JLPT N5 Kanji – 円, en, yen

This is 5 Minute Kanji, and today we are going to go over a playful kanji this time, the kanji for yen.

Mnemonic:

There is a new claw game at the MARU, ENsert another coin and play.

Onyomi:

エン
en

Kunyomi:

まる
maru

The onyomi is most often used to mean yen. For example, １００円 is ひゃくえん or hyakuen. The kunyomi, まる, is used to mean a 2d circle like on a piece of paper. There is another kanji that has the same reading, 丸い, まるい. When using 丸, it refers to a spherical or 3d, ball-like shape.

Mnemonic Factory

There are a few options for visual mnemonics. I like imagining a claw in a crane game picking up toys. Crane games are immensely popular in Japan and so it is easy to visualize for me. Another example is a pilot or driver with their goggles pulled up, much like Microsoft’s copilot icon. You could also imagine a round table from the side. Actually, the word for round table uses this kanji – 円卓, えんたく.

For onyomi, a lot of words start with the EN sound like ENter, ENcourage, ENd, ENtire, or ENtice. So how about you ENcourage people to spENd more YEN or see a never-ENding CIRCLE on a page.

The kunyomi, まる, also has a lot of possibilities. I think the most obvious one is a shopping MARU. You also have MARUon (maroon) and sMARUl (small). So, you could say “I need some yEN; I’m MARUoned on a small circular island with weird-looking crabs (円).

Example Words

How about a few example words where this kanji is used?

Onyomi
For onyomi, we have the most common word 円えん the Japanese monetary unit. This is pretty much the only word on the N5 test that uses this kanji. However, there are a few more common words – 円卓えんたく for a round table and 円熟えんじゅく, maturity as in he/she is mature. I also occasionally hear 円安えんやすい, weak yen, and 円高えんだか, strong yen sometimes when the exchange rate is abnormal (~115JPY/USD).

Kunyomi
The まる reading is used in 円まるい, mostly to mean round in the 2d sense like a circle on a paper. 丸まるい with the 丸まる kanji is used to mean something more 3d like a sphere.

Commonly confused with

丸 – (spherically) round
内 – inside, within
同 – same, agree
南 – south
高 – tall, high

Story Review

Can you remember the story from the beginning? Let’s give it a try, and yell out the words that are missing.

There is a new ___ _____ at the ____, __sert another coin and play.

Perfect? Let’s give it another try.

There is a new ___ _____ at the ____, __sert another coin and play.

Word Review

Can you read these? I’ll give you the kanji and please yell out the reading for each word

円い

八千円

１０００万円

円安い*

円高*

*Not an N5 word
That’s it for the kanji for round or yen. Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions. If you’d like to learn more kanji, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell mark to get a notification every time I send out a new video. Also, be sure to check out my other 5 Minute Kanji videos.

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