Meaning & readings
consort, accompany, bring with, companion
On’yomi ハン、バン
Kun’yomi ともな.う
Nanori とも
Origin
This character combines a person indicator on the left with a sound hint on the right. The left side, showing a person, points to the meaning of accompanying or being with someone. The right component sounds like "han" or "ban" and serves mainly as a pronunciation guide rather than adding to the meaning. Together, the character visually suggests a person linked to the sound pattern, creating a word for a companion or someone who travels with you.
Components
- 亻
- 半
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #886 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+04F34