Wind in Japanese

Wind in Japanese is 風, said kaze. Nine strokes: a curved frame with a short horizontal and 虫 tucked inside it. It is Kangxi radical 182 in its own right, and it means both the moving air and the style of a thing. Written in hiragana it is かぜ, and in katakana カゼ.

Wind in Japanese

Wind in Japanese is 風, and the spoken word is kaze. 風が強い means the wind is strong, and that is the word in a forecast, a haiku, or a conversation about the weather.

The on’yomi フウ (fuu) does a second job that surprises learners. 風 also means style, manner, or the way something is done. 和風 (wafuu) is Japanese style, 洋風 (youfuu) is Western style, 作風 (sakufuu) is an artist’s manner, 風習 (fuushuu) is a custom. So a Japanese menu offering 和風ハンバーグ is not promising a windy hamburger.

The Kanji for Wind: 風

• Character: 風
• On’yomi: フウ (fuu), フ (fu)
• Kun’yomi: かぜ (kaze), かざ (kaza-) in compounds
• Stroke count: 9
• General meaning: wind, air, and by extension style, manner, appearance
• Radical: 風 is itself a radical, Kangxi number 182, with no strokes added

It is taught in the second year of Japanese primary school and sits at JLPT N4, learned early because weather is one of the first things anyone talks about.

Japanese Symbol for Wind

風 has a stranger origin than most, and the honest version begins with a bird.

The oldest oracle bone forms of this word drew a phoenix, feathers and all. Wind was not something you could picture directly, so the writing system borrowed the character for a great bird that moved through the air. Over time the bird was replaced: 凡 came in as the phonetic element, giving the outer frame, and 虫 settled underneath it.

That 虫 is worth explaining, because it looks like an error. It is the element for insects and small creeping creatures, and its presence in 風 comes from an old idea that wind and small crawling things were connected, not from any picture of a bug in a breeze. It is a fossil of a worldview rather than a diagram.

So the composition is a frame enclosing a short horizontal over 虫, and the meaning it carries is wind. As a radical it heads a small family of characters for particular winds. One of them, 颪 (oroshi), the wind that pours down off a mountainside, was invented in Japan rather than borrowed from China.

How to Write 風 in Japanese

Nine strokes, and the frame comes first, which is the rule for any character with a wrap-around enclosure.

Begin with the stroke on the left, falling down and slightly left. Then the long stroke that runs across the top, turns down the right side, curves, and finishes in an upward hook. Those two make the frame, and everything else goes inside it.

Then the short horizontal near the top of the enclosure. Then 虫 in six: the short vertical, the stroke that crosses and turns down to close the small box, the horizontal inside it, then the long vertical dropping through, then the horizontal crossing that, and finally the dot at the lower right.

The hook at the end of the second stroke is the character’s signature. Let it flick. A flat, hookless right side makes 風 look like a closed box, and the whole point of the shape is that it leans and lifts.

How to Say Wind in Japanese

Kaze is two even beats: “kah-zeh.” The a is open as in “father,” the e is short as in “bed,” and the z is a true z. Neither syllable takes a stress. Fuu is one syllable held for two beats, “foo,” with that soft two-lipped f rather than an English teeth-on-lip f.

Real sentences:

• 今日は風が強いです。(Kyou wa kaze ga tsuyoi desu.) The wind is strong today.
• 気持ちのいい風が吹いている。(Kimochi no ii kaze ga fuite iru.) A pleasant breeze is blowing.
• 風鈴の音が聞こえます。(Fuurin no oto ga kikoemasu.) I can hear the wind chime.
• 台風が近づいています。(Taifuu ga chikazuite imasu.) A typhoon is approaching.
• 和風の部屋が好きです。(Wafuu no heya ga suki desu.) I like Japanese-style rooms.

Words and Compounds With 風

Two traps are worth knowing. 風邪 is also read kaze, but it means a cold, the illness. The spelling comes from Chinese medical vocabulary and was in use by around 984. 風邪をひく is to catch a cold. 風が吹く is the wind blowing.

And 風呂 (furo), the bath, is written with 風 for the sound alone. The word shifted from 室 (muro, a cellar), and there is no wind in a Japanese bath.

Wind in Japanese Culture

The wind has a face, a season, and a war story.

