What is the Kanji for "Sorrow", "Pity", and "Pathetic"?

If you are wondering what is the Japanese Kanji for "Sorrow", "Pity", and "Pathetic", you've come to the right place!

The Japanese Kanji for "Sorrow", "Pity", and "Pathetic" is "哀".

This kanji has 2 readings:

Its kunyomi reading is "Awa".

Its onyomi reading is "Ai".

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 3 parts:

The kanji "衣" means "Clothes" and can be read as "I" and "Koromo". The radical "亠" means "Lid" . And The kanji "口" means "Mouth" and can be read as "Ku", "Kuchi", and "Kou".

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

What does the kanji "哀" mean in japanese?

"哀" means "Sorrow", "Pity", and "Pathetic".

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:

可哀想: "Pitiful". The Japanese adjectival noun '可哀想 (かわいそう)' means 'pitiful'. It is used to express sympathy or compassion for someone who is in a difficult or unfortunate situation. For example: I feel so pitiful for that poor child - (あの子供は本当に可哀想だ). He looks so pitiful sitting there alone - (あそこに一人座っている姿が可哀想だ).

哀れ: "Pity". The Japanese noun '哀れ (あわれ)' means 'pity'. It expresses a feeling of sadness or compassion towards someone's misfortune or suffering. This word can be used to describe situations that evoke a sympathetic response, such as: I felt pity for the poor family - (その貧しい家族に対し、私は哀れな思いがした). Her tragic story was truly pitiful - (彼女の悲劇的な物語はまことに哀れであった)

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 "あ" is read as "a". The hiragana "い" is read as "i". 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.