#onyomi

つきなみ・げつじ

1. every month

Hey there! 

Firstly, thanks for the question. I’ll try and keep my answer concise, but I’ll also link some more detailed explanations on various websites if you’re interested in the full story.

History:

To understand what “kun-yomi” and “on-yomi” are, you first need to understand the origin of the Kanji system used by the Japanese language today. Kanji were imported to Japan a very, very long time ago from China. They are the writing system used by China. However, because Chinese and Japanese used very different sounds, the pronunciation of the original chinese kanji was not conserved exactly. Hence, every kanji was associated with at least two readings; one reading which matched the chinese sound as closely as possible, the on-yomi reading, and a second reading which represented the native Japanese reading for the concept, the kun-yomi reading. To illustrate this point, I’ll use the kanji 山 as an example.

Sidenote: In dictionaries and learning resources it is customary to always write the on-yomi reading first as a mark of respect and acknowledgement as to the original origin of kanji (China), however for the ease of explanation I’ll write the kun-yomi reading first this time.

Readings: 

Kun-yomi: Taking the example kanji 山, meaning “mountain” - the Japanese made an association between the meaning of the kanji, i.e “mountain” and the word they already used to describe a mountain, やま。Hence, this is the kun-yomi reading - a reading which matches the concept of a kanji with the native Japanese word to describe it.

On-yomi: The Japanese then adopted a second reading for the Kanji to match the native Chinese reading as closely as possible. When the Chinese see the character 山, they read it as something equivalent to さん。Hence, this is the on-yomi reading. However, since Japanese uses different sounds to Chinese, the pronunciation can still differ slightly from the true native Chinese reading.

山：Mountain

On-yomi: さん 

Kun-yomi: やま

Does Any of This Even Matter?

Yes. As a general rule, the kun-yomi reading for a kanji is used when it appears on its own, but when multiple kanji appear together in a compound, the on-yomi reading is used. However, this is not a golden rule and there are always exceptions. It’s best to take it more as a rule of thumb and learn the critical exceptions for each kanji as you encounter them. The bottom line: If you want to understand and read complex Japanese words and sentences, you absolutely must know both readings.

I’m far from an expert on this matter, and I don’t feel like I’ve really done the matter justice, so I highly suggest you read the material found in the links below to get a more consolidated account of the history and mechanics around the kanji reading system. At any rate, I hope this helps!

Bibliography:

Wikipedia

Tofugu

NihongoMaster

Learn Japanese Adventure

Youtube Videos:

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This is maybe the most frustrating aspect of studying kanji. You start learning 山 as やま. Cool, one kanji memorized. Wait... it can also be read as さん.

Wait. All your other kanji have 2 or 4 extra readings too! Some are on'yomi. Some are kun'yomi.

Why does this have to be so complicated?!

It may seem confusing at first, but if you learn the difference between on'yomi/kun'yomi readings, where they came from, and how they work, we promise it will make learning kanji a lot easier.

So happy my blog is helpful! (̂ ˃̥̥̥ ˑ̫ ˂̥̥̥ )̂ That means a lot.

I think that this post explains it best, but if that’s not helpful here’s my take. 

The onyomi is closer to the original Chinese language and is mostly used for nouns.

The kunyomi reading is used to show the traditional Japanese pronunciation. It is most frequently used when kanji appear in adjectives or verbs.

two or more kanji together is typically onyomi

kanji followed by hiragana is kunyomi

Tips: 

Read this article

Build up your verbal and listening comprehension. If you understand how words sound when you see them written you will understand the context which gives clues to the correct pronunciation. 

When in doubt use a dictionary with audio pronunciation of both onyomi and kunyomi for each kanji like this one

Realize that English has similar words such as read/read, minute/minute. How do you know which one to use when you speak or write? It’s not intuition. Similar to the rules for kanji, the position of the word dictates how it’s pronounced. I already read that. Read it now. I’ll be there in a minute. After all, it was so minute I forgot it was there. 

I hope that helps a bit. Anyone with any other advice please feel free to reblog with your take or tips.

No, they are not a synonym of omnomnom and you don’t have to worry about not being able to pronounce them either. Basically are part of kanji (the complex Japanese character) which mentioned everywhere in common textbooks. But what are they really? And are they important?

You may have known that a kanji can be read in a lot of different way. Well, while some kanji can be read in more than 5 different ways, there are divided into just 2 big group actually. One is On’yomi, the Chinese reading and the other is Kun’yomi, the Japanese reading.

Differentiating Kunyomi and Onyomi

When a kanji is paired with another kanji, it’s most likely that it’s being read with On’yomi

Example: 輸出 yushutsu : export 感謝 kansha : gratitude 大丈夫 : alright

When a kanji is paired with hiragana, it’s most likely that it’s being read with Kun’yomi

Example: 大きい ooki : big 読みます yomimasu : to read 小さい chiisai : small

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Are they important?

