漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
春: springtime, spring (season)
- 𡗗(form)
- 日sun(meaning)
日 carries the meaning · 𡗗 is drawn in
Oracle bone · Shang Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Two readings, and the words that use each
シュンshun · on'yomi · in compounds
- 春分の日しゅんぶんのひvernal equinox
- 青春せいしゅんspringtime of life
- 立春りっしゅん1st day of spring
- 今春こんしゅんthis spring; spring this year
- 春闘しゅんとうspring labor offensive
- 来春らいしゅんnext spring
- 昨春さくしゅんlast spring; the spring of last year
はるharu · kun'yomi · on its own
- 春はるspring
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0 · JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)艸 grass (meaning) + 屯 swollen sprout (sound) + 日 sun (meaning)
Some oracle-bone and bronze forms contain only two components, either 艸/屮/木 with 屯, or 日 with 屯. The character may relate to a semantic cluster of its phonetic series: 蠢 (“to stir”), 純 (“pure, unmixed”), 敦 (“round”), and 芚 (“to sprout”).
Source: Wiktionary, 春 (rev. 92711640), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The life-giving sun in the sky! This simple box was once a perfect circle, representing the regular rising and setting of the sun that marks the rhythm of our lives.”
Connections
Also built on 𡗗
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · chūn
Same form: 春 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 春 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 春 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin chūn most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.