In Japanese, how do you decide when and which on-yomi or kun-yomi is used?

Question

In Chinese, the same character usually have 1 sound (in different tones), but no more than 2 or 3 different sounds (ex:
校 as xiào or jiào)

Why in Japanese are there so many on-yomis, so many kun-yomis for the same kanji?

For example: In Chinese 日 is pronounced "rì" and that's it.
In Japanese 日can be pronounced hi, nichi, ka...

Answer 1

On yomi readings are primarily Japanezed Chinese readings of a kanji that was borrowed from China at different periods like the Song and Tang Dynasties. For instance:
Heaven - Ten Modern Mandarin Chinese Pronounciation:Tian
They are classified into 4 types,namely:Go-on,Kan-on,Tou-on and Kan'you-on.
Kun Yomi readings are used depending on the situation and the context on which they are used.They developed thorugh time with the Japanese adopting the native equivalents for each kanji they have borrowed. In modern sense,they are used to represent verbs in Japanese. Since Chinese is different from Japanese in a lot of ways,the Japanese had to adjust these characters to suit their language by adopting different readings to proper names such as names of people and places,etc.

For examples of kun yomi readings of kanji,please look at the following examples I will be giving below:

Tabe(ru) meaning to eat.


In your example of the Chinese character ri,the usage of both kun yomi and on yomi readings varies by context.

it can be used in the word "nihon"/"nippon",meaning "Japan"
"nichi" can be used in the word "nichiyoubi" meaning Sunday and .

Then,there are also characters that have irrelevant on/kun yomi readings.These are called "ateji".Ateji have readings that are not pronounced through their kun/on yomi readings.
For instance,take the word "angya"/pilgrimage

actually,there were more than 12000 kanji characters used in Japan before world war 2 having different readings.After the war,the education ministry simplified these readings and also the Kanji characters to boost literacy.

There are many instances on which on and kun yomi readings mix a lot.Example: "basho",meaning "place".
The rule of thumb for determining the pronunciation of a particular kanji in a given context is that kanji occurring in compounds are generally read using on'yomi. Such compounds are called jukugo.
Kanji occurring in isolation -- that is, written adjacent only to kana, not to other kanji -- are typically read using their kun'yomi. Together with their okurigana, if any, they generally function either as a noun or as an inflected adjective or verb.
This rule of thumb has many exceptions. Kun'yomi are quite capable of forming compound words, although they are not as numerous as those with on'yomi. Examples include 手紙 tegami "letter", 日傘 higasa "parasol", and the famous 神風 kamikaze "divine wind". Such compounds may also have okurigana, such as 空揚げ (also written 唐揚げ) karaage "fried food" and 折り紙 origami "artistic paper folding", although many of these can also be written with the okurigana omitted .There are also some words that can be read multiple ways, similar to English words such as "live" or "read" -- in some cases having different meanings depending on how they are read. One example is 上手, which can be read in three different ways -- jōzu (skilled), uwate (upper part), or kamite (upper part). In addition, 上手い has the reading umai (skilled).

If you are not sure,better check a kanji dictionary as your reference.

Richard Andrew Paredes
Japanese-English Document Translator

Answer 2

The reason is mainly that Chinese characters are used in Japanese for two entirely different purposes. One is to write the corresponding Chinese word, which has been borrowed into Japanese. This is not always obvious because the Japanese form often looks so different, but for example Chinese ri is borrowed as ni in the example you ask about. The other pronunciations are various native Japanese words that got written with the same character because their meanings were identical or close to the meaning of that Chinese word. It is as if we borrowed the French word boeuf, which we did (as beef) but then used the French spelling to also represent our words such as cow, bovid, bovine, bull, and so on with the same spelling.

Answer 3

kun (wa-kun : wa means japan)
read chinese characters in the japanese translation.
kanji/hanji is polysemous word
japanese made lots of translations for each meaning. (coz hanji was not our character. same as english or some other language for us before)
this is why there are loooots of kun-yomis.
japanese have okurigana system (=a conjugational ending in kana added to a chinese character).
okurigana limit how to read kanji. so we just memorize set of kun-yomi and okurigana.

on (ji-on)
use the chinese reading of a character
but 'on' is ADJUSTED reading to japanese phoneme system. so its not equal to chinese reading.
there are 4 types of reading. (depends on era and region)

there are another kanji called 'kokuji / waji' in japan.
normally, kokuji dont have on-yomi. because these kanjis are made in japan.

Answer 4

There is not definite rule to distinguish on-yomis and kun-yomis. One thing is that kun-yomi is often used in verbs and adjectives and on-yomi is used in nouns.

But it's not everything. One kanji has often more than one on-yomi and more than one kun-yomi. The only way to master is to memorize them one by one as different words.

For example, 日 has more than one yomi, like 土曜日 Saturday, 日本 Japan, 八日 8th day. Those are different words and you have to learn it one by one.

Answer 5

well doesn't that all depend on the person you talking to. Cause when I went to Tokyo 2 years ago, my friends mom I always called her sama, or to be funny kun maybe chan once in a while.. shes a very nice lady and shes an elderly lady...soooo would I be able to call her that....oooooooooh you know what, I just realized on what your talking about, I'm soooo sorry I just saw the word kun and I assumed that your talking about what to call people in Japan.

Answer 6

I decide by context
and my brain memory.
It's habit...
Thank you for you interesting in japanese.