下 kanji vs 下 vocab

I’m confused about the use of the 下 kanji. I understand that the on’yomi (か in this case) is the chinese assimilated word and the kun’yomi (した) is the japanese word, but I don’t know when I’d ever use か for 下.

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You use the on’yomi reading for jukugo (compound words), like “廊下” (rouka). There are exceptions, but that’s the general rule.

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Ohhh, that makes sense. Does WK make it clear when a vocab is a compound word?

Edit: also, should I memorize which reading is which, and not just blindly memorize both?

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For what I know, every vocab that has 2 kanji or more (without hiragana attached) is a jukugo, though sometimes hiragana can be added to form a する verb, for example.

Yes, that’s what you should do. :smile:

Cool, thanks for the quick replies.

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At this stage, it’s loosely helpful to be aware of which is the kun and which is the on reading, but there are a lot of cases where you’d expect one to get used but the other does. Or cases where some weirdo, uncommon pronunciation gets used. I’d suggest just learning whatever readings WK asks you to learn without being too concerned about whether it has some distant Chinese etymology. You can always mix that element in later once you’re more comfortable.

When you’re doing reviews on kanji, WK will tell you if you gave a different reading than the one it wanted without marking the response as wrong. Then when you get vocab, there is only one right answer, but again it’s less about whether it’s the kun reading and more about “ひ is how the word for sun is pronounced.”

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Yes. It tells you when something is a jukugo word.

Unless you’re planning to take the Kanji Kentei it’s probably not gonna make much of a difference to memorize that. At least not when you are first starting out. Knowing that 年下 has a kunyomi, for example, doesn’t really give any extra meaning to the word.

Obviously theres exceptions to all rules but heres a good general guideline I’ve noticed so far:

-If two Kanji are next to each other, both are usually read as On’yomi. An exception to this is if one of the Kanji means a certain body part. Usually body parts are said in Kun’yomi and this converts the non body part Kanji to be said the Kun’yomi way. Then both Kanji are read as Kun’yomi. Even if one of the Kanji is not referring to a body part

-If a Kanji is by itself, it’s usually Kun’yomi

-If a Kanji is followed by hiragana, its read as Kun’yomi

Again, exceptions to these rules but they’re nice general guidelines.

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