漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
書: write
JLPT N510 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met
- 聿(meaning)
- 日sun(meaning · sound)
聿 carries the meaning · 日 carries meaning and sound
10 strokes
Three readings, and the words that use each
ショsho · on'yomi · in compounds
- 書庫しょこarchive
- 書斎しょさいstudy (room)
- 書道しょどうcalligraphy
- 辞書じしょdictionary
- 秘書ひしょ(private) secretary
- 図書館としょかんlibrary
- 教科書きょうかしょtext book
- 参考書さんこうしょreference book
- 証明書しょうめいしょcertificate
かくkaku · kun'yomi · on its own
- 書くかくwrite
-がき-gaki · kun'yomi
- 横書きよこがきwriting horizontally
Also read -がき, 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)聿 writing brush (meaning) + 者 (sound)
Source: Wiktionary, 書 (rev. 93632080), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“A brush (聿) + to say (曰). To use a brush to record exactly what someone has "said" or "stated"—the physical creation of a book or a permanent document.”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
聿
Also built on 聿
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by side書 write · 日
vs律 rhythm · 彳In ChineseSimplified 书 · traditional, as in Japanese · shū
Japan keeps the traditional form 書; mainland China simplifies it to 书.
- Simplified
- 书 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 書 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin shū 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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