Um.. This may be a dumb question, but how would you know which one to use? Like, How would you know when to use Kun yomi or On yomi?　

My sensei told me onyomi comes from the character 音 (おと)　which means sound. As far as I know onyomi is what she calls the "chinese reading" in other words it is the sound it makes when combined with another character, like in 音楽 （おんがく）alone they are pronounced using thier kunyomi 音（おと）and 楽　（らく） but together it gets pronounced using the onyomi, おんがく.
　 I don't know why she calls it the "Chinese reading," something about honoring the kanji or something. Whenever anyone asks her anything about kanji, she always says "I don't know, ask the chinese they made it not me!" It's pretty funny. 

 

well mon (gate) is onyomi reading but you still use it isolation i believe.

wow the comments are really helpful! :)

the stroke order begins with the red dot ^-^

I am assuming that this is for the first character for Sunday?

what do kunyomi and konyomi mean?

Kunyomi are the readings that come from Japan, and Onyomi are readings that come from China. That's why the Kunyomi readings are written in hiragana and the Onyomi readings are written in katakana. Typicially a character uses the Onyomi reading when there are two kanji charcters beside each other like in the word for Japan "日本" (nihon). Hope this helps! 

In what situations should I use certain readings in Onyomi and Kunyomi? I mean, in both KUnyomi and Onyomi there are few different readings. When use which? Any examples?

neko_ wrote yesterday at 8:31 AM

In what situations should I use certain readings in Onyomi and Kunyomi? I mean, in both KUnyomi and Onyomi there are few different readings. When use which? Any examples?

I think thats a vocabulary recognition thing. Once you get use to seeing strings of kanji together, you'll get use to how to say it based off experience with the kanji. Like in english when you see a word like, champion, instead of saying cham-pi-shun, your mind (with practice) will read it naturally as cham-pee-yon.