first time, beginning
Came from Chinese. It usually shows up when the kanji is joined to another, forming a compound word.
It is Japanese. It usually shows up when the kanji stands alone or is followed by hiragana.
The order matters: it is what makes handwriting come out legible, and it is how dictionaries index the character.
Visual decomposition, for recognising and comparing — not always the character's origin.
Where it appears is highlighted — the translation doesn't always make that visible.
八年?!じゃあ…僕が本当の初めての観客だったの?誰も見たことがないの?
Hachinen?! Jaa... boku ga hontou no hajimete no kankyaku datta no? Dare mo mita koto ga nai no?
Eight years?! So... was I your first real audience? Nobody's ever seen you perform?
十月の初め——「衣替え」の季節です。日本が夏服から冬服に切り替える時期のことです。
Juugatsu no hajime -- "koromogae" no kisetsu desu. Nihon ga natsufuku kara fuyufuku ni kirikaeru jiki no koto desu.
Early October -- the season of "koromogae," when Japan swaps summer clothes for winter ones.
Readings and meanings: KANJIDIC2 · Decomposition: KRADFILE · Both from Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA 4.0 · data from 2026-10-22 · Strokes: KanjiVG, Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0