What is the Kanji for "Age"?

If you are wondering what is the Japanese Kanji for "Age", you've come to the right place!

The Japanese Kanji for "Age" is "齢".

This kanji has 2 readings:

Its kunyomi reading is "Yowai".

Its onyomi reading is "Rei".

kunyomi readings are based on the pronunciation of native Japanese words, and onyomi readings are based on the Chinese pronunciation of the character.

If you visually breakdown this kanji, you can see is made up of 2 parts:

The kanji "歯" means "Tooth" and can be read as "Shi" and "Ha". And The kanji "令" means "Orders" and can be read as "Rei".

Now, let's make sure you understand this kanji the other way around too.

What does the kanji "齢" mean in japanese?

"齢" means "Age".

Japanese School Students learn this kanji in Junior Highschool, while foreigners may learn this kanji in preparation for the JLPT N2 exam.

Here are some words that use this kanji:

年齢: "Age". The Japanese noun '年齢 (ねんれい)' refers to the length of time a person has lived or an object has existed. It is used to describe how old someone or something is. For example: How old are you? - (あなたの年齢は?) I am 25 years old - (私は25歳です).

高齢: "Elderly". The Japanese noun '高齢 (こうれい)' means 'elderly'. This noun is used to refer to people who are advanced in years or have reached a mature stage of life. It is commonly used to describe the aging population or to discuss issues related to senior citizens. For example: The elderly couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary - (高齢のカップルは結婚50周年を祝った). The elderly need more support from the government - (高齢者はより多くの政府支援が必要だ).

To make really sure you learn this Kanji, I've prepared an interactive lesson for you. You are going to learn the readings and meanings of this kanji.

But first, you need to know a little bit about Hiragana and Katakana.

Hiragana and katakana are japanese syllabaries, this means that each character represents a syllable.

This are the characters you need to know for this lesson:

The hiragana "れ" is read as "re". The hiragana "い" is read as "i". The hiragana "よ" is read as "yo". And The hiragana "わ" is read as "wa".

Heres a quick tutorial on how to use it. You'll be asked three type of questions: meaning, reading, and writing.

For meanings questions all you have to do is type the english meaning. If there is more than one meaning, you have to include them all in your answer separating them by commas (,).

For Reading questions you have to type the reading in romaji (roman letters, our normal alphabet) and it'll be automatically converted to hiragana if necessary. If there is more than one reading, you have to include them all in your answer separating them by commas (,).

For Writing questions some options will appear and all you have to do is select the correct ones.