円
Round, Yen
| on’yomi | kun’yomi | Radicals |
|---|---|---|
| えん | まる.い | 亠 + 冂 |
Meaning: Round, Yen
The combination of radicals for this kanji may not be obvious at first, but if you look carefully you’ll see it. The lid is inside the head for this kanji because it’s holding something in. Imagine the top of someone’s head being closed by a lid. Open that lid up and peer inside… it’s full of yen coins, the Japanese money system.
Another thing that will help is to associate the word round to this kanji, because it has both of these meanings. Both are right, and if you learn one that’s better than not learning either, but maybe if you think about how round the coins themselves are inside this person’s head, you’ll remember this one too.
Reading: えん
What does the word yen sound like? It sound like えん. Why? because back in the day, Japanese used to have a “ye” sound, but now it doesn’t. Instead, it’s an “e” sound, which is why yen = えん.
This is something you may have learned in regular studies (the ye vs e thing). Hopefully it is, because that will help you to remember the reading of this kanji.
Vocabulary
Learn the meanings of these vocab before moving on (and learn what you can in terms of the reading now as well).
a 円（えん）＝ money, yen
- Meaning: The meaning is the same as one of the meanings for this kanji. The important thing to distinguish is that this vocab is just the kanji all alone. The other meaning, “round,” has an い at the end, signifying it’s an adjective (just like “round”). So, this one is “yen.”
- Reading: This is the on’yomi reading, making it easy to remember!
a 千円（せんえん）＝ 1000 yen
- Combo: 千 (1000) + 円 (yen)
- Meaning: When you combine 1000 and yen, you get 1000 yen! Duh!
- Reading: Both are the on’yomi readings, making it EZPZ.
円い（まるい）＝ Spherical, round, circular
- Meaning: This word has an い on the end, which usually signifies an adjective. Because of that, you can figure out that this is the other meaning of this kanji: “round.”
- Reading: Do you remember the other word for round? It’s 丸い, and pronounced the same way (so as long as you know that one by now, you can know the reading of this one too).