Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements

雨: rain

JLPT N58 strokesGrade 1Your ink: 白 Not met
8 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.

Three readings, and the words that use each

ウu · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 降雨量こううりょうamount of rainfall
  • 梅雨前線ばいうぜんせんseasonal rain front
  • 雨期うきrainy season
  • 雷雨らいうthunderstorm

あめame · kun'yomi · on its own

  • 雨あめrain
  • 大雨おおあめheavy rain
  • 雨上がりあめあがりafter the rain

あま-ama- · kun'yomi

  • 雨蛙あまがえるtree frog
  • 雨雲あまぐもrain cloud

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

  • 小雨こさめlight rain

Also read -さめ, 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

Pictogram (象形)

Source: Wiktionary, 雨 (rev. 93473045), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Look up at the sky and see the clouds heavy with moisture! The horizontal line is the vast sky, and inside the frame, you can see four distinct drops of water falling.”
More in the 雨 rain story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered

雨 gives its sound to

Sound parts: KanjiVG.

Also read ウ

10 kanji share this on'yomi
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · yǔ

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

Simplified
雨 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
雨 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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