Life in Japanese is 命 (inochi) when you mean the life a person has and can lose, and 生 (sei) when you mean living, growing, being alive. For a lifetime in the biographical sense, the everyday word is 人生 (jinsei). Choosing between them changes what you are saying.
Life in Japanese
命 (inochi), eight strokes, is life as a possession and a span: the thing a doctor saves and a memorial records. 生 (sei), five strokes, is life as activity: living, birth, growth, freshness. 人生 (jinsei) is the shape of one person’s years, and 生命 (seimei) is life in the biological sense.
The Kanji for Life: 命 and 生
命 (inochi) is life as a possession and a span. The thing you can save, risk, or lose.
- On’yomi: メイ (mei), ミョウ (myou)
- Kun’yomi: いのち (inochi)
- Stroke count: 8
- Core meaning: life, life force, fate, command
- Radical: 口 (mouth), radical 30, the element at the lower left
生 (sei) is life as activity. Living, growing, being born, being raw and unfinished.
- On’yomi: セイ (sei), ショウ (shou)
- Kun’yomi: い(きる) (ikiru), う(まれる) (umareru), は(える) (haeru), なま (nama), き (ki), and more
- Stroke count: 5
- Core meaning: life, birth, living, raw
- Radical: 生 is itself a radical, number 100
Japanese Symbol for Life
生 is the older picture. It shows a sprout pushing up through the ground line, growth caught at the moment it breaks the surface. Everything the character does, from being born to being uncooked, comes back to that image of something new and not yet processed.
命 is assembled rather than drawn. A roof-like element derived from 人 (person) sits over 口 (mouth) and 卩, a shape usually read as a kneeling figure. The traditional explanation is an order spoken from above to someone kneeling to receive it, which is why 命 still means “command” as well as “life.” The life you have is the one you were handed.
How to Write Life in Japanese
命 takes eight strokes and works from the top down. The two strokes of the 人 roof come first, left then right, then the short horizontal underneath. 口 follows at the lower left in three strokes, and the small 卩 element closes the character on the right. Keep the roof wide; it has to shelter both lower components or the balance collapses.
生 takes five, also top down. The short diagonal at the upper left comes first, and the long horizontal across the base is written last, closing the character the way the bottom bar closes 土. Draw the central vertical slightly long. It is the axis everything else hangs on, and a short one makes the character look squashed.
How to Say Life in Japanese
命 is inochi, three even beats, “ee-noh-chee,” with no stressed syllable. Its on reading mei rhymes with the English “may.” 生 as sei sounds like “say,” and as shou like “show” without the drawn-out w. The kun readings change the vowel entirely: ikiru is “ee-kee-roo,” nama is “nah-mah.”
Five sentences to keep:
- 命は大切です。(Inochi wa taisetsu desu.) Life is precious.
- 私は東京で生まれました。(Watashi wa Toukyou de umaremashita.) I was born in Tokyo.
- 人生は一度きりです。(Jinsei wa ichido kiri desu.) You only get one life.
- 一生懸命がんばります。(Isshoukenmei ganbarimasu.) I will give it everything I have.
- 生ビールをください。(Nama biiru o kudasai.) A draft beer, please.
Words and Compounds With 命 and 生
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 生命 | seimei | life in the biological sense |
| 運命 | unmei | fate, destiny |
| 命令 | meirei | an order, a command |
| 寿命 | jumyou | lifespan |
| 人生 | jinsei | a human life, a lifetime |
| 生活 | seikatsu | daily life, the business of living |
| 学生 | gakusei | student |
| 誕生 | tanjou | birth |
命 leans grave. It is the word in a hospital, in a war memorial, in the sentence about the single life you were given. 生 is broader and lighter, and it turns up everywhere because it covers living, producing, and rawness at once.
