touch, contact, adjoin, piece together
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.
こうして、思いがけない虫と、危うく逃したコートのあいだで、ルーカスはこの上なく直接的に、季節に合わせて服を選ぶということを学んだのでした。
Koushite, omoigakenai mushi to, ayauku nogashita kooto no aida de, Ruukasu wa kono ue naku chokusetsuteki ni, kisetsu ni awasete fuku wo erabu to iu koto wo mananda no deshita.
And so, between an unexpected moth and a nearly-missed coat, Lucas learned -- the most direct way possible -- what it means to dress for the season.
Readings and meanings: KANJIDIC2 · Decomposition: KRADFILE · Both from Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA 4.0 · data from 2026-09-07 · Strokes: KanjiVG, Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0