象 – elephant, pattern after, imitate

12 strokesTaught in grade 5#394 in newspaper frequencyN3 vocabulary

The kanji 象 means elephant, pattern after, imitate, image, shape, sign (of the times). Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ショウ、ゾウ (shou, zou); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is かたど.る (katadoru). It is written with 12 strokes, under radical 豕 (no. 152).

Stroke order

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

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ショウ	shou
On’yomi	ゾウ	zou
Kun’yomi	かたど.る	katadoru

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: 豕 (Kangxi radical 152). Components: 勹・豕・口・一.

Words using 象

象ぞうelephant (Elephantidae spp.)印象いんしょうimpression現象げんしょうphenomenon対象たいしょうtarget抽象ちゅうしょうabstraction気象きしょうweather (conditions)象徴しょうちょうsymbol (of something abstract)

Example sentences

その小さい男の子は目を大きく見開いて巨大な象を見た。

The little boy gazed at the huge elephant, eyes wide open.

Tatoeba #209295

彼女は気の利く女の子である印象を強く受けた。

She struck me as a tactful girl.

Tatoeba #90579

この現象に関してはまだ物理的な説明がなされていない。

There is not a physical explanation for this phenomenon yet.

Tatoeba #222072

Kanji with the same radical

豪豚

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