Meaning & readings
connection, barrier, gateway, involve, concerning
Origin
This character combines the radical 門, which represents a gate or doorway, with 关 as a sound hint that suggests the pronunciation "kan." The gate radical makes sense for the meanings of barrier and gateway—physical structures that control passage and connection between spaces. Over time, the character extended to mean anything that relates or involves things together, since gates are what connect different areas. The sound component 关 doesn't tell you about the meaning; it's simply there to indicate how the word should be pronounced in Chinese-derived readings.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 門
- 关
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 関係 かんけい relation; relationship
- 関心 かんしん concern; interest
- 関西 かんさい Kansai (region comprising Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and surrounding prefectures)
- 関税 かんぜい customs (duties); duty
- 関節 かんせつ joint
- 関知 かんち (one's) concern; having (something) to do with
- 関東 かんとう Kantō (region comprising Tokyo and surrounding prefectures)
- 関門 かんもん barrier; checkpoint
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 169
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #70 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+095A2