Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.
Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.
The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 初 is filed under 刀 (knife) — radical number 18 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.
Three quick games built from this character's real data. Your streak is kept in this browser.
Kanji are almost never met alone. These are the most common words built from this character, ordered by how often they actually appear in Japanese.
Japanese names use readings that appear nowhere else in the language. These are 初's — the reason personal and place names are so hard to read even for native speakers.
Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 初 — learn them together, not separately.
Place names are where kanji readings get strange — and where you meet this character in the wild.
Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.
初 is the 151st most common kanji in written Japanese. Learning in frequency order is the fastest route to reading real text.
Kanji Duel pits 初 and 3,000 others head to head. One life. How long can you last?
初 means First Time, Beginning. It is the 151st most common kanji in written Japanese.
初 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) しょ; kun'yomi (native Japanese) はじ.め、はじ.めて、はつ、はつ-、うい-.
初 is written with 7 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.
It appears at JLPT level N3, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in grade 4.
The radical of 初 is 刀 (knife), radical number 18 of the 214 Kangxi radicals. The radical is the component a dictionary files the character under, and it usually points at the character's meaning.
初 is built from 衤 (clothes) and 刀 (sword). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.
Common words written with 初 include 最初 (さいしょ, beginning; outset; first); 当初 (とうしょ, beginning; start; outset); 初日 (しょにち, first day; opening day).
初 shares a reading with 野 (しょ), 書 (しょ), 所 (しょ), 処 (しょ), 狙 (しょ), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.
Signed in, we would remember every character you have looked at — and write you reading you can actually get through, built from exactly those.