The face is Fujin, 風神, the wind god, who carries a great bag of winds slung across his shoulders and is almost always painted or carved beside his brother Raijin, the thunder god. The pair stand at the Kaminarimon in Asakusa, whose official name is 風雷神門, the Gate of the Wind and Thunder Gods, with Fujin on the east and Raijin on the west. Tawaraya Sotatsu’s folding screen of the two is one of the most reproduced images in Japanese art.

The season is summer, and its instrument is the 風鈴 (fuurin), a small wind chime hung at an open window or under the eaves. A strip of paper called a 短冊 (tanzaku) hangs from the clapper so the lightest breeze sets it ringing. Glass ones, 江戸風鈴, were first made in the late Edo period and remain the most popular kind. The sound is not decoration. It is understood to make a hot room feel cooler, which is a small piece of practical psychology that Japan has trusted for two centuries.

The war story is 神風 (kamikaze), divine wind. Mongol fleets attempted to invade Japan in 1274 and again in 1281, and typhoons wrecked them both times. The storms were read as protection sent by the gods. The more common historical reading of those characters was shinpuu, and the pronunciation kamikaze reached English through the suicide pilots of the Second World War, who were named after those medieval storms.

As a Tattoo

風 is one of the best-shaped characters in the writing system for ink. The curved frame with its hook gives real movement, and nine strokes is enough weight to hold up without ever getting crowded.

Know that it means style as well as wind. Standing alone, 風 reads as wind first, so a single-character tattoo is safe. But the second meaning is why 風 turns up on so many restaurant signs, and a Japanese reader is quietly aware of both senses at once.

Watch the pairings, and this character has a famous one. 風邪 is a common cold. 中風 (chuufuu) is palsy. And 神風 (kamikaze) is not a general word for divine wind in modern usage, it is loaded with the suicide missions of 1944 and 1945, and it reads very differently in Korea and China than it does on a t-shirt in Europe.

There is a real script decision here. Japanese and traditional Chinese both write the character 風. Simplified Chinese writes it 风, a four-stroke shape with the interior stripped out. If your reference shows 风, it is not the Japanese form, and copying it gives you a Chinese tattoo. Check before you sit down.

The character reads well at medium and large sizes on the forearm, shoulder blade, calf, or ribs. Keep the interior open. The small enclosed spaces inside 虫 close up as ink spreads over the years, and once they do the frame goes solid.

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

• Lightning in Japanese
• Rain in Japanese
• Kanji for Water
• Kanji for Tree

FAQ

How do you say wind in Japanese?

You say kaze, written 風. Two flat beats, “kah-zeh,” with an open a and a short e, and no stress on either syllable. In compounds the character switches to its on’yomi fuu, as in 台風 (taifuu, typhoon) and 風鈴 (fuurin, wind chime), or to kaza-, as in 風車 (kazaguruma, a pinwheel).

What is the kanji for wind?

The kanji for wind is 風, nine strokes, and it is Kangxi radical 182 in its own right. It is built as an outer frame enclosing a short horizontal over 虫. Readings are かぜ (kaze) and フウ (fuu), and it is taught in the second year of Japanese primary school.

What is the Japanese symbol for wind?

風 is the written symbol. The cultural symbol is Fujin, 風神, the wind god with a bag of winds over his shoulders, painted and carved beside the thunder god Raijin at temple gates across Japan. In everyday summer life the symbol is smaller: the 風鈴 wind chime at an open window.

How do you write kaze in Japanese?

風 is the kanji for wind, かぜ is hiragana, and カゼ is katakana. Be careful with the kanji specifically: 風邪, read the same way, means a cold, the illness. In writing, the character is what separates the two words. In speech, only context does.

Is 風 the same character in Chinese?

Traditional Chinese writes it 風, exactly as Japanese does. Simplified Chinese writes it 风, a stripped-down four-stroke form with the interior removed. So the answer depends on which Chinese you mean, and it matters for tattoos: a reference image showing 风 is not the Japanese form.

Why does 風 also mean style?

Because the character extended from moving air to the way something carries itself, in the same way English speaks of the prevailing wind of an era. It gives 和風 (Japanese style), 洋風 (Western style), 作風 (an artist’s manner), and 風格 (personal bearing). The two senses have coexisted for a very long time.