What is the Kanji for "Priest", "Buddhist priest", and "Monk"?

If you are wondering what is the Japanese Kanji for "Priest", "Buddhist priest", and "Monk", you've come to the right place!

The Japanese Kanji for "Priest", "Buddhist priest", and "Monk" is "僧".

This kanji has 1 reading:

Its onyomi reading is "Sou".

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 radical "亻" means "Person" . And The kanji "曽" means "Ever", "Once", and "Ex-" and can be read as "Zou", "Sou", "So", "Katsu", "Sunawachi", and "Katsute".

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

What does the kanji "僧" mean in japanese?

"僧" means "Priest", "Buddhist priest", and "Monk".

Japanese School Students learn this kanji in Junior Highschool, while foreigners may learn this kanji in preparation for the JLPT N1 exam.

Here are some words that use this kanji:

僧: "Monk". The Japanese word '僧 (そう)' refers to a Buddhist monk, a member of the Buddhist clergy who has taken religious vows and lives a monastic life. Monks typically wear distinctive robes, shave their heads, and dedicate themselves to spiritual practices and the teachings of Buddhism. For example: The monk walked through the temple - (僧が寺を歩いた). The old monk meditated every morning - (老僧は毎朝瞑想した).

僧侶: "Monk". The Japanese noun '僧侶 (そうりょ)' refers to a Buddhist monk. Monks are male religious figures who have taken vows and dedicated their lives to Buddhist practice and teachings. They typically live and work at Buddhist temples and monasteries. For example: The old monk meditated every morning - (その老僧侶は毎朝瞑想していた). She wants to become a nun and join the monastery - (彼女は尼僧になって寺院に入りたがっている).

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 "そ" is read as "so". And The hiragana "う" is read as "u".

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.