Kanji quizzes for the joy of reading
How do you read 蒲公英 in Japanese?
A familiar name, written differently.
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Unfamiliar kanji? Scan and look it up.Explore the OCR & AI dictionaryHow do you read this in Japanese?
Think of your answer before you look.
HINTShow hint
A familiar plant with yellow flowers and fluffy white seeds carried by the wind. Its Japanese reading has four hiragana characters.
More on radicals and this quiz’s stroke counts
Describe the shapes you see
You do not need to know the radical’s name. Try these searches for this quiz’s characters.
kanji with grass radical above 浦
kanji with ハ above ム
kanji with grass radical above 央
These searches describe visual similarities, not formal radicals or character components.
The grass radical in 蒲 and 英 often appears in plant-related kanji. 公 is classified under 八. Radicals alone cannot tell you the Japanese reading of 蒲公英.
蒲13 strokes / radical: 艸 (grass radical)
公4 strokes / radical: 八 (eight radical)
英8 strokes / radical: 艸 (grass radical)
Stroke counts and radicals follow the Japanese dictionary Kanjipedia; other dictionaries may differ.
ANSWERShow answerHide answer
The answer is
たんぽぽ
tanpopo
蒲公英
Understand the meaning
English translationDandelion
This word means dandelion, a plant in the aster family found in fields and along paths. Its fluffy seed heads let the wind carry the seeds. 蒲公英 is its kanji spelling.
See it in a sentence
道ばたの蒲公英の綿毛が、風に乗って飛んでいった。The dandelion fluff by the path drifted away on the wind.
A way to remember
Learn the whole spelling 蒲公英 as the plant’s name rather than combining each character’s on-reading.
Sources：Kanjipedia: 蒲公英
The explanation draws on the sources below. Examples were written for this page.
Explore the word further
Using 蒲公英
Use 蒲公英 in phrases such as 蒲公英が咲く and 蒲公英の綿毛. Adding where you found it helps a reader picture a walk.
例：校庭の隅に咲いた蒲公英を、観察ノートに描いた。
I drew the dandelion growing in a corner of the school grounds in my observation notebook.
Reading and meaning in context
The three characters form one plant name. Read the whole expression as たんぽぽ rather than treating 蒲 as a separate plant name.
References for this explanation：Kanjipedia: 蒲公英
Explanation checked on 2026-10-23. Additional examples were written by DuraRing for this page.
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