Japanese character for sun

How to say “sun” in Japanese

Japanese native speakers would say “taiyou”. It is the Japanese word for ‘sun’. Very simple, I think. In this blog post, however, I will explain this word in detail based on its kanji expression. And also, I will explain how to use it through example sentences. Let’s get started!

Contents

Definition and meaning of “taiyou”

Let me start with the definition and meaning of “taiyou”.

• taiyou – 太陽 (たいよう) : a noun meaning ‘(the) sun’ in Japanese.

Its definition and meaning are very simple and clear, I think. To understand this word more clearly, however, let me explain its kanji characters in detail, one by one.

“Taiyou” in kanji

The kanji expression of “taiyou” consists the following two characters:

• 太 : a kanji character often used to mean ‘big’, ‘broad’, or ‘thick’ in Japanese.
• 陽 : a kanji character often used to mean ‘sun’ or ‘sunlight’ in Japanese.

From these two kanji characters, we can understand that “taiyou” literally means ‘big sun’, ‘broad sunlight’, or such. So, what the characters express is more or less in line with the meaning.

When we meet new kanji expressions, we should check their kanji characters in detail to understand their meanings clearly and deeply. In many cases, kanji characters tell us a lot about meanings of words they form. Actually, here, we could get the better understanding of “taiyou” through the detailed kanji check above.

Then, let me explain how to use “taiyou” through the example sentences below.

Example #1: how to say “the sun is bright” in Japanese

Below are the new words used in the example sentence.

• kyou – 今日 (きょう) : a noun meaning ‘today’ in Japanese.
• wa – は : a binding particle working as a case marker or topic marker. In the example, this is used after “kyou” to provide a topic.
• ga – が : a case particle used to make the subject word or the object word in a sentence. In the example, this is used after “taiyou” to make the subject word in the sentence.
• mabushii – 眩しい (まぶしい) : an i-adjective meaning ‘bright’ in Japanese.
• desu – です : an auxiliary verb used after a noun or adjective to make it polite. Probably, this is well known as a part of Japanese desu form. In the example, this is used after “mabushii” to make it sound polite.

This is a typical usage of “taiyou”. In this example, it works as a part of the expression, “taiyou ga mabushii desu”, which means ‘the sun is bright’ in Japanese. Japanese people often mention the sun or sunlight when they talk about the weather. So, this example sentence would be useful in conversations with them.

Next, let me explain another usage of “taiyou” as follows.

Example #2: how to say “the sun is flat” in Japanese

Below are the new words used in the example sentence.

• watashi – 私 (わたし) : a pronoun meaning ‘I’ in Japanese.
• wa – は : the same as explained in the last example. The first “wa” in this example is used after “watashi” to make the subject word; the second one is used after “taiyou” to make the subject word in the quoted clause.
• tairada – 平らだ (たいらだ) : one conjugation of the na-adjective, “tairana”, which means ‘flat’ in Japanese.
• to – と : a case particle working as a quote marker. In the example, it works as a quote marker after the clause, “taiyou wa tairada”. Due to its help, we can understand that it is a quote: what “watashi” thinks in his/her mind.
• omoi – 思い (おもい) : one conjugation of the verb, “omou”, which means ‘to think’ in Japanese. In the example, it has been conjugated for the better connection with its following word.
• masu – ます : an auxiliary verb used after a verb to make it polite. Probably, this is well known as a part of Japanese masu form. In the example, this is used after the conjugated verb, “omoi”, to make it sound polite.

This is another usage of “taiyou”. Also in this example, it works as a noun to mean ‘the sun’ in Japanese. When we want to say “the sun” in Japanese, this word is always the best choice. Unfortunately, however, Japanese people rarely use this example sentence because they think that the sun is spherical in shape.

Summary

In this blog post, I’ve explained “taiyou” in detail based on its kanji expression. And also, I’ve explained how to use it through the example sentences. Let me summarize them as follows.

• taiyou – 太陽 (たいよう) : a noun meaning ‘(the) sun’ in Japanese. These two kanji characters literally mean ‘big sun’, ‘broad sunlight’, or such. So, what the kanji of “taiyou” express is more or less in line with its meaning.
• taiyou ga mabushii desu – 太陽が眩しいです (たいようがまぶしいです) : a Japanese expression for ‘the sun is bright’. Japanese native speakers sometimes use this expression when they talk about the weather.

Hope my explanations are understandable and helpful for Japanese learners.

Learn more vocabulary on the app!

You can improve your Japanese vocabulary with our flashcards.

