Meanings
- self-effacing
- humble oneself
- condescend
- be modest
謙 is a JLPT N1 kanji meaning self-effacing, humble oneself, condescend, written with 17 strokes. It is read ケン (on) and へりくだる (kun). It is one of the jōyō kanji taught in secondary school. You will see it in 謙虚 (けんきょ, modest) and 謙遜 (けんそん, modesty).
On'yomi: from Chinese, written in katakana. Used in compound words.
Kun'yomi: native Japanese, in hiragana. The faint part is the okurigana, written in kana after the kanji.
Every stroke in order, the live one in vermilion. Replay as often as you like.
Trace each stroke in order. Wrong direction or wrong order gets flagged right away.
Your turn: draw stroke 1 of 17. Start at the dot.
The most useful words written with it, easiest first. Every other kanji in them opens its own page.
to deprecate oneself and praise the listener
It's free to start, from hiragana to your first kanji. Get in early and your account keeps every step.
Stroke order from KanjiVG © Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Readings, meanings and words from KANJIDIC2 and JMdict, names from JMnedict, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata, CC0. JLPT lists after Jonathan Waller (tanos.co.uk), CC BY.