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Dull

On’yomiどん
Kun’yomiにぶ.い・にぶ.る・にぶ-・なま.る・なまく.ら
MeaningsDull, Slow, Foolish, Blunt
JLPT N2 12 strokes #1536 most common Secondary school Radical gold
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 鈍

Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.

12 strokes
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Draw it on screen and be marked on stroke order and direction.

分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 鈍

Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.

Why it sounds the way it does. The part is the phonetic component — it carries the sound rather than the meaning. That is why 鈍 is read どん. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji work this way, which makes unfamiliar readings guessable once you spot the pattern.
部首 · Radical

The radical of 鈍

Radical 167 of 214
Gold

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 鈍 is filed under (gold) — radical number 167 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 金

練習 · Practice

Drill 鈍 right now

Three quick games built from this character's real data. Your streak is kept in this browser.

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Dull どん にぶ.い・にぶ.る・にぶ-・なま.る・なまく.ら
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 鈍

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.

鈍化 どんか becoming dull; slowing down
鈍い おそい slow; late; too late
鈍感 どんかん thickheaded; insensitive; dull
鈍る にぶる to become blunt; to grow dull; to become less capable
鈍らす にぶらす to blunt; to dull; to weaken
鈍器 どんき blunt weapon
鈍行 どんこう local train; slow train
鈍重 ドンジュー thickheaded, slow-witted, phlegmatic, stolid, bovine; slow (of one's movements), sluggish
鈍物 ドンブツ blockhead, a fool
鈍足 ドンソク slow-footed
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 鈍

Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 鈍 — learn them together, not separately.

画数 · 12 strokes

Other 12-stroke kanji

Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.

頻度 · Frequency

Next in the frequency list

鈍 is the 1536th most common kanji in written Japanese. Learning in frequency order is the fastest route to reading real text.

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質問 · Questions

About the kanji 鈍

What does the kanji 鈍 mean?

鈍 means Dull, Slow, Foolish, Blunt. It is the 1536th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 鈍?

鈍 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) どん; kun'yomi (native Japanese) にぶ.い、にぶ.る、にぶ-、なま.る、なまく.ら.

How many strokes does 鈍 have?

鈍 is written with 12 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 鈍?

It appears at JLPT level N2, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in secondary school.

What is the radical of 鈍?

The radical of 鈍 is 金 (gold), radical number 167 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.

What parts is the kanji 鈍 made of?

鈍 is built from 金 (gold) and 屯 (barracks). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 鈍 read どん?

鈍 contains 屯 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 鈍 is read どん. Roughly two-thirds of all kanji are built this way, so spotting the phonetic component often lets you guess the reading of a character you have never seen.

What words use the kanji 鈍?

Common words written with 鈍 include 鈍化 (どんか, becoming dull; slowing down); 鈍い (おそい, slow; late; too late); 鈍感 (どんかん, thickheaded; insensitive; dull).

Which kanji sound the same as 鈍?

鈍 shares a reading with 曇 (どん), 呑 (どん), 吞 (どん), 貪 (どん), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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