字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

thin, faint, pale, fleeting

On’yomi タン
Kun’yomi あわ.い

Origin

This character combines water (the left component, shown as three dots) with a sound hint on the right that suggests the pronunciation. The water radical indicates this is about liquid or moisture, while the right component gives you a clue to how to say it. Together, they describe water that is thin or diluted—not pure or concentrated, but faint and weak like pale or thin liquid. The meaning then extended to anything faint, pale, or fleeting in nature.

淡 11 strokes

Components

  • 氵 radical left
  • 炎 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

  • 淡い あわい light (color, taste, etc.); faint (e.g. smell)
  • 淡水 たんすい fresh water (i.e. not salt water)
  • 濃淡 のうたん light and shade; shade (of colour, color)
  • 冷淡 れいたん cool; indifferent
  • 淡々 たんたん uninterested; unconcerned
  • 淡白 たんぱく light (flavor, color, etc.); simple

Related kanji

Same sound component 炎
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
85
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1436 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+06DE1