Meaning & readings
ship, boat
On’yomi セン
Kun’yomi ふね、ふな-
Nanori ふ
Origin
The character 船 combines two parts to represent a boat. On the left is 舟, which is a picture of a boat itself, showing the hull with a pointed bow and stern. On the right is a sound component that indicates roughly how the character should be pronounced in Chinese-derived Japanese (セン). Together, the boat picture gives the meaning while the right-hand element serves as a pronunciation guide, a common pattern in how kanji were constructed.
Components
- 舟
- 㕣
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 137
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #713 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+08239