Japan in Japanese is Nihon. This seems to be something that quite a lot of people are looking for online, which I find pretty interesting. If you’re researching how to say Japan in Japanese then presumably you don’t study the language. But maybe you should! Take your interest in this word as a sign that you should learn Japanese. Today is day one, and in a few years you could be fluent.

(By the way, if you really are interested in Japanese, you could try taking an online Japanese course).

With that in mind, I thought I’d make a simple introduction to Japanese vocabulary with the word ‘Japan’ as a base. One of the main difficulties in Japanese for beginners is how the writing system works, so this should make a nice starting point. I’ll point out here that I’m no expert, so please point out any mistakes and share your suggestions in the comments.

Japan in the Japanese “alphabet” (hiragana): にほん

I used the word “alphabet” in the title for this section, but that’s not really accurate. Japanese does not have an alphabet. The squiggly symbols you see in Japanese writing are actually a syllabary. That means that each symbol generally represents one syllable. This is different to an alphabet, in which each letter or group of letters represents one single sound.

Now, Japanese actually uses two different syllabaries. That might sound a little crazy, but it’s not a million miles away from the Roman alphabet having both lower case and upper case letters. Before I get destroyed for that analogy in the comments, I’ll point out that I’m just trying to help total beginners make sense of this.

One syllabary is called hiragana and the other is called katakana. We’re going to look at hiragana here because they’re more commonly used. Let’s use the word Japan (Nihon) as an example of how hiragana works. In Nihon we’ve got two syllables, ni and hon. The first syllable, ni, is written に in hiragana.

You can learn a little bit more about ni in hiragana here. So that’s how you write the ni from Nihon in hiragana. So what about the second syllable, hon? It looks like this:

“Wait! What? I thought there was only one symbol for each syllable?” I hear you ask. Well, you’re right - usually there is only one symbol per syllable. But syllables ending with this n sound are a special case. They get an extra symbol, ん, tagged on to indicate the final n sound. It’s still one syllable though. (Read more about ほ (ho) and ん (n) in hiragana).

Putting these three hiragana together we’ve got にほん (Nihon): Japan in Japanese.

Japan in Japanese characters (kanji): 日本

As well as the syllabaries, there’s a third component of Japanese writing. These are the famous characters, or kanji. Kanji originated in China and are very similar to the Chinese writing system that’s still in use today. Again, remember that none of these are alphabets.

The word Japan in Japanese kanji is 日本. This actually looks identical to how it’s written in Chinese as well. As you might have guessed, these two kanji are pronounced ni and hon. So 日本 = にほん = Nihon = Japan. Normally the word Nihon would be written using kanji, not hiragana.

Let’s have a look at each kanji separately. The first character is 日 (に / ni):

Putting the hiragana above a character like that is a common way to indicate the pronunciation, and is one of the uses of the two syllabaries in Japanese. This character literally means ‘sun’. You can sort of see that it looks slightly like the sun in the sky.

The next character is 本 (ほん / hon):

This character means ‘origin’. So literally 日本 (Japan) is ‘sun origin’, which you sometimes see in English as… ‘Land of the Rising Sun’. This is a very ancient name for Japan that’s still used in most East Asian countries. The character 本 (ほん / hon) is supposed to be a tree, 木, with its root marked with a line: 本. Hence it’s the ‘root’ or ‘origin’ of something.

Some resources for learning Japanese

If this little introduction has grabbed your interest, then why not go ahead and start learning Japanese? It’s a great hobby that will last you a lifetime. I’m going to recommend a few resources for learning Japanese here:

• Anki. This is a free flashcards program that’s brilliant for learning languages. The name Anki is Japanese for ‘memorise’ (暗记), and it does exactly that - it helps you learn words and sentences quickly.
• AJATT - All Japanese All the Time. A brilliant website for motivation and study techniques. This guy will set you on the right track for learning Japanese as fast as possible.
• Skritter. Skritter is a paid service that focuses on teaching you to write Japanese kanji. If you’re willing to pay the monthly fee (which isn’t too high), it’s a very good way to keep on top of your character learning.
• JapanesePod101. This is a another paid learning service. It provides audio podcast lessons and other materials for learning Japanese. Again, it costs, but can be very effective.
• Japanese Art Prints

Let's start with a quiz. Actually, this quiz comes to you courtesy of Mark Spahn, who coauthored the famous Kanji Dictionary along with Wolfgang Hadamitzky. In an email, Spahn posed this challenge to me: How many kanji can you make by adding one stroke to 日? The additional stroke does not need to touch the 日 structure. The answers appear at the end of this Radical Note.

