漢字Kanji · in Structures & Home
円: circle, yen
Also: round
JLPT N54 strokesGrade 1Your ink: 白 Not met
冂 carries the meaning · 員 gives the sound
4 strokes
Small seal · Qin Today
Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
エンen · on'yomi · in compounds
- 千円せんえんa thousand yen
- 円高えんだかstrong yen
- 円安えんやすcheap yen
- 円満なえんまんなpeaceful
- 円滑なえんかつなsmooth
まるいmarui · kun'yomi · on its own
- 円いまるいround
Also read まる, まど, まどか, まろやか, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)囗 (meaning) + 員 (sound)
The interior 口 is 〇, which is the original ideogram for the word "circle"; 鼎 and 囗 were added later.
Source: Wiktionary, 圓 (rev. 94426000), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Borders (冂) + a central mark. It originally represented a "circle" or a perfectly round object bounded within its own infinite "borders."”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
In ChineseSimplified 圆 · traditional 圓 · yuán
Three different forms: Japanese 円, simplified 圆, traditional 圓.
- Simplified
- 圆 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 圓 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin yuán 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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