漢字Kanji · in Time & Sequence
二: two, two radical (no. 7)
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Spring and Autumn Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
ニni · on'yomi · in compounds
- 二時間にじかんtwo hours
- 二月にがつFebruary
- 二枚目にまいめsecond (flat object)
- 二にtwo; 2
- 十二じゅうにtwelve; 12
- 二百にひゃく200; two hundred
ふたつfutatsu · kun'yomi · on its own
- 二つふたつtwo (pieces)
Special readingsThese words are read as a whole, not from the readings above.
- 二人ふたりtwo people
Also read ジ, ふた, ふたたび, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0 · JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogram (指事)一 one + 一 one
Two parallel strokes. Duplication of 一 (“one”).
Source: Wiktionary, 二 (rev. 94585217), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for the number two, the starting point for all concepts involving pairs, doubles, and duality.”
Connections
Also read ニ
7 kanji share this on'yomiIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · èr
Same form: 二 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 二 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 二 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin èr most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.