The Names of the 日 Radical

The 日 radical is just like the autonomous 日 kanji in several respects. Here are the definitions of that character:

日 (62: sun, day, date; Sunday; Japan)

It follows that we can refer to radical 72 as the "sun" or "day" radical in English.

Just as the 日 kanji can have the yomi of ひ or ニチ, the Japanese names of this radical are ひ or にち.

Let's say that the radical appears on the left side of a character, as in this example:

時 (135: hour, time)

In that case, we can call the radical ひへん or にちへん.

The JOK preference is the first option in each pair of terms—namely, "sun" radical, ひ, and ひへん.

The Shape of the 日 Radical

You can't find a much more straightforward shape than 日. As rectilinear as it is, this four-stroke character pictographically represents the round sun! The stroke across the center symbolizes a "sunspot." (Seriously? The ancient Chinese could perceive sunspots?!)

This character was actually rounder way back when:

Oracle-script version of 日.
© Richard Sears

The following menu listing for 日本酒 (にほんしゅ: saké; Japanese rice wine) starts with a version of 日 that almost replicates its early appearance!

Photo Credit:
Eve Kushner

Radical 73: The "Flat Sun" Radical

Even though matters seem so simple when it comes to the 日 shape, there are some complications, thanks to 曰, a broader shape that constitutes Radical 73. The cross stroke actually only goes three-fourths of the way across that radical, as you can see more clearly on Denshi Jisho. 

Henshall says that 曰 represents a "mouth" and that the central horizontal stroke is a "tongue" in that mouth! It makes sense to me that the tongue doesn't extend across to the lips. Given these pictographic origins, it's also logical that 曰 can mean "to say."

Nelson has opted to treat Radical 73 as a variant of Radical 72. I prefer to see them as separate radicals, wherein 曰 is the "flat sun" radical, but that's practically a moot point because this radical does not appear in any Joyo kanji.

There is only one way in which that wider shape is relevant to us. Several Joyo kanji that contain Radical 72 originally included Radical 73 instead. Take, for instance, the on-duty "sun" radicals at the bottom of these kanji:

曹 (1520: sergeant)
替 (1548: to replace, exchange)

Those lower parts used to be 曰. That sergeant has a sun "where the sun don't shine"!

This stone marker has a 日 with an incomplete center stroke, making it look like Radical 73. It's not, though. The other kanji are the non-Joyo 蓮 and 宗, forming 日蓮宗 (にちれんしゅう), the name of a confederation of Buddhist schools.

The Sun Also Doesn't Rise

In several other kanji, we find a 日 shape but no connection to the sun. The reason is similar; that 日 is the simplification of some other shape. Here are a few examples, with Henshall as the source of all the etymological information in this Radical Note:

書 (142: to write)

The bottom is a simplified form of 者 (thing).

旨 (1312: to purport, meaning, point)

The bottom is a simplification of 甘, the "sweet" radical.

最 (484: most)

The top is a variant of a shape that means "warrior's helmet."

是 (910: right, correct)

The top represents "spoon; ladle" and "hook"!

昆 (1276: insect)

The whole kanji symbolizes an "insect with legs"!

Photo Credit: Eve Kushner

A calligrapher drew this 書 in such a way as to make the 日 unrecognizable. That seems quite appropriate, given what we know about the lack of a sun in the etymology!

Leaping Lizards!

As long as we're talking about creepy crawlies, I'd like to mention this kanji:

易 (618: easy; to exchange; readily)

The original shape depicted a "big-eyed lizard" and "rays of the sun," but the sun wasn't at the top, as one might think. Rather, it lay in the lower part, whereas the upper component symbolized the "lizard's eye"! Some people may have mistaken the bottom part as "lizard legs" at some point. As a result, this character came to mean "readily changing," which led to its current definitions: "readily; easy" and "change."

Photo Credit: Eve Kushner

The word 昆布 (こんぶ) refers to a brown type of seaweed or kelp that Hokkaido in particular produces. People use it to make kombucha, a kind of tea that's all the rage right now in health-food circles.

 

As 昆 means "insect," are there insects in kombucha?! Halpern says that the 昆 in 昆布 does indeed mean "insect" or "swarm of insects"! However, it's possible that this term is ateji, as it apparently comes from either Chinese or Ainu.

Let the Sun Shine on These Kanji

Despite all these examples of times when 日 does not represent "sun" inside kanji, it very often does. In fact, that's such a common occurrence that I'll group various characters into categories and present just a few examples of each.

Sunshine plays a direct role in these characters:

早 (50: early; quick)

"Sun" combines with "cutting" or "opening" (十) to mean "sun breaking through (darkness)."

