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鳥 — how to write the kanji for “bird”

鳥 (“bird” and “chicken”) is a JLPT N4 kanji taught in second grade in Japan. As one of the 214 traditional radicals it heads 186 kanji in KANJIDIC2. On its own it is the word tori, “bird; bird meat”. Read chou, it forms 野鳥 (“wild bird”), 白鳥 (“swan (Cygnus spp.)”) and 鳥類 (“birds”); the native reading tori gives 渡り鳥 (“migratory bird”) and 小鳥 (“small bird”). Mainland Chinese writes it 鸟 (niǎo, “bird”), an HSK 2 character.

Strokes
11
JLPT
N4
Radical
鳥 (“bird”)
On
チョウ
Kun
とり

Stroke by stroke

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  1. Left-falling stroke ㇒topdown and left
  2. Vertical ㇑top leftdownwards
  3. Horizontal-turn ㇕top leftrightwards → downwards
  4. Horizontal ㇐top leftrightwards
  5. Horizontal ㇐leftrightwards
  6. Horizontal ㇐leftrightwards
  7. Horizontal-turn-hook ㇆leftrightwards → downwards
  8. Dot ㇔bottom leftdownwards
  9. Dot ㇔bottom leftdown and right
  10. Dot ㇔bottomdown and right
  11. Dot ㇔bottomdown and right

Japanese and Chinese

The two models differ in shape, so our comparison does not claim an order; compare the numbered frames yourself (11 strokes in Japanese, 11 strokes in Chinese).

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Japanese · KanjiVG · 11 strokes
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Chinese · Make Me a Hanzi · 11 strokes

Trace it

Follow the numbers. Tracing help

Readings

On (Chinese-derived)
チョウ chou
Kun (native)
とり tori
Meanings
bird; chicken
Read chou
野鳥 白鳥 鳥類 鳥獣 一石二鳥
Read tori
渡り鳥 小鳥 水鳥 鳥居 千鳥
School year
second grade
Newspaper rank
1043rd of 2,500 (KANJIDIC2)
Korean hanja
조 jo
Common words
12 in JMdict

On and kun, explained

Words with 鳥

WordReadingMeaning
野鳥やちょう yachouwild bird
白鳥はくちょう hakuchouswan (Cygnus spp.); white bird
鳥類ちょうるい chouruibirds
渡り鳥わたりどり wataridorimigratory bird; bird of passage
小鳥ことり kotorismall bird; little bird
水鳥みずとり mizutoriwaterfowl; water bird
鳥獣ちょうじゅう choujuubirds and wild animals; wildlife
鳥居とりい toriitorii (Shinto shrine archway)
一石二鳥いっせきにちょう issekinichoukilling two birds with one stone
千鳥ちどり chidoriplover

Most common first (JMdict).

Practice sheet

Print at 100%. Several kanji: worksheet maker.

Keep going

Same parts:

JLPT N4, in list order: