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Age

On’yomiれい
Kun’yomiよわい・とし
JLPT N2 17 strokes #758 most common Secondary school Radical tooth
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 齢

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

17 strokes
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分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 齢

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 齢 is read れい. 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 齢

Radical 211 of 214
Tooth

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 齢 is filed under (tooth) — radical number 211 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

練習 · Practice

Drill 齢 right now

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Age れい よわい・とし
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 齢

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.

年齢 ねんれい age; years
高齢 こうれい advanced age; old age
高齢者 こうれいしゃ old person; elderly person; senior citizen
老齢 ろうれい old age; advanced age
年齢層 ねんれいそう age range; age-group; age bracket
樹齢 じゅれい age of a tree
適齢 てきれい suitable age
学齢 がくれい school age
加齢 かれい aging; ageing; growing older
満年齢 まんねんれい age (expressed in the Western style of counting fully completed years)
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 齢

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

画数 · 17 strokes

Other 17-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

齢 is the 758th 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 齢

What does the kanji 齢 mean?

齢 means Age. It is the 758th most common kanji in written Japanese.

How do you read the kanji 齢?

齢 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) れい; kun'yomi (native Japanese) よわい、とし.

How many strokes does 齢 have?

齢 is written with 17 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 齢?

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

What is the radical of 齢?

The radical of 齢 is 齒 (tooth), radical number 211 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 齢 made of?

齢 is built from 歯 (tooth) and 令 (orders). Learning kanji as combinations of a few hundred reusable components is far more efficient than memorising each character as a separate shape.

Why is 齢 read れい?

齢 contains 令 as its phonetic component — the part that carries the sound rather than the meaning, which is why 齢 is read れい. 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 齢?

Common words written with 齢 include 年齢 (ねんれい, age; years); 高齢 (こうれい, advanced age; old age); 高齢者 (こうれいしゃ, old person; elderly person; senior citizen).

Which kanji sound the same as 齢?

齢 shares a reading with 例 (れい), 冷 (れい), 令 (れい), 鈴 (れい), 戻 (れい), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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