current, a sink, flow, forfeit
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.
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 2026-09-07 · Strokes: KanjiVG, Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0