Book in Japanese is 本, said hon. Five strokes under the tree radical 木: a tree with one short mark across its base, the root. That root sense never left, so 本 also means origin, main and true, as in 日本 (Nihon) and 本当 (hontou). Written in hiragana it is ほん, and in katakana ホン.
Book in Japanese
Buy a paperback in a Japanese bookshop and, at the till, the clerk will often ask a small question: カバーをおかけしますか (kabaa o okake shimasu ka), shall I put a cover on it? Say yes, and your book disappears into a fitted sleeve of plain paper printed with the shop’s name. Nobody on the train will see what you are reading.
That book is a 本 (hon). The word is short, the character is simple, and it is one of the first a child learns to write.
What surprises learners is how much else 本 does. The same character sits in the name of the country, 日本 (Nihon). It is in the word for really, 本当 (hontou). And it counts bottles of beer.
Hon Meaning
Hon (本) means a book: a novel, a cookbook, a children’s picture book, anything printed and bound. In hiragana it is ほん, in katakana ホン, and it is said “hohn,” with the final n held as its own beat. Magazines have their own word, 雑誌 (zasshi), and comics are 漫画 (manga), though a collected volume of manga is still a 本.
Formal Japanese has longer words. 書籍 (shoseki) is the word on a publisher’s catalogue, 図書 (tosho) is the one in 図書館 (toshokan), a library, and 書物 (shomotsu) sounds old and literary. ブック (bukku), the English loan, turns up mostly in names, like ブックカバー, a book cover.
本 also keeps its first meaning, the root. That gives it a family of senses that have nothing to do with reading:
- Origin or basis: 本来 (honrai), originally, by nature.
- Main or head: 本店 (honten), the main shop, and 本社 (honsha), head office.
- True or real: 本当 (hontou), truly, and 本物 (honmono), the real thing.
- This, the present one: 本日 (honjitsu), today, in formal notices.
And it is a counter. 本 counts long, thin things: pencils, bottles, umbrellas, trains, even films. Books themselves are counted with a different character, 冊 (satsu). One book is 一冊 (issatsu), two books 二冊 (nisatsu), three books 三冊 (sansatsu).
The Kanji for Book: 本
- Character: 本
- On’yomi: ホン (hon)
- Kun’yomi: もと (moto)
- Stroke count: 5
- General meaning: book; origin, root, basis; main; true; this; counter for long, thin objects
- Radical: 木 (tree), Kangxi radical 75
It is taught in the first year of Japanese primary school. The kun’yomi moto has three rivals in the Jōyō table, 元, 基 and 下, all read moto with shades of origin, foundation and beneath, and 本 is the one that means the root of a thing. The counter 冊 is five strokes too, taught in sixth grade.
Japanese Symbol for Book
本 is a tree with a pointer. Start from 木 (ki), a tree: a trunk, a crossbar of branches, and two strokes spreading down as roots. Add one short horizontal low across the trunk and you have 本. The extra stroke marks the base of the tree.
Characters made this way, a picture plus a mark that points to part of it, are called 指事文字 (shiji moji), indicative characters. The classic Chinese character dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, puts it in a matched pair: the bottom of a tree is 本, the top of a tree is 末 (matsu). Root and tip. That pair survives in 本末転倒 (honmatsu tentou), root and tip overturned, the Japanese way of saying you have put the cart before the horse.
From root to book is a longer walk, and dictionaries record the steps rather than the reason. One of 本’s meanings is a model to copy from, as in 手本 (tehon), a copybook. Another is the original of a text. A book, in a world of hand copying, was exactly that: the original you worked from.
The counter 冊 has a clearer picture. It shows strips of bamboo or wood tied side by side with cords, the oldest form of the Chinese book, written one column per strip.
How to Write 本 in Japanese
Five strokes, and the order is the tree first, the root mark last.
Stroke one is the long horizontal. Stroke two is the vertical, dropping through it from top to bottom. Stroke three falls away to the left from the crossing, and stroke four sweeps down to the right. Then the short horizontal across the lower trunk, small and centered, finishes the character.
The trap is the last stroke. Write it before the sweeps and the character loses its balance. Write it too long and you are halfway to 末 or 未, which put the second bar at the top. Keep it short and keep it low.
How to Say Book in Japanese
Hon is one syllable to an English ear, “hohn,” but two beats in Japanese, ho-n. In counters the sound shifts: 一本 is ippon, 二本 nihon, 三本 sanbon, 六本 roppon, 十本 juppon. The book counter shifts too: 一冊 issatsu, 八冊 hassatsu, 十冊 jussatsu.
Real sentences:
- 本を読むのが好きです。(Hon o yomu no ga suki desu.) I like reading books.
- この本、面白いよ。(Kono hon, omoshiroi yo.) This book is good.
- 本を三冊買いました。(Hon o sansatsu kaimashita.) I bought three books.
- 本当？ (Hontou?) Really?
- ビールを二本ください。(Biiru o nihon kudasai.) Two bottles of beer, please.
Look at the last one. 二本 (nihon), two bottles, is spelled にほん in kana, exactly like 日本 (Nihon), Japan. Only the pitch of the voice, the context and the kanji tell them apart.
Words and Compounds With 本
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 本屋 | hon’ya | a bookshop |
| 本棚 | hondana | a bookshelf |
| 絵本 | ehon | a picture book |
| 古本 | furuhon | a secondhand book |
| 文庫本 | bunkobon | a pocket paperback |
| 単行本 | tankoubon | a book published on its own, a collected volume |
| 本当 | hontou | truth; really |
| 本物 | honmono | the real thing |
| 本気 | honki | seriousness, for real |
| 見本 | mihon | a sample |
| 日本 | Nihon | Japan |
単行本 is the word manga readers know. A series runs chapter by chapter in a weekly or monthly magazine, then the chapters are gathered into a 単行本, the numbered volume that sits on the shelf.
