Student in Japanese

Student in Japanese is 学生, said gakusei. Two kanji: 学 (learning), eight strokes under the child radical 子, and 生 (life, a person), five strokes. Both are first-grade characters. In careful Japanese the word means a college or university student, not a schoolchild. Written in hiragana it is がくせい, and in katakana ガクセイ.

Student in Japanese

Stand on a Tokyo platform at a quarter to eight on a weekday and you can sort the crowd by the word Japanese would use for each of them.

The small children in matching caps, leather randoseru backpacks bouncing, are 児童 (jidou), primary school pupils. The teenagers in navy blazers and sailor collars, earbuds in, vocabulary cards in hand, are 生徒 (seito), junior high and high school pupils. And the yawning twenty-year-old in a hoodie, heading for a ten o’clock lecture, is the 学生 (gakusei).

In English all three are students. In official Japanese they are three different words, and the line between them is the school gate. In everyday talk the edges blur, and anyone in full-time education will answer yes to 学生ですか？ (gakusei desu ka?), are you a student? But a teacher at a high school speaks of 生徒, not 学生.

Gakusei Meaning

Gakusei (学生) means a student, and specifically someone studying at a university, junior college or college of technology. In hiragana it is がくせい, in katakana ガクセイ, and it is said “gahk-say,” with the u in gaku barely voiced. Japan’s School Education Act and the standards for each type of school reserve 学生 for higher education and use 生徒 and 児童 for the levels below.

In conversation, people mostly name the stage instead: 小学生 (shougakusei), a primary schooler, 中学生 (chuugakusei), a junior high student, 高校生 (koukousei), a high schooler, and 大学生 (daigakusei), a university student. Every one of them ends in 生. That character is doing the work of “student,” and the first part tells you which school.

The word is older than the system. In the classical court, 学生 was read gakushou and named the young aristocrats studying at the state academy, and also the scholar monks of great temples such as Mount Hiei. By the Edo period the reading gakusei was in use for anyone devoted to study, and in the Meiji era the word was taken up as the translation of the English “student.” The legal line that ties it to universities was drawn in 1946.

One more word sits nearby. 弟子 (deshi) is a disciple or apprentice, the student of a master rather than a school, which is what you are in a dojo or a potter’s workshop.

The Kanji for Student: 学生

• Character: 学
• On’yomi: ガク (gaku)
• Kun’yomi: まな(ぶ) (manabu, to learn)
• Stroke count: 8
• General meaning: learning, study, scholarship, school
• Radical: 子 (child), Kangxi radical 39

And the second half of the word:

• Character: 生
• On’yomi: セイ (sei), ショウ (shou)
• Kun’yomi: い(きる) (ikiru, to live), う(まれる) (umareru, to be born), なま (nama, raw), and several more
• Stroke count: 5
• General meaning: life, birth, living, raw, and in compounds a student or person
• Radical: 生 is itself a radical, Kangxi number 100

Both are taught in the first year of Japanese primary school. 生 has one of the longest reading lists in the Jōyō table, more than ten official readings, which is why it turns up in so many words.

Japanese Symbol for Student

学 keeps a child at its center. The bottom of the character is 子, a small figure with arms out, and the strokes above it are a roof with marks over it. The older, much busier form, 學, which the Jōyō table still lists in brackets, makes the picture clearer: a roof, crossed marks above it, a pair of hands on either side, and the child underneath. Whatever else the scholars argue about, learning in this character happens to a child, under a roof, with help.

生 began as a picture of a young plant pushing up out of the ground. That is why it means life, birth and growing things, and why it also means raw, as in 生ビール (nama biiru), draft beer, or 生魚 (namazakana), raw fish. Something still fresh from the ground.

Put together, 学生 is a person in the growing stage of learning. And look at the word for teacher: 先生 (sensei) uses the same 生, with 先 (before) in front. The teacher is the one born, or grown, ahead of you. Our guide to Japanese honorifics explains how sensei works as a title.

How to Write 学生 in Japanese

Thirteen strokes across the two characters, each written top to bottom.

学 takes eight. Begin with the three short strokes on top, left, middle, then the right one slanting down to the left. Then the lid, 冖, in two: a short dot on the left, then a horizontal that turns down at the right corner. Then 子 in three: a horizontal that bends back down to the left, the long vertical with a hook at its foot, and finally the horizontal arm across the middle.

生 takes five. First the short slanting stroke at the top left. Then the short horizontal beside it, then the long vertical dropping through the whole character. Then the middle horizontal, and last the long horizontal across the bottom, wider than the other two.

The trap is 学 versus 字 (ji, a written character). Both have 子 at the bottom. 字 has the full roof 宀, with a dot on top, and no strokes above it. 学 has the three short strokes and a flat lid. Mixing them up turns “student” into nonsense.

How to Say Student in Japanese

Gakusei is said “gahk-say.” The u in gaku is whispered so lightly that most speakers drop it, and sei is pronounced like the English “say,” a long e rather than “sigh.” Four beats in Japanese, ga-ku-se-i, with no stress on any of them.

Real sentences:

• 私は学生です。(Watashi wa gakusei desu.) I am a student.
• 兄は大学生です。(Ani wa daigakusei desu.) My older brother is a university student.
• 学割はありますか。(Gakuwari wa arimasu ka.) Is there a student discount?
• 彼女は留学生です。(Kanojo wa ryuugakusei desu.) She is an international student.
• 学生時代が懐かしい。(Gakusei jidai ga natsukashii.) I miss my student days.

