I’m struggling to remember which vocabulary use the もく pronunciation vs め. 月 is a great example of one that has super helpful rules. Any tips for eye, or do I just have to brute force it? Thanks!
3 Likes
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t 「め」 is the Kunyomi（Japanese reading）and 「もく」 is the Onyomi（Chinese reading）?
Which means that:
・If the kanji stands alone, it is the Kunyomi
・If the kanji go with other kanji to make a singular word, it is the Onyomi
2 Likes
Yup, those are the rules!
But every rule comes with exceptions 
In this case stuff like 目覚める (to wake up) and 目覚まし (alarm clock) 
I think it’s because they are derived from 目が覚める and 目を覚ます so in a way still adhering to the rule.
6 Likes
My way to tell it apart is try to split the word into separate kanji and try to understand it as 2 independence words to see if it make sense.
For example: 五目 ごもく
五 means five
目 means eye
But 5 eyes just doesn’t make sense, since the word meaning as a whole is a mixture of ingredients.
Granted you can only use this method if you know the meaning first.
2 Likes
Body parts tend to favor kunyomi (め in this case). So probably assume it’s that unless proven otherwise.
Important/common words not following this “rule” and using onyomi (out of the top of my head):
- 目的（もくてき）
- 目標（もくひょう）
- 目次（もくじ）
There are others of course but I think those are by far the most common, at least in my experience.
Note that those words have okurigana, so you should expect kun readings even though they have several kanji in them. Jukugo don’t have okurigana.
However because of the body part thing mentioned above, there are a lot of 目 words that look that they should be jukugo but use kun readings: 駄目 (mixed reading), 真面目, 役目 etc…
目 is also often used as a counter in frases like １番目 which may be mistaken for jukugo at a glance.
You even have the kun reading of 目 popping up in other kanji, which reinforces my impression that it’s so common:
- 瞼（まぶた、目＋蓋）
- 瞳（ひとみ、人＋見）
5 Likes
Shouldn’t that be Kun’yomi?
4 Likes
Indeed, thank you.
3 Likes
I wonder if it’s ever used to mean
2 Likes
My rule of thumb isn’t brilliant, but I’ll share it: If it’s to do with lists, items in lists, scanning lists to find out where you are or want to be in the list, goals etc, it’s usually もく; otherwise it’s め.
A recipe is largely a list of ingredients, and a 5 ingredient list - ごもく - makes complete sense to me. Similarly a curriculum is a list that delineates a course or a subject, etc etc.
Unfortunately when used as a suffix for an item marker (first thing, second thing, etc) it’s め. That’s definitely a position in a list thing, so it breaks my rule. I looked ahead and saw my rule also doesn’t work for blindness, which uses もく. But that’s level 57, a 2027 problem.
5 Likes
While body parts generally call for kunyomi, a lot of more medical terms use onyomi, probably because it’s more “scientific” that way. A bit like how English uses a lot of Latin-derived terms for that. For instance “shortsightedness” vs. “myopia”.
Like how heart is commonly 心（こころ） but if you want to refer to the organ specifically and unambiguously you can use 心臓（しんぞう） which is an onyomi compound.
4 Likes
There’s also 心の臓 (しんのぞう) for added confusion
3 Likes
Reminds me of the definition of 鉄棒 in one of NHK Easy News articles back when they still had underlined words with popup dictionary definitions:
鉄棒:
- 鉄の棒。
Great definition 
7 Likes
I think this will get me pretty far! Thanks!
2 Likes
捧げよ！捧げよ！
心臓を捧げよ！！！！！！！！！！！！！！