The four seasons in kanji (春 夏 秋 冬)

Japanese has one kanji for each season: 春 (haru), spring, 夏 (natsu), summer, 秋 (aki), autumn, and 冬 (fuyu), winter. Each hides a small picture: the sun and new shoots in spring, a person in summer, grain beside a fire in autumn, and ice in winter. Most of those pictures are close to the real history, and two of them go back further than they look.

What the kanji say

春 (haru, shun) is spring. Its oldest forms combine 艸, plants, 日, the sun, and 屯, a sprouting shoot, which also gave the sound. Over time the plants and the shoot merged into the top of today’s 春, and the sun stayed at the bottom: sunshine, and things starting to grow.

夏 (natsu, ka) is summer. It began as a drawing of a person: 頁, a head, at the top, and 夂, feet, at the bottom. In the oldest forms the person stands under the sun, which dropped out later.

秋 (aki, shuu) is autumn: 禾, a grain plant, next to 火, fire.

冬 (fuyu, tou) is winter: two short strokes of ice, 冫, under a shape that looks like 夂.

Where they really come from

Spring and summer are close to the history. 屯 is mainly there for its sound, but it’s a sprout too, so “the sun and plants coming up” is fair. And 夏 really was a person: Wiktionary sums up its oldest form as a “man under the scorching sun”, which makes the meaning easy to remember.

Autumn is older and stranger. Its oldest forms are a picture of an insect, a cricket or a locust, sometimes with fire underneath. The grain, 禾, was added later. Today 秋 is often read as grain and fire, and one explanation links them to farming: after the harvest, fields were burned to kill locusts and their eggs.

Winter’s ice is real, and so is its “end”. The top of 冬 began as a cord with a knot at each end, meaning the end of something, a meaning now written 終, as in 終わり (owari), the end. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from around 100 CE, defines 冬 as the time when the four seasons run out, and the ice was added later to make the meaning clear.

How to use them

• 春が来ましたね。

  Haru ga kimashita ne.

  Spring is here, isn't it?

• 夏休みはどこに行きますか。

  Natsuyasumi wa doko ni ikimasu ka.

  Where are you going for the summer holidays?

• 秋は紅葉がきれいです。

  Aki wa kouyou ga kirei desu.

  In autumn, the leaves turn beautiful colours.

• 冬になると、雪が降ります。

  Fuyu ni naru to, yuki ga furimasu.

  When winter comes, it snows.

• On their own, the seasons use Japanese readings: haru, natsu, aki, fuyu. Many compound words switch to Chinese-style readings: 春分 (shunbun), the spring equinox, 夏至 (geshi), the summer solstice, 秋分 (shuubun), the autumn equinox, and 冬至 (touji), the winter solstice.
• All four at once: 四季 (shiki) means the four seasons, and 春夏秋冬 (shunkashuutou) lists them in a single word.
• Autumn has nicknames. It’s called 食欲の秋 (shokuyoku no aki), the season of good appetite, and 読書の秋 (dokusho no aki), the best season for reading.
• Spring stands for youth. 青春 (seishun), “blue spring”, means your youth, the springtime of life.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Spring is the sun and new shoots. Summer is someone standing in the heat. Autumn is grain beside a fire. Winter is the end of the year, with ice underneath.

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

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Sources

• Wiktionary: 秋 (glyph origin)
• Wiktionary: 夏 (glyph origin)
• Dong Chinese: 春
• Dong Chinese: 夏
• Dong Chinese: 冬

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.