challenge, contend for, make love to
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.
挑戦するのは、これで三回目でした。
Chousen suru no wa, kore de sankaime deshita.
It was the third time she'd tried, with no luck.
それで、土曜日は初めてすごく難しいレシピに挑戦してたんだ。
Sorede, doyoubi wa hajimete sugoku muzukashii reshipi ni chousen shitetan da.
And on Saturday, I was trying a really difficult recipe for the first time.
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