Kanji Kaisen

漢字Kanji · in Nature & Elements

電: electricity

JLPT N513 strokesGrade 2Your ink: 白 Not met

雨 carries the meaning · 申 gives the sound

13 strokes
  • Bronze · Western Zhou
  • Today

Bronze: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.

One reading, and the words that use it

デンden · on'yomi · in compounds

  • 電話するでんわするmake a telephone call
  • 発電するはつでんするgenerate power
  • 電話でんわtelephone
  • 電話番号でんわばんごうphone number
  • 電気でんきelectricity
  • 電気屋でんきやelectric appliance store
  • 電車でんしゃtrain
  • 電子レンジでんしレンジmicrowave oven
  • 終電しゅうでんlast train
  • 停電ていでんloss of electricity, blackout

Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.

Learn it 4 steps
Print sheet Present
成り立ち

Where it comes from

Origin · sourced

Phono-semantic compound (形聲)雨 rain (meaning) + 申 (sound)

Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 雨 (“rain”) + phonetic 申; also ideogrammic compound (會意): 雨 + 申 (“lightning”).

Source: Wiktionary, 電 (rev. 92202138), CC BY-SA 4.0

Memory story · made up to help you remember

“Rain + a field with a tail (lightning) = the flash of light that strikes the ground during a rainstorm.”
From the 雨 rain story
繋がり
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
雨

Also built on rain (雨)

All 13
申

Also built on have the honor to (申)

The 申 family reads シン (shin); 電 is read デン.

Also read デン

5 kanji share this on'yomi

Easy to confuse

The difference, side by side
電 electricity · 申
vs雷 thunder · 田
電 has 申 where 雷 has 田.
In ChineseSimplified 电 · traditional, as in Japanese · diàn

Japan keeps the traditional form 電; mainland China simplifies it to 电.

Simplified
电 mainland China, Singapore
Traditional
電 Taiwan, Hong Kong

Pinyin diàn 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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