What is the Kanji for "Island"?

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

The Japanese Kanji for "Island" is "島".

This kanji has 2 readings:

Its kunyomi reading is "Shima".

Its onyomi reading is "Tou".

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 "山" means "Mountain" and can be read as "Yama" and "San". And The kanji "鳥" means "Bird" and can be read as "Chou" and "Tori".

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

What does the kanji "島" mean in japanese?

"島" means "Island".

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

Here are some words that use this kanji:

島: "Island". The Japanese noun '島 (しま)' means 'island'. An island is a piece of land that is completely surrounded by water. In Japan, there are many islands of varying sizes, from small uninhabited islands to large populated ones like Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Islands are an important part of Japanese geography and culture. For example: I want to visit the islands of Okinawa - (沖縄の島を訪れたい). The remote island was very peaceful - (その隔離された島はとてもおだやかだった).

半島: "Peninsula". The noun '半島 (はんとう)' means 'peninsula'. A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost entirely surrounded by water, but is connected to the mainland. Japanese peninsulas include the Izu Peninsula and Bōsō Peninsula. For example: Japan's main island is connected to the Asian mainland by the Korean Peninsula - (日本の本州島はアジア大陸とコリア半島によって接続されている).

列島: "Archipelago". The Japanese noun '列島 (れっとう)' refers to an archipelago or chain of islands. It is often used to describe the Japanese islands as a whole, or a group of islands in a particular region. For example: The Japanese archipelago stretches from north to south - (日本列島は南北に伸びている). The Kuril Islands archipelago - (千島列島)

諸島: "Archipelago". The noun '諸島 (しょとう)' means 'archipelago'. It refers to a group or chain of islands. This word can be used to describe various island chains around the world, such as the Japanese archipelago. For example: The Japanese archipelago consists of 4 main islands - (日本の諸島は4つの主な島から成り立っている).

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 "と" is read as "to". The hiragana "う" is read as "u". The hiragana "し" is read as "shi". And The hiragana "ま" is read as "ma".

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.