📖 Meaning & Origin
The 手 radical is a pictogram of an open hand with five fingers. As the variant 扌 on the left side of kanji, it signals hand-related actions — holding, throwing, operating, or manipulating.
📚 Kanji by JLPT Level
✍️ Where it appears & how it changes shape
手 stands alone, but on the left it becomes 扌, called てへん. This side form is everywhere in verbs: 持, 打, 押, 指, 投, 招, 拾, 探. Learning to see 扌 instantly is one of the fastest wins available in kanji study.
🔍 Don't confuse it with
Almost identical to 扌 at a glance, but it is a standalone kanji meaning talent or age (三才). The difference is the angle and length of the final stroke.
Also a three-to-four stroke shape on the left. 扌 has a hook on the vertical stroke; 木 does not.
📈 Beyond N5 — what comes next
| Kanji | Reading | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 持 | じ / もつ | to hold, to have | N4 |
| 打 | だ / うつ | to hit, to strike | N3 |
| 指 | し / ゆび | finger, to point | N3 |
| 押 | おう / おす | to push | N3 |
JLPT does not publish official kanji lists by level. These levels follow the commonly used reference lists and are a guide, not a guarantee.
🗣️ Words you will actually meet
Irregular. Note it is a na-adjective: 上手な.
Also irregular, and also a na-adjective.
🎯 How to use this radical in JLPT study
てへん marks physical actions performed with the hands, which in practice means it marks verbs. If a kanji you do not know carries 扌 and appears with を in a sentence, treating it as 'do something to this object by hand' will usually get you close enough to answer a reading question.
⚠️ The mistake I see most often
Learning 手 as an isolated kanji and never connecting it to 扌. Learners who make that connection late find that a whole block of N3 verbs suddenly becomes readable at once.
💡 Teacher's Memory Tip
Five fingers of a hand. When you see 扌 on the left side of a kanji, think 'someone is doing something with their hands.' Almost all 扌 kanji are action verbs.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
The 手 radical means 'hand.' As the 扌 variant, it appears in dozens of action verbs — because hands are how we interact with the world.
N5 kanji: 手 (hand). As you advance to N4/N3, you'll encounter 持 (hold), 指 (finger/point), 打 (strike) and many more action verbs with 扌.
Imagine a hand reaching out. The 扌 variant looks like a simplified hand. Whenever you see it on the left, think: 'a hand is doing this action.'
Other N5 Radicals
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