昇 (1393: to ascend)

"Sun" unites with 升, which generally means "measure" but acts phonetically here to express "rise." A "sun rising high" led to "ascend" in the broad sense.

Other examples of this sort include 暁 (1174: dawn; when something (usu. desirable) comes true) and 普 (1754: widespread; general; common, ordinary).

Let There Be Light

In several characters, 日 conveys "bright light," as in these examples:

明 (208: bright, light)

The "sun" and "moon" (月) both symbolize light. Thus, this kanji means "very light" and "bright."

映 (813: reflection, projection)

This character combines "sun" with "center" 央, a shape that acts phonetically here to mean "bright." If you have the "bright (center of?) sun," it means "to shine, reflect."

This category also includes 昭 (315: luminous) and 暗 (224: dark), the latter showing what happens when you block out light.

Photo Credit: Eve Kushner

Shhh! A movie screening is in progress: 上映中 (じょうえいちゅう: currently screening a movie).

The Passage of Time

Many kanji involve the passage of time because of the "sun" in those shapes:

昼 (172: daytime; noon)
昨 (486: yesterday; late)
暇 (1050: free time)
暫 (1311: awhile)
旬 (1373: 10-day period; season (for specific products))
昔 (1481: past; old times; long ago; ancient times; once upon a time; decade)
暦 (1927: calendar, almanac)

In this sign for a soba shop in the 小千谷 (おぢや) section of Niigata, the first large kanji is 旬 (1373: 10-day period; season (for specific products)). It appears in this restaurant name: 旬彩庵 (しゅんさいあん) Whereas the non-Joyo 庵 often appears at the end of restaurant names, 旬彩 might mean 旬の彩り (しゅんのいろどり). That literally translates as “colors of the season," which implies “various foods when they are in season." The red characters break down as follows: 酒 (さけ: alcohol) 肴 (さかな: food), which is a non-Joyo kanji 店 (みせ: shop, restaurant) We know, therefore, that this restaurant serves alcohol and food. That's not so unusual!             Photo Credit: Eve Kushner

The Weather

When the weather is good, we talk about the sun. Thus, it's no surprise that these characters contain "sun" radicals:

晴 (155: to clear up)
暑 (313: hot; summer heat)
暖 (932: warm)

Furthermore, 曇 (1672: cloud) represents a "sun" obscured by a "cloud."

The Sun and Plant Life

Plants depend on the sun, and a few characters represent that reality:

春 (141: spring (season))

This kanji shows vigorous growth of the mulberry plant in sunshine.

暴 (793: violent; sudden; unrestrained; to disclose)

The pictograph initially depicted the "sun," "rice," and "two hands offering up a thickly growing plant." After that sweet start, things took a nasty turn, if you consider the current definitions!

暮 (1789: to live; earn a livelihood; grow dark; come to an end)

The top part, 莫, means "sun setting among trees and vegetation," says Henshall in his newer edition. Adding 日 between the lower “legs” of 莫 produced 暮 and made it mean “evening” and "late," with "end" as an associated sense. All of that happened in ancient China. Only in Japan did 暮 come to mean “to live,” says Henshall, apparently through a connection with kurasu. In early Japanese that meant “to spend time until darkness when the sun sets.” He must be talking about 暗 (dark), now read with the kun-yomi kura•i.

With double the sunshine, we come to the end!

Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Kunugi

The Yoshino district of Nara Prefecture has as many as thirty thousand cherry trees! This poster tells us that springtime in that area is tinted with the color of cherry blossoms:

桜色 (さくらいろ: color of cherry blossoms)
染まる (そまる: to be dyed, tinted)
春 (はる: spring)

Answers to the Quiz

Here's the question again: How many kanji can you make by adding one stroke to 日?

Several Joyo kanji qualify, including these: 田 (59: rice field), 白 (65: white), 目 (72: eye), 申 (322: to report; speak humbly), 由 (399: a reason, cause), and 甲 (1243: shell; the first). None contains the "sun" radical. However, two more kanji with 日 + 1 do contain that radical, which is on duty in each case:

旧 (648: old, former)
旦 (2063: dawn, daybreak, morning; first day)

Thanks to Mark Spahn for coming up with the question and to Wolfgang Hadamitzky for supplying the answers!

Kanshudo

Search results include information from a variety of sources, including Kanshudo (kanji mnemonics, kanji readings, kanji components, vocab and name frequency data, grammar points), JMdict (vocabulary), Tatoeba (examples), Enamdict (names), KanjiVG (kanji animations and stroke order), and Joy o' Kanji (kanji and radical synopses). Translations provided by Google's Neural Machine Translation engine. For more information see credits.

×

Download / purchase JOK essays