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閣

Tower

On’yomiかく
MeaningsTower, Tall Building, Palace
JLPT N1 14 strokes #440 most common Grade 6 Radical 門 gate
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 閣

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

閣
14 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 閣

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 各 is the phonetic component — it carries the sound rather than the meaning. That is why 閣 is read かく. 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 閣

門 Radical 169 of 214
Gate

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 閣 is filed under 門 (gate) — radical number 169 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 門

練習 · Practice

Drill 閣 right now

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

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閣Tap to reveal
Tower かく
閣
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 閣

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.

内閣 ないかく cabinet (of a government); ministry
閣僚 かくりょう cabinet ministers
閣議 かくぎ cabinet meeting
組閣 そかく formation of a cabinet
入閣 にゅうかく joining the cabinet
影の内閣 かげのないかく shadow cabinet
内閣法制局 ないかくほうせいきょく Cabinet Legislation Bureau
閣内 かくない (inside the) Cabinet
内閣官房 ないかくかんぼう Cabinet Secretariat
楼閣 ろうかく multistoried building; castle; palace
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 閣

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

画数 · 14 strokes

Other 14-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

閣 is the 440th 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 閣

What does the kanji 閣 mean?

閣 means Tower, Tall Building, Palace. It is the 440th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 閣?

閣 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) かく.

How many strokes does 閣 have?

閣 is written with 14 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 閣?

It appears at JLPT level N1, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in grade 6.

What is the radical of 閣?

The radical of 閣 is 門 (gate), radical number 169 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 閣 made of?

閣 is built from 門 (gate) and 各 (each). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 閣 read かく?

閣 contains 各 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 閣 is read かく. 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 閣?

Common words written with 閣 include 内閣 (ないかく, cabinet (of a government); ministry); 閣僚 (かくりょう, cabinet ministers); 閣議 (かくぎ, cabinet meeting).

Which kanji sound the same as 閣?

閣 shares a reading with 画 (かく), 各 (かく), 革 (かく), 確 (かく), 格 (かく), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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