Meaning & readings

pleasure, happy, rejoice

On’yomi ユ
Kun’yomi たの.しい、たの.しむ
Nanori ゆう

Origin

The character combines the "heart" component on the left, which shows this word relates to feelings and emotions, with a sound hint on the right that indicates how the character should be pronounced. The heart radical makes clear the kanji is about an emotional state, while the right side borrowed the sound of an earlier Chinese word to help readers know how to say it. Together, they create a character for the pleasant feeling of joy or enjoyment that comes from the heart.

愉 12 strokes

Components

  • 忄 radical left
  • 兪 sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 愉快 ゆかい pleasant; delightful
  • 不愉快 ふゆかい unpleasant; disagreeable

Easily confused with

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

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
61
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1974 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+06109