Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements

泳: swim

JLPT N38 strokesGrade 3Your ink: 白 Not met

氵 carries the meaning · 永 gives the sound

8 strokes
  • Oracle bone · Shang
  • Bronze · Zhou
  • Small seal · Qin
  • Today

Oracle bone, bronze and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

エイei · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 水泳すいえいswimming
  • 競泳きょうえいswimming race
  • 遠泳えんえいlong-distance swimming

およぐoyogu · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 泳ぐおよぐswim
  • 平泳ぎひらおよぎbreaststroke
  • 泳ぎおよぎswimming
  • 背泳ぎせおよぎbackstroke (swimming)

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0 · JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)水, as 氵 (meaning) + 永 (sound)

Source: Wiktionary, 泳 (rev. 93653316), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Water + long movement = moving through water”
From the 氵 water story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
氵

Also built on water (氵)

All 125
永

Also built on eternity (永)

泳 takes the 永 family's reading, エイ (ei).

Also read エイ

11 kanji share this on'yomi
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · yǒng

Same form: 泳 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).

Simplified
泳 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
泳 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin yǒng 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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