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Kanji Information Sheet for 善 ( 
PDF version )
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| English: virtuous good goodness | On-Yomi: ゼン | Kun-Yomi: よ.い い.い よ.く よし.とする たる よし |
Bushu (Radical) Info:
八 (はちがしら) – eight
口 (くち) – mouth
八 (はちがしら) – eight
口 (くち) – mouth
Henshall Mnemonic: sheep has one small but good mouth
Levels: JLPT N1 | JLPT 1 (old) | Grade 6
Frequency: #765 of the 2500 most used kanji in newspapers
Frequency: #765 of the 2500 most used kanji in newspapers
Common Words and/or Phrases Using this Kanji:
Click any individual kanji to view a similar information sheet for it.Click [K] to look up the word's individual character(s) at WWWJDIC.
Click [D] to look up the word at WWWJDIC (definition is the same but other useful features exist).
Click [Jisho] to look up the word at Jisho.org.
JLPT N3 Words
- 改善 [かいぜん]
(n,vs) betterment; improvement; incremental and continuous improvement [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善 [ぜん]
(n) good; goodness; right; virtue [K] [D] [Jisho]
JLPT N1 Words
- 最善 [さいぜん]
(n) the very best [K] [D] [Jisho] - 親善 [しんぜん]
(n) friendship [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善し [よし]
good (in moral judgement only); all right; well; so [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善し悪し [よしあし]
(n) good or bad; merits or demerits; quality; suitability [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善良 [ぜんりょう]
(adj-na,n) goodness; excellence; virtue [K] [D] [Jisho]
Other Popular Words Not Classified by JLPT
- 勧善懲悪 [かんぜんちょうあく]
(n) rewarding good and punishing evil; a novel or drama with a rewarding-good-and-punishing-evil theme; moral purpose; morality play [K] [D] [Jisho] - 慈善 [じぜん]
(n) charity; philanthropy [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善くも [よくも]
(adv) How dare .. [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善く善く [よくよく]
(adv) exceedingly; very [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善悪 [ぜんあく]
(n) good and evil [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善意 [ぜんい]
(n) good faith; good will; good intentions; favorable sense [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善戦 [ぜんせん]
(n,vs) fight a good fight [K] [D] [Jisho] - 善隣 [ぜんりん]
(n) good neighbour [K] [D] [Jisho]
Acknowledgments
The sofware used to generate this kanji information uses the EDICT and KANJIDIC files. These files are the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group at Monash University and are used in conformance with the Group's license.NOTE: I converted the sources just mentioned years ago and have never really updated so there may be some missing or incorrect information that has been addressed in the original sources but not here.
The first Stroke Order image used on this page is courtesy of Ulrich Apel's excellent open source KanjiVG project. The second image is from the folks at the excellent Jisho Japanese-English dictionary site and it too is based on KanjiVG.
Classifying the kanji and popular vocabulary by the new JLPT levels was done by consulting Jonathan Waller‘s JLPT Resources page, renshuu, Wictionary, and Nihongo Ichiban.
The Henshall Mnemonics are the copyright of Tuttle Publishing and are the result of the hard work by Professor Henshall. See the list I used here.
If you are curious about the lexicography shown in the word definitions, visit the WWWJDIC abbreviations and codes guide and the JMdict/Edict Lexicographical details page.