How to Pronounce a Kanji When Just Reading it by Itself


I'll elaborate the title with a scenario. If I was, say, in a scenario where I
was talking about my favorite kanji, and said "Oh, my favorite kanji is 悪" how
do I pronounce 悪 in that scenario? あく? わる? Any of its other on or kun'yomi
readings?

In short, I'm asking...when referring to some kanji character by itself in a
conversation, which reading is most appropriate?




You should use the most distinguishable reading, and the kun-reading is
usually better for this purpose, although there can be exceptions. In your
case, saying わるい can safely specify which kanji you are referring to, but the
on-reading あく is shared by another easy kanji (握). Many on-readings are worse
(e.g., ひょう = 表, 票, 評, 豹, 標, 雹, ...). Note that even kun-readings can have
homophones (e.g., はな = 花, 鼻; はなす = 話, 離, 放).

When you cannot think of a distinct reading (which is very common), you can
give a compound or a set phrase as an example using [の meaning "as
in"](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/42531/5010). For example, you can
say 善悪の悪 to refer to 悪, or say 握手の握 to refer to 握 over the phone.

See this answer for alternative methods to convey kanji in speech: [Japanese
don't learn kanji meaning only readings? Does it make sense for a kanji to
have a key meaning to identify
it?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/9570/5010)

