弁 – valve, petal, braid

5 strokesTaught in grade 5#619 in newspaper frequencyN5 vocabulary

The kanji 弁 means valve, petal, braid, speech, dialect, discrimination, dispose of, distinguish. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ベン、ヘン (ben, hen); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is かんむり、わきま.える、わ.ける、はなびら、あらそ.う (kanmuri, wakimaeru, wakeru, hanabira, arasou). It is written with 5 strokes, under radical 廾 (no. 55).

Stroke order

Stroke order from KanjiVG. Practise others with the stroke order lookup.

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ベン	ben
On’yomi	ヘン	hen
Kun’yomi	かんむり	kanmuri
Kun’yomi	わきま.える	wakimaeru
Kun’yomi	わ.ける	wakeru
Kun’yomi	はなびら	hanabira
Kun’yomi	あらそ.う	arasou

A dot separates the kanji’s part from the okurigana (kana written after it), e.g. まな.ぶ → 学ぶ.

Radical and components

Radical: 廾 (Kangxi radical 55). Components: 厶・廾.

Words using 弁

お弁当おべんとうbento弁当べんとうbento弁べんspeech勘弁かんべんpardon代弁だいべんspeaking by proxy弁解べんかいexplanation (e.g. for one's actions)弁護べんごdefense弁償べんしょうcompensation弁論べんろんdiscussion

Example sentences

彼は今日、お弁当を持って来た。

He brought his lunch today.

Tatoeba #107100

私たちは学校で早めに弁当を食べた。

We had an early lunch at school.

Tatoeba #165980

同じことを何回繰り返すの。屋上屋を架すようなくどい説明は勘弁してよ。

You're wasting your time with all this needless repetition, so spare us the long-winded explanation.

Tatoeba #123717

Sources: KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0), Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). About the data.