Multiple ways to pronounce On'Yomi and Kun'yomi ?

[robertsmax818493]

こんにちわ！！

I'm an new to Japanese, so forgive me if this question seems silly.

But as I am learning Kanji, I see that there are multiple ways of pronouncing the On'Yomi and Kun'Yomi of a Kanji.
For example:　一. From what I know, in On'Yomi this is pronounced as いち or いつ and the Kun'Yomi is ひと.

The initial question is when would ichi vs. itsu? How about in other words such as　四　よ/ゆ/よん？

どうもありがとうございました！

[Zelg]

こんにちは

I'm a beginner myself but have been studying (pretty loosely I might add) for a few months now so take this with a grain of salt until someone more informed can come by and confirm or correct or add to it. From what I understand, its very situational and theres not much rhyme or reason behind when to use on'yomi or kun'yomi. Theres just certain instances you use one and other instances you use the other. I dont think theres a guide you can go by to figure it out but rather its just something you have to accept and memorize.

Many people, including myself have come across the different readings when we first started and I think most people decide to not try and memorize all of the readings. For numbers, what I've found is that mostly ichi is used. I've not noticed tsu used. I mostly see, ichi, ni, san, yon(sometimes shi), go, roku, nana (sometimes shichi), hachi, kyu (sometimes ku). Like I think for September you'd say ku gatsu instead of kyu gatsu. None of it makes sense to me really but I just try to go with the flow and not over think it cause then I get stuck worrying about why something is rather than just adapting to it.

Zelg

[Tracel]

Hello, and welcome to the forum

I haven't been on this forum for very long either, but I love looking up information that can help with learning the Japanese language for everyone. I stumbled across this site:
[url]
http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/23/the-ty ... s-kunyomi/[/url]

which seems to give a good run-down on what on-yomi and kun-yomi are all about.

There are some good tricks to use for remembering which reading to use. Sure, it doesn't always work, but at least it isn't totally random. If the kanji is by itself, or with hiragana on the end of it, then it usually is the kun-yomi. If two kanji are together in a compound, it is often the on-yomi for each kanji.

Good luck with it and have fun,
トラセル

[Tracel]

Oops.
The first part of this is wrong:

If the kanji is by itself, or with hiragana on the end of it, then it usually is the kun-yomi. If two kanji are together in a compound, it is often the on-yomi for each kanji.

Made a mistake regarding the Chinese readings. If the kanji is by itself, it is usually the on-yomi and not the kun-yomi. Maybe it is best if you just read the article on the website that I posted. Here is a clip from that website :

But when do you use it? In general, you’ll use on’yomi when a kanji is sitting there all on its own (i.e. when there is no hiragana attached to it), or when a word is made up of a multi-kanji compound (this is called jukugo). Usually when you see a multi-kanji compound word, it has originally come from China. Sometimes these words filled a gap when no such word existed, though often times it just ends up being a synonym for another word.

[community.japanese]

robertsmax818493-san, Zelg-san, トラセルsan,
kon'nichiwa!

Yes..."on reading" vs "kun reading"...unfortunately, there's no simple explanations or "hints" to find out
how to read kanji
The best way would be to remember how to read kanji in words instead of choosing one correct reading from
possibilities. It means, instead of remembering "when to" read 四 as し or よん, it'd be much easier
to remember words like 四か月 (よんかげつ; 4 mounths) and 四月 (しがつ; April).

To be honest, when we Japanese come across with new word with kanji, we don't always get the reading right,
especially when people are not good in kanji (like me!)
So, even if you can't read some words right, it's not really a big problem; it's a common issue we all have.

Hope this helps

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com