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How many of the actual ON/KUN readings are used today?

eru777

後輩
2 Jul 2012
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I've been learning Kanji for some time now and I have been learning pretty much all the ON and KUN readings, but I was wondering, is it really necessary to learn all of them? How many of them are actually used?
Am I cluttering my brain with useless, obsolete readings or are they actually useful ?
Thanks
 
You don't need to learn all the reading of a kanji, just the main one. Usually one onyomi and one kunyomi, the kanjis you learn at latter stages usually only have one onyomi and no kunyomi.
 
There are many different reading, depend on sentence structure and usage. I focus on ON first because it is easy and feel a little similar to my native language.
 
Kanji are not always read with on/kun readings, there are other readings as well (for example words like 大人 and 今日)

Learn a few words, rather than learning readings out of context. There are some readings which are relatively uncommon (白 as びゃく I think is far less common then the other readings) or are attached only to certain meanings. For example, 日 is never read ジツ when in compounds where it means "Japan"; it will be ニチ , and there are sound changes, so 日系 (person of Japanese descent), is read にっけい not につけい.
 
You should focus on learning words, not individual readings. Once you've got a fair amount of kanji knowledge under your belt, then you can look at studying readings to polish it off.
 
Thank you all for your input ✌️

I will study Kanji in words now,rather than just learn them without any context. Probably one kun and one on reading will do the job just as good, so that I can free more time to learn new kanji/grammar etc.

I will also use furiganizer to learn new words from Japanese lyrics , and other sources.
 
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