Kanji · JLPT N5 · Level 2
年 year
- Meaning
- year
- On reading
- ネン
- Kun reading
- とし
Memory hook
A person carrying the harvest home. One harvest, one year. ネン in compounds, とし on its own.
Words that use 年
今年
ことし
this year
去年
きょねん
last year
How to write 年
Stroke order · 6 strokes
1
2
3
4
5
6
- 1. The sweep down to the left.
- 2. The horizontal across the top.
- 3. The horizontal across the middle.
- 4. The vertical on the left.
- 5. The horizontal across the middle.
- 6. The vertical through the centre.
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).
年 is taught on day 7 of the kanji course, alongside 時 分 半, with two writing passes and a short quiz.