Meaning & readings
again, twice, second time
On’yomi サイ、サ
Kun’yomi ふたた.び
Nanori ふた
Origin
This character appears to combine two elements to show the idea of repetition. The top part, a horizontal line, represents "one" or acts as a marker. Below it sits a component that suggests movement or continuation, like something happening again after the first time. By stacking these parts, the character visually communicates the concept of doing something a second time or returning to an earlier state. The native reading "futatabi" (twice) directly reflects this meaning of recurrence.
Components
- 一
- 冉
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 13
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #275 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0518D