Meaning & readings
solicit, invite, ask
On’yomi セイ、シン、ショウ
Kun’yomi こ.う、う.ける
Nanori うけ
Origin
The character 請 combines the radical 言, which means words or speech, with 青 on the right side. The 青 component serves as a sound hint, roughly indicating how the character should be pronounced. Together, these parts create a character meaning to ask or solicit — the idea of speaking to request something from someone. The word "请" in Chinese literally carries this sense of making a verbal request, combining the concept of speech with the phonetic clue to help readers remember both the sound and the meaning.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 15
- Kangxi radical
- 149
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #524 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+08ACB