Japanese kanji 対

対 marks a relationship in Japanese: facing, opposing, responding, comparing, or pairing. The surrounding word tells you which.

Text symbol

What 対 means

It marks a relation; the full word gives its sense.

対戦 means a contest; 対話 means dialogue.

Older 對 appears in Shang oracle-bone carvings (on animal bones and turtle shells) and early Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. Its original image is debated; one account pictures people facing as they tamp earth. Bronze inscriptions also use it for replies and thanks. Postwar Japan standardized 対 as a reduced form of 對; the 1948 proposal favored forms easier to read and write. Fonts may vary its strokes across devices without changing the character.

Neutral in Japanese writing; alone, it needs context.

Part of the collection

漢

Kanji (Japanese Characters)

Who writes 対

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What it means when someone sends it to you

3 readings

Contest or opposition.

Don't confuse it with

對

CJK Unified Ideograph-5C0D

対 vs 對: 對 is standard in traditional Chinese; Japanese standard writing uses 対.

对

CJK Unified Ideograph-5Bf9

対 vs 对: 对 is the mainland Chinese simplified form; Japanese uses 対.

Questions people ask

Why does 対 show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.