字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

warship

On’yomi カン

Origin

This character combines the boat radical 舟 on the left, which classifies it as something nautical, with 監 on the right, which serves as a sound hint telling you roughly how to pronounce the character. The boat radical makes sense because a warship is fundamentally a large military vessel. The 監 component doesn't contribute to the meaning — it's just there to guide pronunciation. Together, the combination of "boat" with this phonetic element created the character for a warship, a specialized type of boat used in military contexts.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

艦 21 strokes

Components

  • 舟 radical left
  • 監 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

  • 艦船 かんせん warships and other vessels
  • 艦隊 かんたい (naval) fleet; armada
  • 艦艇 かんてい naval vessels; warships
  • 軍艦 ぐんかん warship; battleship
  • 戦艦 せんかん battleship
  • 駆逐艦 くちくかん destroyer (ship)
  • 潜水艦 せんすいかん submarine
  • 航空母艦 こうくうぼかん aircraft carrier

Related kanji

Same sound component 監
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
21
Kangxi radical
137
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1363 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+08266