晃 How do you pronounce this?

[IkaNatto]

Is it
A-ki
or Akira?
or Ko-U
I've looked up several people's names and they all have different pronunciations, how does one pronounce it when it's just "晃 "



Thanks for the help!

 

[okaeri_man]

Ha, you've picked a good one there.

晃 【あきら】 Akira (s,f) 【こう】 Kou (g) 【ひかる】 Hikaru (f) 【のぼる】 Noboru (g) 【あき】 Aki (f) 【あつし】 Atsushi (g) 【てる】 Teru (g) 【みつる】 Mitsuru (g) 【あきつぐ】 Akitsugu (u) 【あきのり】 Akinori (u) 【こうしょう】 Koushou (u) 【こうじ】 Kouji (u) 【こうそう】 Kousou (u) 【ひかり】 Hikari (u) NA

from that alone, there's no way you can tell which reading it is. but it's probably akira.

if you got it from a manga, often when characters are surprised, they'll say something like あ、晃！this is a big hint that the reading starts with あ!

 

[IkaNatto]

Thanks for the reply, so in this case, if someone's name is 晃.. how are you going to know which pronounciation it is?

 

[Miki-san]

You don't. I would think that depends on the parents. Common names for this kanji are : Teru, Aki, Akira, Hikaru, Noboru, and Atsushi.


Miki-san

 

[The7thSamurai]

Just a question, would a typical Japanese person know all those pronounciations or would they only know a few? The reason I ask is because I'm trying to teach myself kanji and occasionally I come across one that has heaps of pronounciations like this one.

 

[IkaNatto]

hehe good thing I don't need to learn to read kanji since I already know them, just need to learn the pronounciations of them.
To answer your question normally there would be katagana or hiragana right by kanji to help you pronounce them

 

[lexico]

I have a question that's related to the 1st: If an obscure kani is used in an unusual combination AND does not have furigana attached to it, does that mean one would need a human fluent in written Japanese to tell me how to read that ? :?

 

[pipokun]

It is a good idea just to ask how you pronounce the characters, esp., one's name.
I assume that a J football player, Nakata, said my name is Nakata, not Nakada millions of times before.
I think trying to memorize all Japanese names is nothing but a waste of time, for some say there are more than 300,000 families names in Japan. The effort itself would be nice, though.