During the adoption of the Japanese writing system from the Chinese writing system, the scholars had to match each kanji character to existing Japanese words. At the end of the day, several kanji characters have more than one particular meaning. Therefore, it is not strange to find a kanji that has lots of meanings.
If you see a kanji with several meanings, the meanings are often somewhat related. Even the pronunciation of such kanji characters will be quite similar in most cases. Nevertheless, a few kanji characters may have many meanings that are not related in any way. Also, the pronunciations may differ based on the meanings.
If a kanji character has multiple meanings, new learners may struggle with identifying the right meaning for the character. To deal with this, you should first understand the readings and meanings of the word before studying the kanji. This will make it easier for you to memorise the words in kana. So, once you have learned the kanji, you will not be confused about the meanings to use each time.
In addition, you can consider the context to determine the meaning of a kanji with multiple meanings. The context will help you to know the meaning that applies at a particular point.
Do kanji have the same meaning in Japanese and Chinese?
Kanji and hanzi are used in the Japanese and Chinese languages respectively. These two writing scripts have varying similarities and are sometimes assumed to have the same meaning. But this is not true as the majority of kanji characters do not have the same meaning in Japanese and Chinese.
When the Japanese language adopted the writing system of the Chinese language several centuries ago, a systematic approach was not used. Besides, the adoption was done over a long period. As a result of this, the Japanese kanji usually have lots of additional meanings when compared to the Chinese hanzi. In some cases, the characters in the two writing systems may look the same but have two distinctive meanings.
However, the difference between the Japanese kanji and the Chinese hanzi does not stop here. The two writing systems are usually pronounced differently. So, you should note that you cannot use the same pronunciation for the two writing systems.
In addition to different meanings, there is also a difference in how they are written. Although digital versions of kanji may look the same in Japanese and Chinese, the handwriting is quite different. Even the stroke order and calligraphy styles of the two systems are not the same.
Do kanji have multiple pronunciations?
Yes, most kanji characters have multiple pronunciations. In other words, you can pronounce a single character in different ways. The multiple pronunciations are due to the origin of kanji characters.
Basically, in the fifth century, the Japanese writing system was adopted from the Chinese writing system. Although the Japanese people didn’t have a way of writing things, they already had pronunciations for different words. As the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan, some people started using Chinese pronunciations. Consequently, both the Japanese and the Chinese pronunciations can be used for the same word. Notably, the Japanese pronunciation is known as kun-yomi whereas the Chinese pronunciation is referred to as on-yomi.
Sometimes, a single kanji character may have lots of native kun-yomi readings. In other words, a kanji can be pronounced in different native Japanese ways. This is usually the case when the kanji has multiple meanings. Similarly, the Japanese adopted various Chinese writing characters from varying areas of China during different periods. Even though a kanji might look similar to another, its pronunciation could be different. Given this, a kanji may also have several on-yomi readings.
Therefore, as you are learning the Japanese language, it is important to pay attention to these important things.
Can Japanese be written with only kanji?
No, modern Japanese cannot be written with only kanji characters. It will be almost impossible to read and understand what such writing means if it is only in kanji. Writing in kanji will limit the usage of the Japanese language.
Like the English language and other languages, modern Japanese has some grammatical structures that must be followed. These structures are usually written in hiragana and katakana (kana) and form the basis of verb conjugations (such as negation and past tense), particles, and lots more. If something is written with only kanji without these elements, it will not have any meaning. Factually, such writing will look like a caveman speech that no one can understand clearly.
Having noted this, newspaper headlines are sometimes written without hiragana and katakana characters. Nevertheless, you must understand that this is an unusual use of orthography to give a confusing snippet of a set of information. This helps the newspaper to save space and may even arouse the interest of some audience to read the news. Besides, newspaper headlines don’t usually contain all necessary syntactic or grammatical elements of a particular language.
So, you cannot use only kanji to write Japanese. You need the kana characters for your Japanese writing to be meaningful.