漢字Kanji · in Structures & Home
間: interval, space
JLPT N512 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met
門 carries the meaning · 日 is drawn in
12 strokes
Bronze · Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Bronze and small seal: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Four readings, and the words that use each
カンkan · on'yomi · in compounds
- 一週間いっしゅうかんone week
- 二時間にじかんtwo hours
ケンken · on'yomi
- 世間せけんsociety, the public, people
- 人間にんげんhuman
あいだaida · kun'yomi · on its own
- この間このあいだthe other day
- 間にあいだにin between, while
まma · kun'yomi
- 居間いまliving room
- 仲間なかまcircle of friends
- 間違いまちがいmistake
- 間違えるまちがえるmake a mistake
- 間に合うまにあうbe in time, be enough
- 昼間ひるまday time
Also read あい, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Variant form of 閒 (“space, gap”) with 月 (“moon”) replaced by 日 (“day”).
Source: Wiktionary, 間 (rev. 93648021), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Gate radical + sun (日) = imagine the golden sunlight shining through the tiny gap between the two closed doors of a gate.”
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間 interval · 日
vs問 question · 口In ChineseSimplified 间 · traditional, as in Japanese · jiān
Japan keeps the traditional form 間; mainland China simplifies it to 间.
- Simplified
- 间 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 間 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin jiān 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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