字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

intuition, perception, check, compare, sixth sense

On’yomi カン
Nanori か、さとる

Origin

This character combines a sound hint with a meaning clue. The left part, 甚, tells you roughly how to pronounce the character—it sounds like "kan." The right part, 力, which means "power" or "strength," indicates this is about the power of perception or judgment. Together they suggest the idea of mental strength or the power to sense something intuitively—to perceive or grasp something through keen insight rather than obvious evidence. Over time this evolved to mean intuition, perception, or the ability to check and compare things carefully.

勘 11 strokes

Components

  • 甚 sound hint left
  • 力 radical right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 勘定 かんじょう calculation; computation
  • 勘弁 かんべん pardon; forgiveness
  • 勘案 かんあん taking into consideration; giving consideration (to)
  • 勘違い かんちがい misunderstanding; mistaken idea
  • 割り勘 わりかん splitting the cost; splitting the bill

Related kanji

Same sound component 甚
Same radical

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
19
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1494 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+052D8