The big question! Are they important? Well…, you may notice that in all dictionary, they will list you both type of reading. To tell you the truth, they are mostly useless since there are too much to memorize and in practice, you don’t really remember which reading is Kun’yomi or which one is On’yomi. It’s also worth to notice that when you’re looking at a word in dictionary, you will rarely search for it as a single kanji, but instead as a word. And the dictionary will let you know instantly the specific reading for the kanji in that word. That’s why Kunyomi and Onyomi are not important. But knowing about Kun’yomi and On’yomi might increase your popularity in Japanese class and that should be a good thing, right? tehee!

In summary, knowing which reading the kanji use is basically useless… The only important thing you need to work on is to remember how a kanji is read as a compound sentence or as a verb. So don’t try to remember and try to differentiate all the reading of “一” kanji

Just remember that: 一つ is hitotsu 一 is ichi 一人 is hitori 一番 is ichiban and 一緒 is issho

Happy learning °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°  

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Links:

Some interesting parts of the Onyomi section of Wikipedia’s article on kanji: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#On'yomi_(Sino-Japanese_reading)

“Generally, on'yomi are classified into four types according to their region and time of origin:

Go-on (呉音, "Wu sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Northern and Southern dynasties of China during the 5th and 6th centuries. Go refers to the Wu region (in the vicinity of modern Shanghai), which still maintains linguistic similarities with modern Sino-Japanese vocabulary.

Kan-on (漢音, "Han sound") readings are from the pronunciation during the Tang dynasty of China in the 7th to 9th centuries, primarily from the standard speech of the capital, Chang'an (modern Xi'an). Here, Kan refers to Han Chinese or China proper.

Tō-on (唐音, "Tang sound") readings are from the pronunciations of later dynasties of China, such as the Song and Ming. They cover all readings adopted from the Heian era to the Edo period. This is also known as Tōsō-on (唐宋音, Tang and Song sound).

Kan'yō-on (慣用音, "customary sound") readings, which are mistaken or changed readings of the kanji that have become accepted into Japanese language. In some cases, they are the actual readings that accompanied the character's introduction to Japan, but do not match how the character "should" be read according to the rules of character construction and pronunciation.”

明年（みょうねん）；説明（せつめい）；明朝（みんちょう）

行列（ぎょうれつ）；行動（こうどう）；行脚（あんぎゃ）行火（あんか） (I’m not seeing any for ‘gou’)

極楽（ごくらく）；南極（なんきょく）

珠算（しゅざん）；真珠（しんじゅ）；数珠（じゅず）

温度（おんど）；屹度（きっと）

輸入（ゆにゅう）(Jisho.org has  輸出縮小 listed as ‘shushutsu shukushou), but I can’t find it in Japanese dictionaries like Sanseido and Kotobank.)

英雄（えいゆう）

熊掌 （ゆうしょう） 熊羆 （ゆうひ）

帽子（ぼうし）；椅子（いす）

清潔（せいけつ）；清仏戦争（しんふつせんそう） (I’m not seeing any for ‘shou’)

京都（きょうと）；京阪（けいはん）；北京（ペキン）

兵庫県（ひょうごけん）；兵士（へいし）

強引（ごういん）；勉強（べんきょう）

          (Example words mine; all other text and content taken from Wikipedia)

Other interesting snippets from the article:

“The most common form of readings is the kan-on one, and use of a non-kan-on reading in a word where the kan-on reading is well-known is a common cause of reading mistakes or difficulty, such as in ge-doku(解毒, detoxification, anti-poison) (go-on), where 解 is usually instead read as kai.”

You just started learning Japanese. You're cruising through your beginner kanji list nice and easy.

木. Hey, a tree! 山. Hey, a mountain! Heck yeah, this is easy! The characters even sort of looks like trees and mountains.

But then you look at the pronunciations… wait. Why are there two ways to read 木? Is it もく or is it き? Do I read 山 as さん or やま? Which one should I use? Why can this one be read ten possible ways? Who did this and where are they hiding?!

However, it's too late. You're here, and there's no way home. Welcome… to Kanji Park.

The readings (on'yomi and kun'yomi) of kanji are very complicated. At least, that's what many people will tell you. It's kind of true, but it doesn't have to be this way. Figuring out what to learn and when to use which kanji reading is a lot simpler than everyone makes it out to be.

We're going to show you how to do this so you can apply it to your own kanji studies. Kanji will make more sense, and you'll be able to focus on what's actually important: learning how to read Japanese.

Prerequisite: By the way, this article is going to use hiragana, one of Japan's two phonetic alphabets, so if you don't know it yet, if you're a little iffy, or if you just want a refresher, take a look at our hiragana guide first. It usually only takes a day or two (with the help of mnemonics) to get it down pat.