Meaning & readings
tale, talk
On’yomi ワ
Kun’yomi はな.す、はなし
Origin
The kanji 話 combines the radical 言, which means "words" or "speech," on the left side with 舌 (tongue) on the right. The 舌 component serves as a sound hint for how to pronounce the character, rather than adding to the meaning. Together, the character visually represents the idea of words coming from the mouth or tongue, which naturally led to the meaning "talk" or "tale." Over time, this combination became the standard way to write the word for speech and conversation in Japanese.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 149
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #134 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+08A71