Heart in Japanese is 心, said kokoro. Four strokes, and it is Kangxi radical 61 in its own right, a stylized picture of a heart. But it means the heart you feel with, not the one that pumps. Written in hiragana it is こころ, and in katakana ココロ.
Heart in Japanese
Heart in Japanese is 心, and the spoken word is kokoro. The catch is that Japanese splits what English keeps in one word. 心 is the heart as mind, spirit, feeling, and intention. The organ in your chest is 心臓 (shinzou). The pink shape on a greetings card is ハート (haato), straight from English.
So if you tell a Japanese friend your 心 hurts, they will hear heartbreak. If you say your 心臓 hurts, they will call a doctor.
The Kanji for Heart: 心
- Character: 心
- On’yomi: シン (shin)
- Kun’yomi: こころ (kokoro), and ごころ (-gokoro) as a suffix
- Stroke count: 4
- General meaning: heart, mind, spirit, feeling, the core of something
- Radical: 心 is itself a radical, Kangxi number 61, and it is one of the busiest in the writing system
It is taught in the second year of Japanese primary school and sits at JLPT N4, which tells you how early and how often it turns up.
Japanese Symbol for Heart
心 is a pictogram. The oldest forms drew an actual heart, the muscle with its chambers and vessels, and centuries of brush work reduced that anatomy to one hooked curve and three short strokes. Nothing in the modern shape looks like an organ any more, but that is genuinely where it came from.
What happened next is the interesting part. The character kept the organ’s old job as the seat of thought and feeling, and Japanese never handed that job back to the brain. 心 became so central that it grew two extra forms so it could squeeze into other characters. On the left of a character it flattens into 忄, three strokes, called risshinben. Underneath a character it keeps its full shape.
You can read the results like a map of the inner life. 思 (omou, to think) is 田 over 心. 悲 (kanashii, sad) is 非 over 心. 恋 (koi, romantic love) sits on 心 too. 忙 (isogashii, busy) uses 忄 beside 亡, a heart beside loss, which is a sharp way to describe being overworked. Wherever a Japanese word touches feeling, this character is usually somewhere inside it.
How to Write 心 in Japanese
Four strokes, and they are harder than four strokes sound. Almost nobody gets 心 right the first time.
Start with the short stroke at the left, angled down and slightly left, like a dot with a tail. The second stroke is the long one and it carries the whole character: begin at the lower left, sweep down and to the right in a shallow reclining curve, then flick up into a hook at the end. Then two more short strokes above that curve, the middle one first, then the right one, both slanting down to the right.
The rhythm is left dot, long curve, middle dot, right dot. Keep the curve wide and lazy. Beginners draw it too tight, and a cramped 心 loses the open bowl shape that makes the character read as a heart rather than a scribble.
How to Say Heart in Japanese
Kokoro is three even beats: “koh-koh-roh.” Every o is short, as in “or,” and the r is the light Japanese tap, closer to a soft d than to an English r. No syllable takes a stress hammer. Say it flat and quick.
Real sentences:
- 心が痛みます。(Kokoro ga itamimasu.) My heart aches.
- 心から感謝しています。(Kokoro kara kansha shite imasu.) I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
- 彼は心が優しい。(Kare wa kokoro ga yasashii.) He is kind-hearted.
- 心配しないで。(Shinpai shinaide.) Don’t worry.
- 心臓が速く打っている。(Shinzou ga hayaku utte iru.) My heart is beating fast.
Notice the last two. 心配 and 心臓 both use the on’yomi shin, and both are everyday words. The kun’yomi kokoro is what you use when the heart stands alone.
Words and Compounds With 心
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 心臓 | shinzou | the heart, the organ |
| 心配 | shinpai | worry, concern |
| 安心 | anshin | relief, peace of mind |
| 決心 | kesshin | determination, resolve |
| 中心 | chuushin | center, core |
| 良心 | ryoushin | conscience |
| 本心 | honshin | true feelings, real intention |
| 心得 | kokoroe | knowledge, the ropes of a thing |
Two more worth knowing. 親心 (oyagokoro) is parental feeling, and it shows the -gokoro suffix in action. And 心地 (kokochi) is how something feels, which gives you 心地よい (kokochi yoi), pleasant, comfortable, the word for a room or a breeze that suits you.