Why 生 Has So Many Readings
生 is routinely named the kanji with the most readings in the language. The on side is ordinary enough, セイ and ショウ. The kun side is where it multiplies: い as in 生きる (ikiru, to live), う as in 生まれる (umareru, to be born), は as in 生える (haeru, to grow or sprout), お as in 生う, plus なま (raw) and き (pure or undiluted) standing alone.
That is a dozen or more distinct pronunciations for one five-stroke character, and native readers sort them by context without noticing. It also means 生 is one of the few characters where a learner genuinely cannot guess. 生ビール is nama, 生徒 is sei, 一生 is shou, 生い立ち is o. The word teaches the reading, not the other way round.
Life in Japanese Culture
一生懸命 (isshoukenmei), giving something everything you have, is one of the most used phrases in spoken Japanese: schoolwork, sport, a job interview. It began as 一所懸命, “one place, staked life,” describing Kamakura-era warriors who defended a single inherited plot of land with their lives. Over the centuries 所 (place) softened into 生 (life), and the phrase widened from land to effort.
The other place this character family lives is ikigai, the reason you get up in the morning. It is written 生き甲斐, and the 生 in it is the verb: not life as a noun to be protected, but living as something you do.
The Life Kanji as a Tattoo
Pick 命 if you mean the weight of a life. Pick 生 if you mean the act of living. That is the honest short version.
命 is the more common tattoo choice and the safer one for meaning. Eight strokes with a strong roof element on top give it a solid, grounded silhouette that holds up at medium and large sizes. Its gravity is the point, and it is often chosen after loss or survival.
生 is visually cleaner at five strokes, but it carries a translation risk. Standing alone with no surrounding word, 生 may well read as “raw” before it reads as “life.” It is the character on every draft beer tap in Japan and on the label of anything sold uncooked. Nobody will be confused about your intent for long, but you should know the reading exists.
Both characters are written identically in Japanese and simplified Chinese, so there is no script conflict here. For placement, 命 suits the forearm, ribs, and upper back, anywhere it can be read cleanly at a reasonable size, because the internal strokes crowd if it is shrunk too far. 生 tolerates small placements better.
If a single character feels too flat, the compounds carry more: 一生懸命 for wholehearted effort, or 生き様 (ikizama) for the way a person lives. Confirm with a native speaker before you ink.
Preview either character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and see how it fits the wider tradition in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
FAQ
How do you say life in Japanese?
Say 命 (inochi, “ee-noh-chee”) for a life as something precious that can be lost, and 人生 (jinsei) for a lifetime, the years a person lives. 生きる (ikiru) is the verb “to live.” Which one you want depends on whether you mean the possession or the activity.
What is the Japanese symbol for life?
命 and 生 are both used. 生, five strokes, is the older picture: a sprout breaking through the ground line. 命, eight strokes, is built from a roof over 口 (mouth) and a kneeling figure, an order handed down. 命 is the character most often chosen when “life” is meant as a single symbol.
What is the kanji for life?
There are two. 命 (inochi) means life as something you possess and can lose, and also means fate or command. 生 (sei) means life as living, birth, and growth. 命 has eight strokes, 生 has five, and both are standard modern Japanese taught in primary school.
How many strokes does 命 have?
Eight. The 人 roof takes two, the horizontal beneath it one, 口 at the lower left three, and the small 卩 on the right two. Its radical is 口. 生, the other kanji for life, takes five strokes and is its own radical, number 100.
Should I get 命 or 生 tattooed?
Choose 命 for the weight and preciousness of a life, which is the usual intent behind a life tattoo. Choose 生 for the ongoing act of living. Be aware that 生 alone can also read as raw or fresh, since it is the character on draft beer taps and packaged sashimi across Japan.
What does 一生懸命 mean?
It means doing something with everything you have, literally staking your whole life on it. The phrase started as 一所懸命, a Kamakura warrior defending one plot of inherited land to the death, and the “place” character was later replaced by the “life” one. It is used constantly in daily Japanese.