68854
I am not sure about the pronunciation rules of kanji in Japanese. I understand
that there are several pronunciations for each kanji, and I am wondering how
native speakers decide when to use which pronunciation. Example: In 日曜日, if
I’m not wrong, the first 日 means SUN, pronounced as にち; the second 日 means
DAY, pronounced as び. Is it the case in reality that when the same kanji
expresses the same meaning in a word, it always has the same pronunciation?
Referring back to the previous example, is it true that when 日 means Sun in a
word, phrase or sentence, it always is pronounced にち？
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-13T22:55:09.827
68850
2019-06-14T07:05:51.690
33958
question
pronunciation
日曜日，the different meanings and pronunciations of 日
As is the case with other languages, Japanese people parse and read sentences
based on **words** rather than **characters**. English speakers can pronounce
the "rough" part of _rough_ , _through_ and _thorough_ differently without
thinking, and that's because they remember the pronunciations based on words.
Likewise, 日曜日 is a very easy word meaning Sunday, and Japanese people don't
need to worry about the reading of each character every time they see this
word. There are even many
[jukujikun](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/24513/5010) like 大人（おとな）,
明日（あした）.

For some kanji, yes, a certain reading is strongly associated with a certain
meaning. For example, the kanji 悪 typically means "bad" or "evil" when read as
あく, but means "sick" or "hatred" when read as お. The kanji 楽 means "leisure"
or "comfortable" when read as らく, and "music" when read as がく. (Most native
speakers are unaware of this; again, they remember the pronunciations based on
words.) However, in many other cases, the association of readings and meanings
of a kanji can seem completely random, and you have to remember each word
individually. Regarding 日, both にち and ひ can mean both "sun" and "day", but
when it means "Japan", it's never read as ひ.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-14T06:47:01.840
68854
2019-06-14T07:05:51.690
2019-06-14T07:05:51.690
5010
5010
68850
answer