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Sunshine

On’yomiよう
Kun’yomi
MeaningsSunshine, Yang Principle, Positive, Male, Heaven, Daytime
JLPT N3 12 strokes #1049 most common Grade 3 Radical mound
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 陽

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

12 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 陽

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

radical
+ right open =
Sunshine
Why it sounds the way it does. The part is the phonetic component — it carries the sound rather than the meaning. That is why 陽 is read よう. 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 陽

Radical 170 of 214
Mound

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 陽 is filed under (mound) — radical number 170 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 阜

練習 · Practice

Drill 陽 right now

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

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Sunshine よう ひ
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 陽

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.

太陽 たいよう Sun
陽子 ようし proton
山陽 さんよう south side of a mountain; Sanyo district
陽射 ひざし sunlight; rays of the Sun
陽差し ひざし sunlight; rays of the Sun
陽射し ひざし sunlight; rays of the Sun
陽ざし ひざし sunlight; rays of the Sun
太陽電池 たいようでんち solar cell
陽気 ようき cheerful; jovial; merry
陽焼け ひやけ sunburn; suntan; tan
名乗り · Name readings

How 陽 is read in names

Japanese names use readings that appear nowhere else in the language. These are 陽's — the reason personal and place names are so hard to read even for native speakers.

あきあきらあけはるひろやん
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 陽

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

地名 · In place names

Japanese towns written with 陽

Place names are where kanji readings get strange — and where you meet this character in the wild.

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

陽 is the 1049th 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 陽

What does the kanji 陽 mean?

陽 means Sunshine, Yang Principle, Positive, Male, Heaven, Daytime. It is the 1049th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 陽?

陽 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) よう; kun'yomi (native Japanese) ひ.

How many strokes does 陽 have?

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

What level is the kanji 陽?

It appears at JLPT level N3, and Japanese schoolchildren learn it in grade 3.

What is the radical of 陽?

The radical of 陽 is 阜 (mound), radical number 170 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 陽 made of?

陽 is built from ⻖ and 昜 (open). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 陽 read よう?

陽 contains 昜 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 陽 is read よう. 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 陽?

Common words written with 陽 include 太陽 (たいよう, Sun); 陽子 (ようし, proton); 山陽 (さんよう, south side of a mountain; Sanyo district).

Which kanji sound the same as 陽?

陽 shares a reading with 要 (よう), 用 (よう), 容 (よう), 応 (よう), 葉 (よう), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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