Kanji · JLPT N5 · Level 1
四 four
- Meaning
- four
- On reading
- シ
- Kun reading
- よん・よっ(つ)
Memory hook
A box with a pair of legs inside it: four walls with something trapped in there, kicking. シ, but almost everyone says よん, because シ sounds like 死 (death).
Words that use 四
四つ
よっつ
four things
四月
しがつ
April
How to write 四
Stroke order · 5 strokes
1
2
3
4
5
- 1. The vertical on the left.
- 2. Horizontal across the top, then turn down on the right side.
- 3. The sweep down to the left.
- 4. Vertical, then turn across to the right.
- 5. The horizontal across the bottom.
Stroke data from KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
General rules
- Top to bottom, left to right.
- Horizontal strokes before crossing vertical ones (十 = horizontal, then vertical).
- Outside before inside - but close a box last (口).
- A vertical that passes all the way through comes last (中).
- Left-falling diagonal before right-falling (大).
四 is taught on day 2 of the kanji course, alongside 五 六, with two writing passes and a short quiz.