chirp, cry, bark, sound
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.
目覚まし時計が鳴りましたが、気づかずに止めて、また寝てしまいました。
Mezamashi dokei ga narimashita ga, kizukazu ni tomete, mata nete shimaimashita.
The alarm went off, he turned it off without realizing, and fell back asleep.
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