What is the Kanji for "Vegetable"?

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

The Japanese Kanji for "Vegetable" is "菜".

This kanji has 2 readings:

Its kunyomi reading is "Na".

Its onyomi reading is "Sai".

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 "采" means "Take", "Form", and "Dice" and can be read as "Sai", "To", and "Irodori". And The radical "艹" means "Grass" .

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

What does the kanji "菜" mean in japanese?

"菜" means "Vegetable".

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

Here are some words that use this kanji:

野菜: "Vegetable". The noun '野菜 (やさい)' refers to any edible plant or plant part, such as roots, stems, leaves, fruits, or seeds, that is primarily consumed as food. This includes a wide variety of plant-based foods like lettuce, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and more. For example: I bought some fresh vegetables at the market - (私は市場で新鮮な野菜を買いました).

菜: "Vegetable". The suffix '菜 (さい)' refers to a type of vegetable. This suffix is commonly used in the names of vegetables, such as '白菜 (はくさい)' for Napa cabbage or '大根菜 (だいこんさい)' for radish greens. The suffix conveys that the word refers to an edible plant or vegetable part. For example: spinach - (ほうれん草), lettuce - (レタス)

白菜: "Cabbage". The Japanese noun '白菜 (はくさい)' refers to a type of cabbage with thick, white leaves that is commonly used in East Asian cuisine. It has a mild, sweet flavor and crunchy texture. '白菜' is often used in dishes like hot pot, stir-fries, and salads. For example: I bought some cabbage at the market - (私は市場で白菜を買いました). This dish is made with cabbage - (この料理は白菜を使っています).

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 "な" is read as "na". The hiragana "さ" is read as "sa". And The hiragana "い" is read as "i".

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.