I am just about to finish up RtK, and based on the advice I've read on here I'm planning on skipping RtK2 and just learning the on/kun-yomi sounds as I learn vocabulary. But, I've been wondering...

How can you tell, when you are looking at a kanji and the reading, if it is a yomi?
Do some dictionaries tell what the reading is based on?

I've seen some compound kanji where the two keywords fit really well with the word, and so I assume the reading is a regular vocabulary word and not a yomi. When I see others that make no sense (like anki = darkness + scribe), I'm assuming those are the yomi reading of the kanji, but they could also be alternate meanings for the kanji that I don't know yet.

Am I better off comparing the new words to some sort of yomi chart? Once I know that is the reading in one word, I would probably recognize that sound in another word, but for now I don't know what the readings are based on.

Hope that all made sense...

You don't really need to know whether or not they are onyomi or kunyomi. What difference does it make?

Kanji dictionaries usually show what is onyomi and what is kunyomi.

You can lookup kanji on sites like this to get lists of on & kun:

http://www.jisho.org/kanji/details/日

That said, there's no real need to know what is on & what is kun.

bombpersons Wrote:You don't really need to know whether or not they are onyomi or kunyomi. What difference does it make?

I agree. The different is almost irrelevant, unless you want to show off your knowledge, that is.

Just learn the vocab and you should be fine.

And, while largely irrelevent, I'd also like to point out, in case one is still concerned, that you learn to naturally distinguish between on and kun anyway without trying. They simply have different feels to them, and show up in different kinds of words.

There is a huge limitation on what on'yomi exist. Typical on'yomi: shou, ken, yo, han.
So basically, if you see a kanji in a word which is read ken, you can usually assume it's on'yomi.

kun'yomi however are extremely diverse and often unique. Here's some examples: itadaku, inu, mairu, mono.

on'yomi are almost always one syllable, kun'yomi are often several.

Kanji on their own are usually read using kun'yomi, kanji in jukugo (compounds) are usually read using on'yomi.

All of that are just some pointers, but you don't have to worry about it, you will, like QuackingShoe said, get a feel for it.

I guess I didn't word my question well enough...

What I meant to ask was how you can tell whether a word is using a yomi reading or a non-yomi reading?

? yomi (読み) MEANS reading. Every reading is a yomi.

Do you mean, like... a standard reading that usually shows up in a dictionary vs one that doesn't? For example, the reading of 大和 is entirely non-standard (for both characters).

If that's what you mean, you still find out by looking it up.

EDIT: Oh I see, I think he has completely misunderstood how readings work, he's asking about ateji. (ateji is when a kanji is used for its reading instead of its meaning).

First of all, you don't have to know this, and you can't know it from looking at a word. It either is ateji, or it isn't. Ateji however, are rare, so you can almost always expect a word to be constructed by actual meaning. 暗記 is a special case, it's a simplified version of how it's actually written: 諳記. 諳 = "memorize" or "recite from memory".

I hope that explains what you're confused about.

So you are saying that it is rarer for a kanji to be used for just sounds (which I was calling the on/kun-yomi, or just yomi which I guess caused more confusion) and more often the kanji will point to a vocabulary word instead (sort of like the English key words we use in RtK)?

I was thinking that if I knew when the word was using the kanji for it's sound, then it would be helpful to know that at the time I learn the word, so it would be easier to recognize the kanji-sound combination showing up again, that I would see and learn the connection easier. Would it be helpful to keep a onyomi and kunyomi chart to compare the reading to, or not to bother with it?

Sorry to make such a bumbling mess out of my previous questions. I believe I understand how the onyomi and kunyomi readings work, but quickly realized I didn't know the proper terminology to ask what I was trying to ask. What is it called when it does not use an onyomi or kunyomi reading?

Tharvey, I think the problem here is one that happens every now and then on these forums and others. Basically, someone will ask a question, but their question is based on a really incorrect basic assumption. Their question actually makes sense, but only if you know what that incorrect assumption is. Since the readers don't, we can't even tell what that person is trying to ask in the first place.

I think you're having this sort of misunderstanding with the Japanese writing system. So, I really advise you to read through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system and particularly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji and then come back with any more questions from there.

tharvey Wrote:What is it called when it does not use an onyomi or kunyomi reading?

Non-on or kun yomi readings are discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Other_readings

Ok, I think I have it sorted out.... (I hope)

I was under the assumption that both the on'yomi and kun'yomi were only referring to the phonetic reading of the kanji, formed from either the Chinese or Japanese readings, but that the kanji could also be linked to a Japanese word that did not relate to the kanji phonetically. Like the kanji for 東 (east) was paired with the words that the Japanese already used for East. I wasn't sure what to call that, but it sounds like that is also called kun'yomi, since it is also the Japanese reading of the kanji. The kun'yomi can also be used phonetically, like 山 yama + 田 da = Yamada.

Does that all sound correct?

Your talking about phonetic vs non-phonetic is weird, as the kanji are inherently non-phonetic, but you essentially have the idea. Readings that were originally Japanese words are kunyomi, and readings that came from china are onyomi. At least in theory.

So the word 読書, which means reading (the activity), is what it is because 読 = reading and 書 = writing/books. It is pronounced 読書 because どく is a reading of 読 and しょ is a reading of 書. Both of these readings are onyomi, and they exist because they were borrowed from China along with the kanji they're associated with.

読む is what it is because よむ is a Japanese word meaning 'to read,' and 読 is a kanji that has similar meaning. It's a kunyomi, because the word was preexisting in Japanese, and only later was a kanji applied to it, with no consideration for the original Chinese reading. At some times neither the kunyomi nor the onyomi are used, but generally this is for the same reason as the kunyomi, and I don't actually know what the core difference between these and kunyomi is supposed to be.

Sometimes kanji are also used exclusively for their readings, and their meanings are ignored.

So, that's how it works. Which is why

tharvey Wrote:I was thinking that if I knew when the word was using the kanji for it's sound, then it would be helpful to know that at the time I learn the word, so it would be easier to recognize the kanji-sound combination showing up again, that I would see and learn the connection easier.

doesn't make sense. 暗 is あん whether it shows up in the word 暗黒 (where the meaning of the character is involved) or in 暗記 (where it isn't). So 暗 = あん, and knowing that 暗記 doesn't make sense (unless you know the etymology) won't help you in any particular way. See?

In conclusion, Kanji is a very messy copy of Chinese, the square peg filed away until it actually fit in the round hole!