笙: a reed instrument

JLPT level N1
11 strokes
Radical 竹

Readings

On’yomi

ショウ
ソウ

Kun’yomi

ふえ

On’yomi and kun’yomi?

On’yomi are readings that came from Chinese, written here in katakana. Kun’yomi are native Japanese readings, written in hiragana. Which one is used depends on the word: kanji in compounds often take an on’yomi, and a kanji standing alone often takes a kun’yomi.

Stroke order

0.5×1×2×

Strokes from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Words

笙 appears in no word in JMdict’s common-word edition, so no examples are shown.

Keep exploring

Same radical. KANJIDIC2 files these kanji under radical 竹 (no. 118), like 笙 (the 8 most common of 23 in the collection).

What is a radical?

Dictionaries file every kanji under one of 214 radicals, a component used for looking it up. A shared radical often hints at a shared theme, but not always, and it says nothing certain about a character’s history. A radical can change shape inside a kanji, as 水 becomes 氵.

Additional detailsSchool grade, frequency, Unicode and sources

School grade: Jinmeiyō (used in names)
Classical radical: 竹 no. 118
Unicode: U+7B19

School grade comes from the Japanese school curriculum. Frequency is the rank among the 2,500 most common kanji in newspapers. Neither is a JLPT level.

Sources for this entry

KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA 4.0): meanings, on’yomi, kun’yomi, stroke count, school grade, newspaper frequency, radical
Jonathan Waller's JLPT kanji lists (CC BY): JLPT level
KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0): stroke order