personal names and place names often don’t follow the standard patterns. They can use on'yomi, kun'yomi, or even special readings used only for names (called nanori). For example: - The famous electronics district in Tokyo, 秋葉原 , is read Akihabara, which is a mix of kun'yomi (aki) and other special readings. - The name 田中 , Ta-naka, features two kun'yomi readings... despite being a jukugo, which, as per our first rule, means you'd expect it to feature two on'yomi readings There’s really nothing to do but learn these types of words on a case-by-case basis. The good news is that Japanese people themselves get tripped up by this, so most official forms or documents will include furigana (small hiragana readings placed just above the kanji) to explicitly show how a given name or place is pronounced. ### When the Rules Don't Apply (And Why) While the first three rules will get you pretty far, they're unfortunately not ironclad. To show what I mean: - Consider 台所 (daidokoro, "kitchen"). You’ll notice 台 uses the on'yomi reading, dai, and 所 uses the kun'yomi reading, dokoro. On'yomi and kun'yomi in the same word! - Another example is 中身 (nakami, "contents"), which is a jukugo... meaning you'd expect to see on'yomi readings... but actually the word includes the kun'yomi reading of both 中 and 身 These mixed readings have special names: - Jūbakoyomi (重箱読み ) Reading: on'yomi first, kun'yomi second (like the word 重箱 itself, jū-bako) - Yutōyomi (湯桶読み ) Reading: kun'yomi first, on'yomi second (like the word 湯桶 itself, yu-tō) You don't need to memorize these terms—just know that such words exist. As we'll talk about down below, sometimes kanji just aren't pronounced as you'd expect them to be. For this reason, it's better to focus on learning _vocabulary words_ than it is to memorize the various ways a given kanji could possibly be pronounced.

--- ## Common questions beginners have about on’yomi and kun’yomi: With the big rules out of the way, I’m sure you’ve still got some questions. I’m here for you! Let’s look at some common questions. No, you don't. > In fact, trying to memorize a list of ways a particular kanji can be read is basically a waste of your time. While this may seem like an impending problem at first, it's actually something that will resolve itself naturally as you learn more vocabulary words. For example, say you learn the following words, which all include the kanji 日, meaning "sun". - — (**ni**hongo , "Japanese") - — (a**shita** , "tomorrow") - — (getsuyou**bi** , "Monday") Simply as a byproduct of learning a few common vocabulary words, you now know that 日 can be pronounced as \, \, and \. As mentioned, sometimes it's just impossible to know how to read a word if it's the first time you're seeing it—even if you're already very good at Japanese. Applying the three rules from the cheatsheet above will get you pretty far: - Is it a compound word? Guess on'yomi. - Is it a lone kanji? Guess kun'yomi. - Is it a kanji with okurigana? Guess kun'yomi. For the rest of the cases, we'll repeat our answer to the above point: if you focus on learning vocabulary words, rather than kanji readings, this problem will resolve itself. This is simply a visual convention to help you instantly distinguish which reading is which without having to be explicitly told. If you’re looking up a kanji and see: - Readings in katakana (e.g., ジン, ニン for 人) → the reading(s) are on'yomi - Readings in hiragana (e.g., ひと for 人) → the reading(s) are kun'yomi. Yes! For example, not all kanji came from China; some were developed in Japan. These are called [kokuji (国字 )](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji). Words like 峠 (tōge, "mountain pass") were developed in Japan, so they didn't have an ancient Chinese pronunciation to borrow from and thus only have a Japanese reading. Again, learning the readings of a character is a game of exceptions. No. - Some kanji have just one reading, like 峠 above - A few have _several_ readings of each type, such as [this monster from earlier](https://jisho.org/search/%E7%94%9F%20%23kanji) - Most characters fall somewhere in the middle, meaning you will end up learning a few readings for them Again, don’t panic. Oftentimes, [because some words are much more common than other words](/blog/japanese/how-to-learn-japanese-vocabulary), you may be able to get away with learning just one reading for a particular character. Other times, a character may have several possible readings... but some of these readings are only used in one very specific rarely used word. As such, handling multiple readings _seems_ scary, but is pretty straightforward in practice. As mentioned in a few of these FAQs, the key is to not try to drill them all at once. Focus on learning kanji readings as they come up in vocabulary words you're learning. As time goes on, you will gradually accumulate that particular kanji's other readings as you learn more words which contain it. As mentioned with 台所 (daidokoro) above, they exist. Thankfully, they’re pretty rare. If you stick to the plan of memorizing words, rather than memorizing readings, you’ll be just fine! --- ## The best way to learn the kanji I'm admittedly making an assumption, but chances are you're here because kanji are proving troublesome. Having been at this for over 10 years, if I could go back and give my New To Japanese self a bit of kanji advice, I'd tell myself three things: 1. **Frequency** → Like words, some kanji are much more common than others; learn the common ones up front, and pick up the rarer ones as you encounter them 2. **Shape and Meaning** → By "learn", I mean that you need a system to remember (a) what it looks like and (b) what it roughly means 3. **Prioritize immersion** → You'll pick up kanji readings and more exact meanings/usages as a natural byproduct of learning words which use a particular kanji You can apply those lessons however you wish, but here's how we built Migaku around them: Our Migaku Kanji Course introduces a system for remembering kanji: you'll be shown certain components that occur across multiple kanji, then learn a simple story that helps you combine those components into characters. Rather than learning _all_ the kanji, you'll focus on the specific subset of ~800 characters which occur in the ~1,500 most common words—the words that enable you to follow 80% of Japanese Netflix.

Two weeks after starting the Migaku Kanji Course, you'll start the Migaku Japanese Academy. This course teaches you the most common 1,500 Japanese words and ~300 grammar points. It's special in that you learn these words and grammar points by learning short practical sentences, and each sentence introduces only one new word.

As you learn these words, you'll naturally acquire the on'yomi and kun'yomi readings of the characters. By the time you finish, you'll have enough of a Japanese foundation to continue your learning by exploring content you find interesting, and you can apply our same kanji system to remember new characters as you encounter them. We've reviewed a lot of [kanji learning books](/blog/japanese/best-kanji-books), and you're welcome to try them out—but I feel pretty comfortable saying that Migaku's system is, by far, the most efficient and least troublesome. As much as I wish I had a more professional way of saying this—it kinda just works. _Free for 10 days. No credit card required._ --- ## Want to learn kanji readings? Just learn Japanese vocabulary. For those of you who just zoomed right through the entire article without reading anything—the key takeaway is that this _isn't_ about rote memorization. It's about learning vocabulary. If you learn vocabulary words, and you know the kanji within those words, you'll pick up the kanji readings for free. But how do you learn vocabulary? > If you consume Japanese media, and you understand some of the messages and sentences within that media, you’ll make progress. Period. After you've built a sizeable enough vocabulary base, you might find yourself able to read words confidently... but not even know if the reading you're using is the on'yomi or kun'yomi! And that won't really matter. So long as you know the words that character is made up of, you’ll be well on your way to understanding Japanese. Good luck, friend!