Heart in Japanese Culture
Because 心 covers feeling and intention rather than anatomy, it turns up wherever Japanese talks about how people treat each other. Omoiyari, the habit of reading what another person needs before they ask, is built on exactly this idea of the heart as an instrument you point at other people.
The character also anchors one of the most quoted lines in Japanese Buddhism. The Heart Sutra is 般若心経 (Hannya Shingyou) in Japanese, chanted daily in temples across the country, and the 心 in that title is the same character, standing in for the essence or core of the teaching. That sense of 心 as the heart of a matter is alive in ordinary speech too, in 中心 (chuushin, the center of a town or a problem).
And it carries the sadness. Mono no aware, the ache that comes with noticing that things pass, is a movement of the 心 rather than an opinion. The word 心細い (kokorobosoi), literally thin-hearted, means the specific loneliness of being small in a situation that is too big for you. English has no single word for it.
As a Tattoo
心 is one of the most requested kanji tattoos in the West, and the good news is that it is honest. It genuinely means heart. Four strokes make a compact, balanced mark that works small, and the long curved stroke gives a calligrapher something to play with.
Understand which heart you are getting. 心 is heart as mind and feeling. It is not the organ, and it is not romance. If you want love specifically, that is love in Japanese, 愛 (ai) or 恋 (koi). If you want the anatomical heart, that is 心臓, and nobody tattoos that.
Watch what you pair it with. 心中 read shinchuu means what is in your heart. The identical spelling read shinjuu means a lovers’ double suicide, and that reading is the more famous one, thanks to a whole genre of puppet-theater tragedies. Two characters that each look harmless can form a word you did not intend, so check every combination before it goes under a needle.
On script: 心 is written identically in Japanese, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese. There is no form to choose between. The pronunciation differs, kokoro in Japanese and xīn in Mandarin, but the shape is the same everywhere.
Placement is easy because the character is small and self-contained. It sits well on the inner wrist, behind the ear, or over the sternum. Just leave enough room for the hook at the end of the long stroke, which is the first detail to blur if the piece is inked too small.
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
FAQ
How do you say heart in Japanese?
You say kokoro, written 心. Three flat beats, “koh-koh-roh,” with no stress on any of them. That word means the heart as mind, feeling, and spirit. For the organ in your chest, Japanese uses a different word, 心臓 (shinzou), and for the pink cartoon shape it uses ハート (haato).
What is the kanji for heart?
The kanji for heart is 心, four strokes, Kangxi radical 61. Its readings are こころ (kokoro) on its own and シン (shin) inside compounds like 安心 (anshin, relief) and 決心 (kesshin, resolve). It is taught in the second year of Japanese primary school.
What is the Japanese symbol for heart?
心 is the symbol, and it began as a drawing of the organ, reduced over centuries to one long hooked curve and three short strokes. It also works as a building block: flattened to 忄 on the left of a character, or sitting whole underneath one, as in 思 (to think) and 悲 (sad).
How do you write kokoro in Japanese?
Three ways, all correct. 心 is the kanji and the standard form. こころ is hiragana, used in softer or more literary writing, and in the titles of songs and books. ココロ is katakana, which gives the word a modern, slightly detached feel and turns up often in pop lyrics and branding.
Is 心 the same character in Chinese?
Yes. Simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Japanese all write it as 心, with no variant forms to pick between. It is radical 61 in every system. Only the sound changes: kokoro or shin in Japanese, xīn in Mandarin. That makes it one of the safest characters to copy from a reference.
What is the difference between 心 and 心臓?
心 (kokoro) is the figurative heart: mind, feeling, spirit, intention, and the core of a thing. 心臓 (shinzou) is the medical organ, and it also carries a slang sense of nerve or gall, as in 心臓が強い, thick-skinned. Japanese keeps the two clearly apart, and swapping them sounds odd.