JLPT N5 Kanji – 雨 – u, ame, ama

This is 5-Minute Kanji, and today, we will go over a refreshing kanji: the kanji for rain.

Mnemonic:
An ARMAdillo stands in the RAIN taking OOdles of photos with his cAMEra.

Onyomi:

ウ
u

Kunyomi:

あめ、あま
ame, ama

The kanji 雨 is a pictograph that depicts rain falling from the sky. The top horizontal line represents the sky, and the four dots below represent raindrops falling. It’s a wonderfully visual kanji that captures the essence of what it means.
The most common reading is the kunyomi あめ, which simply means rain. You’ll see it in everyday weather conversations and weather forecasts. The onyomi ウ appears in more formal or compound words like 雨天うてん (rainy weather). The あま reading is less common but shows up in compound words like 雨戸あまど (rain shutter).

Mnemonic Factory

The 雨 kanji is quite intuitive once you see it. The top line is like a cloud or the sky, and those four little marks below are raindrops falling down. You can almost see the rain streaming down from above!
Now let’s add the sounds! For the onyomi ウ, we can use OODLES, OOps, or perhaps Uber. For the kunyomi あめ, we have AMEn, cAMEra, AMErica, or even I’M A (doctor). The あま reading can work with LLAMA or ARMADILLO with some artistic license.
So picture this: “A llAMA catching an Uber in the RAIN with an AMErican flag on it.” This gives you both the onyomi and kunyomi wrapped up in one memorable scene.

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 雨:

• 雨天（うてん） “rainy weather”*
• 降雨（こうう） “rainfall”*
• 梅雨（つゆ） “rainy season”**

*Not on the N5
**Irregular reading – not on the N5

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

• 雨（あめ） “rain”
• 大雨（おおあめ） “heavy rain”
• 小雨（こさめ） “light rain”*
• 雨戸（あまど） “rain shutter”*

*Not on the N5

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.

An ____dillo stands in the ____ taking __dles of photos with his c___ra.

Perfect? Let’s give it another try.

An ____dillo stands in the ____ taking __dles of photos with his c___ra.

Word Review

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

雨

大雨

小雨*

雨戸*

*Not N5 Word

That’s it for the kanji for rain. 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.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses. Sonnet 4.5