漢字Kanji · in Structures & Home
都: metropolis, capital
Also: all, everything
⻏ carries the meaning · 者 gives the sound
Bronze · Western Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
トto · on'yomi · in compounds
- 都市としcity
- 都会とかいcity
- 都心としんheart (of city)
- 都営とえいmunicipally owned
- 都立とりつmunicipal
- 都庁とちょうTokyo Government Office
- 東京都とうきょうとTokyo Metropolitan area
- 京都きょうとKyoto
- 首都しゅとcapital city
ツtsu · on'yomi
- 都合つごうcircumstances, convenience
- 都度つどeach (every) time
みやこmiyako · kun'yomi · on its own
- 都みやこmetropolis, city, capital
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)者 (sound) + 邑 town, city (meaning)
Source: Wiktionary, 都 (rev. 92731497), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Building/person (者) + village (⻏). A massive "village" where thousands of "people" and important buildings are gathered—the grand capital city.”
Connections
Also built on someone (者)
The 者 family reads ショ (sho); 都 is read ト、ツ.
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · dōu, dū
Same form: 都 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 都 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 都 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin dōu, dū most common readings
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.