Meaning & readings

seacoast, beach, seashore

On’yomi ヒン
Kun’yomi はま

Origin

The character 浜 combines water (shown by the three-dot water radical on the left) with the character 兵, which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The water radical makes sense for a character meaning seacoast or beach, since these are places where water meets land. The 兵 component doesn't contribute to the meaning but historically indicated how the character should be pronounced. Together, the water radical carries the semantic content while 兵 guides you toward the sound "hin" or "hama."

浜 10 strokes

Components

  • 氵 radical left
  • 兵 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

  • 海浜 かいひん seashore; seaside
  • 砂浜 すなはま sandy beach
  • 浜辺 はまべ beach; foreshore
  • 横浜 よこはま Yokohama (city)
  • 浜松 はままつ Hamamatsu (city)

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
85
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#645 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+06D5C