漢字Kanji · in Time & Sequence
不: negative, non-
Also: bad, ugly, clumsy
JLPT N44 strokesGrade 4Your ink: 白 Not met
一 carries the meaning · 丿 and 丨 are drawn in
4 strokes
Bronze · Western Zhou Today
Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
フfu · on'yomi · in compounds
- 不規則なふきそくなirregular
- 不可能なふかのうなimpossible
- 不親切なふしんせつなunkind
- 不都合なふつごうなinconvenient
- 不公平なふこうへいなunfair
- 不思議なふしぎなmysterious, strange
- 不安ふあんanxiety
- 不満ふまんdissatisfaction
- 不足するふそくするbe short of
ブbu · on'yomi
- 不器用なぶきようなclumsy
- 不用心なぶようじんなcareless, unsafe
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
The calyx of a flower. 不 was composed into a phono-semantic character with the pictograph for mouth (口), to form 否, representing “no” (negation).
Source: Wiktionary, 不 (rev. 93626476), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Everything begins with one. This radical is the first strike of the brush that defines the horizon, the first step of a long journey, and the very foundation of the mathematical world.”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · bù
Same form: 不 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 不 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 不 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin bù most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.
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