roof, house, shop, dealer
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.
はい！パン屋の前を通りますよ。
Hai! Pan-ya no mae o toorimasu yo.
I am! You'll pass by a bakery.
ルーカス、聞いて。明日の夜、本当に落語をやるんだ。本物のお客さんの前で、お茶屋さんで。
Rūkasu, kiite. Ashita no yoru, hontou ni rakugo wo yarun da. Honmono no okyakusan no mae de, ochayasan de.
Lucas, guess what. Tomorrow night I'm performing for real. Rakugo, for an actual audience, at a tea house.
その会館は、小さな本屋の裏に隠れています。
Sono kaikan wa, chiisana honya no ura ni kakurete imasu.
The hall is tucked away, behind a small bookstore.
そして、二人は近くの電気屋さんへ向かいました。そこでは大きなテレビがニュースを流していました。
Soshite, futari wa chikaku no denkiyasan e mukaimashita. Soko de wa ookina terebi ga nyuusu wo nagashite imashita.
And the two of them headed to the electronics store nearby, where a big TV was playing the news.
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