Even when I think I've memorized how to read a particular kanji, 人 (ひと) for example, and try to read other words I find that it's also pronounced じん...and I'm sure it probably has many other readings.
Should readings just be taken on a case-by-case basis / word-by-word basis? Is there any point to memorizing a single kanji reading and applying it else where or is there some structure to when each reading is used?
Answer
Most of the time, kanji are used to write words or parts of words—prefixes, suffixes, and so on. To know which reading is appropriate, you have to know the relevant Japanese words or parts of words.
For example, look at the following:
にほんじん 'Japanese person/people'
アメリカじん 'American(s)'
がいこくじん 'foreigner(s)'
Here, we have a suffix じん meaning "person". As you can see, it attaches to nouns that denote places people are from. That's not the only way じん can be used, but it's a pattern you need to learn. And once you know this pattern, you can read the following:
日本人 にほんじん (not *にほんにん)
アメリカ人 アメリカじん (not *アメリカにん)
外国人 がいこくじん (not *がいこくにん)
There are two ways you can learn this sort of pattern:
- Explicitly: You can be taught that じん is used this way, and that it's written 人 in kanji.
Implicitly: You can learn words like the above and read new words by analogy:
Hmm, what's this word? It says フランス人, but I haven't learned that word yet, so how do I know which reading to use? Well, I know the words 日本人 and アメリカ人, and it's じん in both of those. I bet this word is フランスじん!
You'll probably do a combination of both as you learn. When you do, you'll be learning facts about the Japanese language—not just about kanji or readings, but about how words and parts of words fit together and what they mean when they do.
There are certain overarching patterns you'll notice pretty early on in your studies, and you can fall back on these patterns when you aren't sure:
- Kun readings tend to go with other kun readings.
- On readings tend to go with other on readings.
- Foreign words tend to go with on readings.
These rules are far from absolute! Although most compounds are kun-kun or on-on, mixed compounds (called 重箱読み and 湯桶読み) are still relatively common—much like how in English, we have hybrids like television (Greek-Latin) and biathlon (Latin-Greek).
And there are overriding factors:
Some words or parts of words are productive, meaning they form new words or compounds readily. Our example of じん above is very productive; you can invent a place name and combine it with that name, if you like. Others are less productive, or not productive at all. For example, 一人 is ひとり, but り only appears in a very small set of words that you'll have to memorize. You can't form new words with it yourself.
Occasionally words are suppletive, meaning they take the place of an expected form. Although にん as a counter for people is very productive, the suppletive words ひとり and ふたり generally take the place of the expected forms いちにん and ににん. You have to memorize these words as exceptions.
Sometimes different readings have different meanings. For example, 塞 has two on readings, そく and さい. The former is used when it means ふさぐ 'obstruct', and the latter when it means とりで 'fortress'.
So you can't simply memorize a set of readings for each kanji, I'm afraid. You'll have to learn Japanese words and parts of words, to learn how those are written, and to make educated guesses based on what you've learned so far when your knowledge falls short.
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