Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement

語: word, speech

Also: language

JLPT N514 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met

言 carries the meaning · 吾 gives the sound

14 strokes
  • Bronze · Spring and Autumn
  • Today

Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two readings, and the words that use each

ゴgo · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 単語たんごword
  • 英語えいごEnglish language
  • 敬語けいごpolite speech
  • 言語学げんごがくlinguistics
  • 日本語にほんごJapanese language
  • 標準語ひょうじゅんごstandard Japanese
  • 外国語がいこくごforeign language

かたるkataru · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 語るかたるtalk
  • 物語ものがたりstory

Also read かたらう, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)言 (meaning) + 吾 (sound)

Source: Wiktionary, 語 (rev. 92201757), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Speech radical + five + mouth = a complete language where many different 'mouths' speak in harmony with a shared understanding.”
From the 言 speech story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
言

Also built on speech (言)

All 72
吾

Also built on 吾

語 takes the 吾 family's reading, ゴ (go).

Also read ゴ

20 kanji share this on'yomiAll 20

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
語 word · 吾
vs詰 packed · 吉
語 has 吾 where 詰 has 吉.
In ChineseSimplified 语 · traditional, as in Japanese · yǔ

Japan keeps the traditional form 語; mainland China simplifies it to 语.

Simplified
语 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
語 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin yǔ 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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