Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Animals & Wildlife

貝: shellfish

JLPT N27 strokesGrade 1Your ink: 白 Not met

目 and 八 are drawn in

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

Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

One reading, and the words that use it

かいkai · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 貝かいshell, shellfish
  • 貝柱かいばしらadductor muscle (of shellfish)
  • 貝殻かいがらshell
  • 貝塚かいづかshell heap; shell mound; kitchen midden
  • 巻き貝まきがいsnail; spiral shell

Also read バイ, with no example words in our sources. 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

Pictogram (象形)

Cowrie used as currency in ancient China. Unrelated to the original version of 則.

Source: Wiktionary, 貝 (rev. 94579478), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“The base kanji for a cowry shell, once the most important and widespread currency in the ancient world.”
From the 貝 shell story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
目

Also built on eye (目)

All 24
八

Also built on eight (八)

All 23

貝 gives its sound to

The family reading is ハイ (hai). Sound parts: KanjiVG.

Also read バイ

12 kanji share this on'yomi

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
貝 shellfish
vs具 tool
Same parts, arranged differently.
In ChineseSimplified 贝 · traditional, as in Japanese · bèi

Japan keeps the traditional form 貝; mainland China simplifies it to 贝.

Simplified
贝 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
貝 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin bèi 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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