本 — how to write the kanji for “book”

本 means “book”, “present” and “main”; it is a JLPT N5 kanji, taught in first grade in Japan. In newspapers it is one of the hundred most used kanji (10th). It has no separate parts in KanjiVG; its first stroke, a horizontal, begins at the top left. On its own it is the word moto, “origin; source”. Its common words take the reading hon: 基本 (“basics”), 本社 (“head office”), 本部 (“headquarters”) and 日本人 (“Japanese person”). Chinese reads it běn, “root”, at HSK 1.

Strokes

5

JLPT

N5

Radical

木 (“tree”)

On

ホン

Kun

もと