Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone.
Welcome to the Japanese Kanji video series.
In this lesson, you'll learn the "eat" radical.
Take a look at these kanji characters. Can you guess what they mean?
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to grasp the meaning behind these kanji characters.
食, 飢, 飯, 飲
First off, can you spot the radical in all of these kanji characters?
It's this part here.
食/飠
This particular radical is called...
しょく or しょくへん.
When it's used on the left side, it's called specifically しょくへん because へん means "left-position" radical.
The "eat" radical is used in some of the most common kanji characters. Let's take a look at it in more detail.
Meaning
As you can see, the "eat" radical is also a kanji character on its own.
食
The meaning behind this particular kanji is "to eat, food."
When this radical appears as a part of another kanji, like in these examples, the appearance changes slightly. When it's a component like this, it adds the meaning of "to eat, food" to the entire kanji character.
飢, 飯, 飲
From left to right, the first kanji means "hunger," the second means "food, meal, rice," and the third character means "to drink."
1. 飢
The first kanji has the "eat" radical, paired with this second character. 几
This second character looks like a long, empty table. You could think of this character in this way: if you imagine that it's a table with no food on it, then you might be able to guess the meaning of this kanji. Did you figure it out? It means "hunger."
2. 飯
The second kanji has the "eat" radical means "food, meal, rice."
3. 飲
The last kanji has the "eat" radical and the character 欠, which means "to lack."
This kanji means "to drink." You can remember it this way: something that should never be lacking at a meal is a drink.
For more ways to remember these characters and many more kanji examples that include the "eat" radical, go to JapanesePod101.com and check the Lesson Notes PDF. OK. Let's move on!
Common positions
The "eat” radical will usually sit in the left-position and connect with another radical next to it.
As seen in the original examples for "hunger," "food, meal, rice," "to drink."
When the "eat" radical is part of another kanji character, it's appearance is distorted a little.
Okay. Now let's learn how to write this radical.
Stroke Order
Now let's take a look at the stroke order of the "eat" radical. The "eat" radical looks complicated, but is actually pretty simple. There are nine strokes.
When the radical is on its own, it looks like this:
食
Start at the top and make a diagonal stroke from right to left, then another stroke from left to right.
For the third stroke, start in the middle under the strokes you've just written, and make a short vertical line down.
Make a L shape, starting from left to right, and then down. Underneath make two short horizontal lines.
Make a long vertical line on the open ends of the strokes you've just made, and then a short tick at the end.
For the eighth stroke, make a short diagonal line from right to left. Finally, make a longer, diagonal line from the middle of the box to the bottom.
When this radical is a part of another kanji, it usually takes on the left-position, and the appearance is squished vertically.
The major difference is that it's missing one of the final strokes at the bottom of the kanji.
飠
And that's it! You're done!
Common Readings
When the "eat" radical is on its own, the kanji can be read as...
食
ショク、(ジキ)、く-う、く-らう、た-べる
In the case of the original examples, common readings are...
キ、う-える
飢
for the kanji meaning "hunger."
ハン、めし
飯
for the "food, meal" kanji. And...
イン、の-む
飲
for the "to drink" kanji.
Lesson Review
In this lesson, you learned about the "eat" radical.
You also learned the kanji characters for "hunger," "food, meal" and "to drink" in which this radical appears.
It's most commonly found in the left-position, making it appear like this.
And it's written with 9 strokes.
Was this video series helpful? Let us know if you'd like to see more lessons like this by replying in the comments! If you have any questions, please leave a post at JapanesePod101.com.
Thanks for watching. Bye!
Bye~!

Kanji

Review & Remember All Kanji from this Lesson

Get complete breakdowns, review with quizzes and download printable practice sheets! Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Comments

Hide