JLPT N5 Kanji – 週 – shuu

This is 5-Minute Kanji, and today, we will go over a truck driving kanji: the kanji for week.

Mnemonic:
Every WEEK, the truck full of CRATES of SOIL winding down the road makes a SHUU sound as it passes.

Onyomi:

シュウ
shuu

Kunyomi:

No commonly used kunyomi. Ye-ah!

This is a relatively simple kanji since there is only one reading you need to remember – しゅう. It also has only one meaning – week. There are variety of ways that you can use it of course, but that’s about it. You get a freebie this time.

Mnemonic Factory

This kanji is made of two other kanji and two radicals. On the left, you have the radical for road – ⻌. On the right, you have the enclosing radical – 冂. Then, inside that, you have the kanji/radical for soil – 土 (you can imagine it as a big pile of soil or dirt), and mouth – 口. This gives you a lot to work with. For this week’s master mnemonic, I imagined the soil 土 being carried in crates 口 inside a truck 冂 on an L-shaped road  ⻌.

Another idea is a mall cop 土 riding around on a Segway 口 inside the mall 冂, along a winding road ⻌. They are a little lazy, so they only make the rounds once a WEEK.

For onyomi, there is only one sound しゅう. Luckily, there are a good number of words that have similar sounds in English, such as SHOE, SHOO (as in “go away”), or SHOO-in. There are also variations of this, like a SHOEmaker or horseSHOE. You could even work in a horseshoe with the visual mnemonic since the enclosing radical, 冂, looks kind of like a square horseshoe.

Example Words

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

Onyomi

Let’s take a look at some of the most common words that use 週:

• 今週（こんしゅう） “this week”
• 先週（せんしゅう） “last week”
• 来週（らいしゅう） “next week”
• 毎週（まいしゅう） “every week”
• 週末（しゅうまつ） “weekend”

Sometimes it really is that simple. There is not much to this kanji.

Commonly confused with

Story Review

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

Every ____, the truck full of _____ of ____ winding down the ____ makes a ____ sound as it passes.

Perfect? Let’s give it another try.

Every ____, the truck full of _____ of ____ winding down the ____ makes a ____ sound as it passes.

Word Review

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

今週

先週

来週

毎週

週末

That’s it for the kanji for time. 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.