Study Kanji Keywords

In this quiz, you'll see a kanji character and you'll need to guess its keyword. The keywords are based on James Heisig's book series "Remembering the Kanji".

Each kanji has one or more keywords that represent its core meaning. These keywords are carefully chosen to reflect how the kanji is used in real Japanese words. When you learn the keywords for multiple kanji, you'll start to understand new kanji compounds (words made up of multiple kanji) even if you haven't seen them before. You'll be able to understand the gist of sentences that you may not be able to pronounce. Many kanji are also made up of smaller parts - either simpler kanji or basic shapes called primitives. While a kanji's meaning may not directly relate to its component parts, learning the keywords for these components helps you create stories to remember each kanji more easily.