JLPT N5 Kanji – 年, nen, toshi

This is 5-Minute Kanji, and today, we are going to go over a dangerous kanji: the kanji for year.

Mnemonic:

When I fired my caNON at her TOE, SHE jumped into the tree to get away.

Onyomi:

ネン
nen

Kunyomi:

とし
toshi

The onyomi is most often used to mean the calendar year or kanji compounds that refer to calendar years or years relative to the current one. For example, 去年きょねん refers to last year and 来年らいねん, next year. The kunyomi, とし, is used in expressions to mean growing older or the passing of time in general. For example, 年を　取る is used to talk about getting older. One word to be careful about is 今年, this year, which uses kunyomi and not onyomi like the other similar terms.

Mnemonic Factory

A lot of people see this as a tree and visual mnemonics seemed to be variations of that. The mnemonic I shared earlier uses that imagery. The poor girl running from the cannon is up in the tree on the left side. You can also imagine this as a person putting a star on a Christmas tree. They are standing on a stepstool to the left, leaning over to put the star on the top. Others see the extra strokes as fruits hanging from the tree. One final image is one of someone sipping a beer. The first stroke in the upper left corner forms the lips against the top of the glass. The two bottom strokes and the vertical line that attaches them is a hand holding the glass.

For onyomi, only a few words have the えん sound. The most common words I can think of are cannEN or the last name BannEN, as in Steve Bannon, the very controversial political strategist.

The kunyomi, とし, has almost no English sounds associated with it. You will most likely need to cheat and connect two words like TOE SHEet, or TOE SHY (being shy to show one’s toes). You can also cheat with similar-sounding words like TOSS.

Example Words

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

Onyomi
I talked before about some relative time expressions that use the ねん reading. We have 去年きょねん, for past year and 来年らいねん for next year. Just remember that 今年ことし uses the kunyomi instead. Also to refer to the period of a year, you would use 年間ねんかん. Some other terms you might hear, but are not on the test are 年末ねんまつ, used to refer to the year’s end and 年度ねんど, the term used to refer to a fiscal or school year.

Kunyomi
The とし reading is used to refer to a year in general or in the expression 年としを　取とる, to grow old. Again, the one prominent compound that uses this reading is 今年ことし, which may very well make an appearance on the test.

Commonly confused with

先 – before, ahead
午 – noon
千 – thousand
早 – fast, early
半 – half

Story Review

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

When I fired my ca___ at her ___, ___ jumped into the ____ to get away.

Perfect? Let’s give it another try.

When I fired my ca___ at her ___, ___ jumped into the ____ to get away.

Word Review

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

去年

来年

年間

年

年末*

年度*

*Not an N5 word
That’s it for the kanji for year. 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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