3 shop signs to know in Japan (新 半額 無料)

Three signs you’ll see all over Japanese shops are 新 (shin), new, 半額 (hangaku), half price, and 無料 (muryou), free. Read kanji by kanji, they say exactly that: 半額 is “half the amount” and 無料 is “no fee”. Two of them save you money, and the third tells you what has just come out.

What the kanji say

新 (shin) means new; the everyday adjective is 新しい (atarashii). On boxes and shelf labels it appears as 新発売 (shinhatsubai), a new release, and 新品 (shinpin), a brand-new item. The right half, 斤, is an axe, and the left half has 木, a tree, at the bottom.

半 (han) means half. It’s made of 八, to divide, on top of 牛, a cow: a cow cut into two halves. The two short strokes at the top are what’s left of the 八.

額 (gaku) is an amount, especially of money, and also a picture frame. Its right side, 頁, began as a drawing of a head: the kanji first meant the forehead. Japanese still uses it for that, with another reading: 額 (hitai), forehead.

無 (mu) means no, none or without. It’s the 無 in 無理 (muri), impossible, literally “without reason”.

料 (ryou) is a fee or charge, as in 料金 (ryoukin), fee, and 送料 (souryou), shipping. Its parts are 米, rice, and 斗, a ladle used for measuring, and its first meaning was to measure.

Where they really come from

The signs are simple, but two of the kanji have strange histories.

新 first meant firewood: an axe (斤) cutting a tree (木), with 辛 at the top of the left half for its sound. Over time the meaning shifted to “fresh” and “new”, and firewood got a kanji of its own: 薪 (maki), which is 新 with a grass radical on top.

無 began as a dancer. Its oldest form shows a person dancing with ox tails or feathers hanging from the arms. The kanji was then borrowed to write a word for “not have” that sounded the same, and “not have” took over. The dancer moved to a new kanji built on the old one: 舞 (mai), dance.

How to use it

• これ、新発売です。

  Kore, shinhatsubai desu.

  This one's just come out.

• お弁当が半額になってる！

  Obentou ga hangaku ni natteru!

  The bento boxes have gone half price!

• 入場は無料です。

  Nyuujou wa muryou desu.

  Admission is free.

• ご飯のおかわりは無料です。

  Gohan no okawari wa muryou desu.

  Rice refills are free.

• この駐車場は有料です。

  Kono chuushajou wa yuuryou desu.

  This car park isn't free.

• Don’t mix up 無料 and 有料. 有料 (yuuryou), with 有, to have, means there is a fee. On a sign at a car park or an exhibition, 有料 means you pay.
• Look for the evening stickers. Near closing time, supermarkets put 半額 stickers on bento, side dishes and sashimi. Other stickers show how much is taken off: 100円引 (hyakuen biki) is 100 yen off.
• 割 counts tenths. 割引 (waribiki) means a discount, and the number in front of 割 is in tens of per cent: 2割引 (niwaribiki) is 20% off, not 2%.
• Free shipping and free refills: 送料無料 (souryou muryou) is free shipping, and おかわり無料 (okawari muryou) on a menu means free second helpings. In casual speech, people often say タダ (tada), free.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

A cow cut down the middle is half (半). A price tag that says “no fee” is free (無料). And 新, with its axe in the wood, is freshly cut: new.

The kanji in this lesson

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

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Dong Chinese: 新
• Dong Chinese: 無
• SoraNews24: supermarket discounts at closing time

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.