Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement

走: run

JLPT N47 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met

土 and 龰 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.

Two readings, and the words that use each

ソウsou · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 滑走路かっそうろrunway
  • 御馳走するごちそうするtreat someone to a meal
  • 競走するきょうそうするrace
  • 逃走するとうそうするescape [v.i.]
  • 脱走するだっそうするescape [v.i.]

はしるhashiru · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 走るはしるrun

Special readingsThese words are read as a whole, not from the readings above.

  • 師走しわすtraditional name for December

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Pictogram (象形)

A running man. An additional 止 (“foot”) was added later.

Source: Wiktionary, 走 (rev. 91979180), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Soil/earth (土) + foot (𠮛) = imagine feet moving quickly and kicking up dust as they race across the ground.”
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
走 run · 土
vs足 leg · 口
走 has 土 where 足 has 口.
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · zǒu

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

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

Pinyin zǒu 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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