Learn the radical for "ten," 十
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| Hi everyone. |
| Welcome to the Japanese Kanji video series. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the "ten" radical. |
| Take a look at these kanji characters. Can you guess what they mean? |
| 十、千、午、古 |
| By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to grasp the meaning behind these kanji characters. |
| First off, can you spot the radical that's common in all of these kanji characters? |
| It's this part here. It looks like a cross. |
| 十 |
| This particular radical is called... |
| じゅう、which literally means "ten" in Japanese. |
| The "ten" radical is used in some of the most common kanji characters. Let's take a look at it in more detail. |
| Meaning |
| The "ten" radical means exactly that - ten! But it also means 'completeness', likely because Chinese uses a base ten number system. |
| As you can see, the "ten" radical is also a kanji character on its own. |
| From left to right, the first kanji means "ten," the second means "thousand," the third character means "noon," and fourth character means "old." |
| The second kanji has the "ten" radical at the bottom, paired with the "person" radical - the very first radical you learned. We covered it in lesson 2. |
| In the olden days, people aspired to live to 100. So if one person lived to 100, then the idea is that "10 human lifetimes" would equate to a "thousand," which is the meaning of this character: "thousand." |
| The third kanji means "noon." To remember this kanji, identify that the "ten" radical is at the bottom, and imagine that the top two strokes signify the number 2. |
| Ten plus two equals 12, and 12 means that it's "noon." |
| The origin of the fourth and final kanji is a little contested, but it has the "ten" radical on *top*, below it, is "mouth" - another useful radical which we will learn in the next lesson. It's thought that something that has *completed* its cycle and relating to the *mouth*, means that it's "old food," or food that has "dried out." |
| When something is dry, it hardens, and so this kanji carries a sense of something that is "old," "dry," or "hard." |
| Common positions |
| The "ten" radical will *usually* sit in the bottom position and connect with another radical above it. |
| It can *also* be in the crown position. When it's in this position, the bottom radical is likely to be the "mouth" radical, in which case, it adds that sense of "oldness," "dryness," or "hardness" that we talked about before. |
| Be careful when trying to identify this radical though, as there will often be crosses in many kanji due to the nature in which kanji characters are written. Some characters may look like they use the "ten" radical, but don't be fooled! Here's a small list of characters which *do* and *do not* use the "ten" radical: |
| Yes: |
| 半 “half” |
| 卒 “to graduate” |
| 卓 “table,” “eminent” |
| 卑 “base,” “lowly,” “vile,” “vulgar,” “mean” |
| No: |
| 干 “dry” |
| 生 “birth” |
| 赤 “red” |
| 走 “running” |
| 士 “samurai” |
| Okay. Now let's learn how to write this radical. |
| Stroke Order |
| The "ten" radical is very simple, it only has two strokes. |
| The first stroke, is a horizontal one that goes from left to right. This horizontal stroke rises eeeever so slightly as it approaches the right side. |
| The second stroke, is a vertical stroke that starts at the top and goes down to the bottom, splitting the first horizontal stroke in half and forming a cross sign. |
| When this radical is part of another kanji, it'll usually connect to another radical at the vertical ends of the second stroke. |
| And that's it! You're done! |
| Common Readings |
| When the "ten" radical is on its own, the kanji can be read as... |
| ジュウ for the 'on' reading and とお for the 'kun' reading |
| And when the "ten" radical is part of another kanji, like in the original examples, common readings are... |
| セン、ち |
| for the kanji meaning "thousand." |
| ゴ、うま |
| for the kanji meaning "noon." |
| コ、ふる |
| for the kanji meaning "old." |
| Lesson Review |
| In this lesson, you learned about the "ten" radical. |
| The "ten" radical looks like a cross. |
| It signifies the number 10 and the idea of "completeness." |
| You also learned the kanji characters for "ten," "thousand," "noon," and "old," in which this radical appears. |
| It's commonly found in the bottom or crown position. |
| And it's written with one horizontal stroke, and one vertical stroke. |
| In the next lesson, you'll learn about another common radical used in some of the most common and basic kanji characters, the "mouth" radical. |
| See you in the next lesson. Bye! |
| Bye~! |
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