日本 is root again, the origin of the sun, the place the sun comes from. The full story of the country’s name is on Japan in Japanese. And the moto reading turns up in 本家 (honke), the main line of a family, a word explained on family in Japanese.
Book in Japanese Culture
The most Japanese book is small. A 文庫本 (bunkobon) is a paperback in A6 size, 148 by 105 millimetres, light enough for a coat pocket and a crowded train. The format took hold in 1927, when the publisher Iwanami Shoten launched the Iwanami Bunko, cheap editions of the classics modelled on Germany’s Reclam Universal-Bibliothek. Novels in Japan still usually come out first as a 単行本 and later, cheaper, as a bunko.
Japanese books often open from what an English reader thinks of as the back. Text set in vertical columns, 縦書き (tategaki), runs from right to left, so the spine sits on the right and the pages turn the opposite way to an English paperback. Manga follows the same direction, which is why translated volumes so often keep it.
Japanese also has a word for the books you have not read. 積ん読 (tsundoku) is a pun: 積んでおく (tsunde oku), to leave piled up, joined to 読 (doku), reading. It means buying books and letting them stack up unopened. The word has travelled well beyond Japan, and most book lovers recognize themselves in it.
The character 冊 has a gentler life too. Its other reading, saku, appears in 短冊 (tanzaku), the narrow paper strips people write wishes on at Tanabata, the same slip shape as the bamboo strips in the character.
As a Tattoo
本 alone says book to almost every Japanese reader, so it reads plainly and a little oddly on skin, like the label on a shelf. It can also be read as origin or true, which is the sense people sometimes want, but nothing in a single character tells the reader which one you meant.
If what you mean is a love of reading, 本の虫 (hon no mushi), a book insect, is the Japanese bookworm, and 読書 (dokusho) means reading for its own sake. If you mean being genuine, 本物 (honmono), the real thing, or 本気 (honki), in earnest, say it more clearly. Manga often prints 本気 with the slang reading マジ (maji), for real.
Watch the look-alikes. 木 is a tree, 本 adds the low bar, and 末 (end) and 未 (not yet) move the extra bar to the top. Put a person beside 本 and you get 体 (karada), the body. Put a person beside 木 and you get 休 (yasumu), to rest. One stroke matters.
On script: 本 is written identically in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. The jobs are swapped, though. In Mandarin, 本 (běn) is the counter for books, and the word for book is 书 or 書 (shū). Japanese uses 本 for the book and 冊 to count it.
Five strokes survive any size. The weak point is the short bar, which can blur into the sweeps if the lines are thick.
Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
For the brush behind every printed character, see shodo, and for more characters, browse the kanji library.
Sources and Further Reading
- 常用漢字表 (Jōyō Kanji Table, 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the readings ホン and もと for 本, with 元, 基 and 下 flagged as other spellings of もと, and サツ and サク for 冊 with 短冊
- 本 in KANJIDIC2, WWWJDIC, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group five strokes, radical 75, first-grade status, and the meanings including the counter for long objects
- 本, Digital Daijisen, Jitsū and Heibonsha World Encyclopedia (Kotobank) the meanings of hon, its use as a counter, the indicative form with the Shuowen pairing of 本 and 末, and 冊 as bamboo slips tied with cords
- 文庫本, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica and Heibonsha World Encyclopedia (Kotobank) the A6 format at 148 by 105 millimetres and the 1927 Iwanami Bunko modelled on Reclam
- 積ん読, Digital Daijisen (Kotobank) tsundoku as a pun on 積んでおく and 読, books bought and left unread
FAQ
How do you say book in Japanese?
You say hon, written 本, “hohn,” two beats in Japanese with the final n held. It covers any printed, bound book. Formal Japanese also uses 書籍 (shoseki) and 図書 (tosho), as in 図書館 (toshokan), a library, and magazines and comics have their own words, 雑誌 and 漫画.
What is the kanji for book?
The kanji for book is 本, five strokes, filed under the tree radical 木. It is a tree with a short mark across the base of the trunk, pointing at the root. Its readings are ほん (hon) and もと (moto), and it is one of the kanji children learn in their first year of school.
How do you count books in Japanese?
With the counter 冊 (satsu). One book is 一冊 (issatsu), two is 二冊 (nisatsu), three is 三冊 (sansatsu), and ten is 十冊 (jussatsu). The counter 本 (hon) is for long, thin things such as pens and bottles, so 本を三冊 is three books, while 三本 would be three pens or three bottles.
Why does 本 mean both book and origin?
Because origin came first. 本 is a tree with a mark at its base, so its first meaning was root, and from root came origin, basis and the original version of something, including the model text you copy from. Book grew from that sense. The same root meaning gives 日本, the sun’s origin, and 本当, true.
What does tsundoku mean?
積ん読 (tsundoku) means buying books and leaving them piled up unread. It is a pun: 積んでおく (tsunde oku), to leave in a pile, combined with 読 (doku), the character for reading. The word has spread far beyond Japan as a name for the stack beside the bed.
Is 本 the same in Chinese?
The character is the same in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, and it means root or origin in all of them. The book sense is split differently. In Mandarin, 本 (běn) is the counter for books and the word for book is 书 (shū). In Japanese, 本 is the book and 冊 counts it.