How does Kanji work?

[mmmason8967]

I think the answer is that it all happens the other way round.

Words are said, not read. The word for "today" is kyou. The way it's written is 今日, which looks like a fairly obvious way to represent the meaning. When you come to read it, you just have to know that it's kyou and not, as you might have expected, imabi or konnichi.

I guess that, since kanji were originally imported from China, 今日 is how "today" is (or was) written in Chinese. So the Japanese used 今日 to write "today" as well.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

Adelholtz san,

I can understand it’s annoying you.
Basically we use onyomi and kunyomi for kanji however, we have some exceptions.
Unfortunately we have to memorize them because that is the Japanese language.

Other examples are
小豆　あずき　red bean
土産　みやげ souvenir
大豆　だいず soy bean


Yuki 　由紀
Team 　JapanesePod101.com

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、

As you said kanji was introduced to Japan from China.
It is actually said that what you mentioned.

Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com