漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements
減: dwindle, decrease
Also: reduce, decline, curtail, get hungry
JLPT N212 strokesGrade 5Your ink: 白 Not met
- 氵water(meaning)
- 咸(sound)
氵 carries the meaning · 咸 gives the sound
12 strokes
Three readings, and the words that use each
ゲンgen · on'yomi · in compounds
- 加減かげんmoderation
- 減少するげんしょうするdecrease, be reduced, lessen
- 減点するげんてんするtake off points, give bad mark
- 減税するげんぜいするreduce taxes
- 減速するげんそくするdecelerate
- 削減するさくげんするcut down on, curtail
- 増減するぞうげんするfluctuate
- 半減するはんげんするreduce by half
へるheru · kun'yomi · on its own
- 減るへるdecrease, diminish [v.i.]
へらすherasu · kun'yomi
- 減らすへらすreduce, curtail [v.t.]
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound (會意)水 water, as 氵 (meaning) + 咸 seal (sound)
To seal off a stream of water, decreasing its flow. 咸 is the original character of 緘 and also serves as a semantic component.
Source: Wiktionary, 減 (rev. 92366606), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Imagine three raindrops falling—that's sanzui! Whenever you see these three dots on the left side of a kanji, think of water, liquids, or anything that flows.”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by side減 dwindle · 氵
vs感 emotion · 心In ChineseSimplified 减 · traditional, as in Japanese · jiǎn
Japan keeps the traditional form 減; mainland China simplifies it to 减.
- Simplified
- 减 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 減 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin jiǎn most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.
One click tells us. No sign-up.