人 means “person”

Watch: Gen and Shibamaru learn 人

The video loads from YouTube when you press play. Open on YouTube

Where 人 comes from

人 is a picture of a person walking, seen from the side.

Stroke order (2 strokes)

1. 1
2. 2

Words with 人

• 

  人ひと

  HITO

  person

• 

  日本人にほんじん

  NIHONJIN

  Japanese person

• 

  一人ひとり

  HITORI

  one person / alone

• 

  二人ふたり

  FUTARI

  two people

• 

  大人おとな

  OTONA

  adult

The part of each word written with 人 is shown in orange. Audio: the readings from our video.

Reading tips

• Country + 人 is read じん (JIN): アメリカ人 (AMERIKAJIN, an American).
• When you count people, 人 is read にん (NIN): 三人 (SANNIN), 四人 (YONIN). One and two people are special: 一人 (HITORI), 二人 (FUTARI).
• 大人 (OTONA, adult) is another special reading.

In the video

• Genじゃあ 三人は さんじん？So three people is SANJIN?
• Shibamaruううん、さんにん だよNo, it's SANNIN!

Example sentences

• あの 人は だれですか。

  ANO HITO WA DARE DESU KA.

  Who is that person?

• かぞくは 四人です。

  KAZOKU WA YONIN DESU.

  There are four people in my family.

Keep learning kanji

• GENKI I Textbook (3rd Edition)

  Beginner

  A popular first textbook used in many university courses. Each lesson has a dialogue, grammar explanations in English, and plenty of practice.

  View on Amazon

• Minna no Nihongo Beginner I Main Textbook (2nd Edition)

  Beginner

  Written entirely in Japanese, with lots of sentence-pattern practice. Use it together with the Translation & Grammar Notes book.

  View on Amazon