問 — how to write the kanji for “question”

問 means “question”, “ask” and “problem”; it is a JLPT N4 kanji, taught in third grade in Japan. In newspapers it is one of the hundred most used kanji (64th). KANJIDIC2 gives it 1 on reading and 3 kun readings, so the word decides how you say it. Its parts sit one inside another: 門 (“gate”), strokes 1–8; 口 (“mouth”, its radical), strokes 9–11, each finished before the next. On its own it is the word mon, “counter for questions”. Read mon, it forms 問題 (“question”), 訪問 (“call”) and 質問 (“question”); the native reading to-u gives 問い合わせ (“inquiry”) and 問う (“to ask”). Mainland Chinese writes it 问 (wèn, “to ask”), an HSK 1 character.

Strokes

11

JLPT

N4

Radical

口 (“mouth”)

On

モン

Kun

と·い, とん, と·う