That last word, natsukashii, is its own small world of feeling. It is explained on natsukashii.

Words and Compounds With 学 and 生

学割 is short for 学生割引 (gakusei waribiki), and you will see it on everything from train passes to phone plans. 生徒会 is the council every manga high school seems to be run by. In real life it is a council of junior high or high school pupils that organizes events and student affairs, and its president, the 生徒会長 (seitokaichou), is a fixture of school fiction.

受験生 deserves a moment. It means a student preparing for entrance exams, usually in the final year of school, and the word carries the whole weight of that year: cram school until nine, a desk lamp until one, an omamori for exam success in the pencil case.

Student in Japanese Culture

The Japanese school year starts in spring. By regulation, the primary school year begins on April 1 and ends on March 31, and junior high and high schools follow the same calendar. The 入学式 (nyuugakushiki), the entrance ceremony, falls in early April, often under the last of the cherry blossoms, and a whole country of new students has its photograph taken beside a school gate.

Inside the school, the year you started decides a great deal. Older students are your senpai, younger ones your 後輩 (kouhai), and that relationship, built in club activities called 部活 (bukatsu), can outlast school by decades. Teachers are 先生, and students do not use a teacher’s given name.

Students also clean. In Japanese schools, pupils usually sweep their own classrooms and corridors rather than leaving it to staff, a routine that is part of the same thinking behind osoji, the year-end cleaning.

And under all of it sits an attitude Japanese prizes in learners of any age, shoshin, the beginner’s mind. A student is not only someone enrolled somewhere. It is a way of standing in front of something you do not yet know.

As a Tattoo

学生 on skin says “student,” exactly as it would on an ID card. It is a category, not a value, and a Japanese reader will read it the way an English speaker reads the word “student” printed on a lanyard. It is not offensive. It is just flat.

If the idea you want is learning as a lifelong practice, look at the parts instead. 学 alone means learning or study, and it reads well. 初心 (shoshin), beginner’s mind, carries the attitude behind being a student. Both are more like what people usually mean.

Watch 生 on its own. It means life and birth, but in daily Japanese it is just as often raw or draft: 生 on a menu means draft beer or uncooked food. A single 生 is ambiguous in a way its English translation is not.

On script: Japanese and simplified Chinese both write 学生 the same way. Traditional Chinese writes 學生, with the older, busier form of 学. In Mandarin the word is xuéshēng. If you want the Japanese form, copy 学, not 學.

Thirteen strokes across two characters is comfortable at a modest size, but keep the three short strokes on top of 学 clearly apart, since they are the first detail to blur.

Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the characters in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.

Related Kanji

• Person in Japanese
• Life in Japanese
• Friend in Japanese
• Dream in Japanese
• Master in Japanese
• Book in Japanese

For more characters from everyday Japanese life, browse the kanji library.

Sources and Further Reading

• 常用漢字表 (Jōyō Kanji Table, 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the readings of 学, the twelve readings of 生, and the bracketed traditional form 學
• U+5B66 学, Unihan Database, Unicode Consortium radical 39 (子) and eight strokes
• 音訓の小・中・高等学校段階別割り振り表, Ministry of Education (MEXT) 学 and 生 as first-grade kanji
• 学生, Digital Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten and Nipponica (Kotobank) 学生 as a higher-education student under the School Education Act, the classical reading gakushou, and the 1946 legal definition
• 学校教育法施行規則 (Enforcement Regulations for the School Education Act), e-Gov Article 59, the school year from April 1 to March 31

FAQ

How do you say student in Japanese?

You say gakusei, written 学生, pronounced “gahk-say” with the u almost silent. That is the general word and the one you use to say you are a student: 学生です. For school levels people usually say 小学生, 中学生, 高校生 or 大学生, each ending in the same 生.

What is the difference between gakusei and seito?

学生 (gakusei) is officially a student in higher education, such as a university. 生徒 (seito) is a pupil at junior high or high school, and primary children are 児童 (jidou). In casual speech 学生 often covers everyone, but teachers and schools keep the distinction.

What is the kanji for student?

Student is written with two kanji, 学生. 学 means learning, eight strokes under the child radical 子, Kangxi number 39. 生 means life or a living person, five strokes, and is radical 100 in its own right. Both are taught in the first year of primary school.

How do you say “I am a student” in Japanese?

Say 私は学生です (watashi wa gakusei desu), or simply 学生です in conversation, since Japanese often drops “I.” A university student can be more specific with 大学生です (daigakusei desu), and an exchange student with 留学生です (ryuugakusei desu).

Why do sensei and gakusei both use 生?

Because 生 means a person in the sense of someone living and growing. 先生 (sensei) puts 先, before, in front of it: the one who came ahead of you. 学生 (gakusei) puts 学, learning, in front of it: the one still learning. Teacher and student share a character.

Is 学生 the same in Chinese?

In simplified Chinese, yes, it is written 学生 exactly as in Japanese, and read xuéshēng. Traditional Chinese uses the older form 學生. The meaning is the same, but Chinese uses it more broadly for students at any level, without the Japanese school-law distinction.