菜
菜 — Vegetable
vegetable, side dish, greens
On’yomiサイ (sai)
Kun’yomiな (na)
Stroke order (11 strokes)
Watch the strokes draw themselves in the correct order — numbers mark where each stroke starts. Diagram from KanjiVG (CC BY-SA).
Common words using 菜
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 野菜 | やさい yasai | vegetable; marijuana; cannabis |
| 菜園 | さいえん saien | vegetable garden |
| 菜食 | さいしょく saishoku | vegetable diet |
| 山菜 | さんさい sansai | edible wild plants |
| 惣菜 | そうざい souzai | small dish (served as a part of an ordinary household meal); side dish |
| 白菜 | はくさい hakusai | napa cabbage (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis); nappa cabbage; Chinese cabbage |
Study notes
菜 is a JLPT N2 kanji written with 11 strokes. It is taught in Japanese elementary school (grade 4), so native children learn it early — a good sign it appears everywhere. Ranked #1327 of the 2,500 most frequent kanji in newspapers. On’yomi (音読み) are Chinese-derived readings mostly used in compound words; kun’yomi (訓読み) are native Japanese readings, with any highlighted part written in hiragana after the kanji (okurigana).
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