What's new

四字熟語~! 4 Kanji Phrases!

Kirakira1232

素敵な冒険始まる!
6 May 2008
467
16
28
こんにちは皆~!私は漢字がいつも難しくので、 四字熟語 を 勉強してしまうと思ていた。あなた達はどんなの 四字熟語 をしていますか。教えてくださいます。

Hey everyone~! I always seem to find Kanji very hard...so I thought maybe I should start learning about some "yojijukugo" or "four kanji phrases" in order to expand my kanji repertoire and learn some fun idiomatic phrases in Japanese. What yojijikugo do you guys know? I havent seen a "fun" kanji topic yet so I thought this would be cool for both native speakers and learners a like!

I guess the rules will be that you write the "yojijukugo" and then you dissect the kanji and explain the meanings (and the on and kun yomi if you wish) of each individual kanji then the meaning and context of the entire compound. Also if you can, use the yojijukugo in a sentence :).

Saa~! Hajimemashou yo~!

Yojijukugo itself is a 4 kanji phrase made up of:

四 - This is the kanji for "4" its also pronounced "yon" or rarely "shi".

字 - This is the kanji for "character" the other half of 漢字 (かんじ)

熟 - This is a character often found in compounds to do with "maturity" or "to ripen" such as 円熟(えんじゅく)、完熟(かんじゅく)

語 - This kanji on its own means "word" and is pronounced ことば but this is a rare reading nowadays. Its often read as 語る(かたる)which means to tell/narrate. However in compounds such as 日本語(にほんご)、中国語(ちゅうごくご)、it takes the onyomi of ご.

四字熟語 all together means "4 kanji phrase" which is an phrase that often has an idiomatic use in the Japanese language.

Saa~! I hope that explanation wasnt too terribly confusing. But yeah, what yojijukugo do you guys know? :)
 
Last edited:
OK, I'll select the one beginning with a number too.

五里霧中 gorimuchuu


meaning: five
pronunciation: onyomi; go, kunyomi; itsu - 五つ (itsutsu)


meaning: generally "a village/country/hometown", but in this case, "a unit to measure distance/length". 1里 equalls about 4km.
pronunciation: onyomi; ri, kunyomi; sato (the unit 里 is always pronounced as "ri".)


meaning: fog
pronunciation: onyomi; mu, kunyomi; kiri


meaning: inside, center
pronunciation: onyomi; chuu, kunyomi; naka


So, 五里霧中 means "in the 20km square wide fog" → "have no idea what has to do/is going to happen"

e.g.
この会社の行く末は五里霧中だ。
The future of this company is completely in the dark.
 
Last edited:
しりとりgame + yojijukugo ?って難しいですよね。
中途半端 chuutohanpa


meaning: inside, center
pronunciation: onyomi; chuu, kunyomi; naka


meaning: route
pron: on: to, kun: michi


meaning: half
pron: on: han, kun: naka-ba


meaning: point, end
on: tan, ha ; kun: hashi

I guess it's a yojijukugo....Meaning: not thorough or half-@**ed. 例:Aid to those disaster victims were so chuutohanpa, makes me sick. そんな中途半端な支援で人を救えるなんてありえない
 
Is this supposed to be a shiritori 4 kanji game?
^^; My japanese is so poor, so i dont know any, however there was a thread on japanese phrases and someone gave a link to Japanese proverbs - Wikiquote .

I chose one that i really liked, and its very simple to explain.

十人十色 ・ じゅうにんといろ ・ Jyuunin Toiro ・

十 ・ じゅう/と ・ jyuu/to ・ Ten
人 ・ にん ・ nin ・ Counter for people
色 ・ いろ ・ iro ・ Color

So

Ten people Ten colors

and the meaning is pretty easy to guess from there.
Different stokes for different folks. :p

I dont really know how to use it in a sentence o.o
 
To get back on shiritori track, something that starts with ro>>
浪人教師!
浪 - Meaning: Wandering, Waves
- Onyomi: Rou

人 - Meaning: Person
- Onyomi: Jin, Nin

教 - Meaning: Faith, Teach
- Onyomi: Kyou

師 - Meaning: Expert, Teacher, Master, War, Army
- Onyomi: Shi

浪人教師 = Wandering Teacher (Masterless Teacher)! Taken from the words Ronin - One without a master and Kyoushi - Teacher.
How to use in a sentence? =>そうだ!俺はその名高い先生。。。浪人教師だ!
This is a very useful sentence to use in daily life as it means>> Yes! I am the famous Teacher... Masterless Teacher!<<
 
cool, let's do this.
試行錯誤 shikousakugo - trial and error

試 - test, try
on: shi; kun: kokoro-miru, tame-su

行 - go, do
on: kou, gyou, etc.; kun: i-ku

錯 - confused
on: saku, shaku

誤 - mistake
on: go; kun: ayama-ru

例: 試行錯誤で学ぶ - learn on your own by doing it
 
ok too hard..
自画自賛 - じがじさん - self-praise

自:(kun)みずか・ら、(on)ジ、シ self
画:(kun)えが・く、(on)ガ,カク,エ,カイ、 plan, picture
:(on)サン、praise, agree

例文:いつも自分のことを自画自賛しすぎると嫌われると思う
people won't like you if you always toot your own horn
 
I am sure you are all aware, but Japanesepod101.com has a series of podcasts featrugin two 四字熟語 per lesson. They're great.
 
Last edited:
:erm: Fixed. Not sure what happened on that one.

I actually kind of liked it. I did something similar on a dictation test once. The teachers always told us just to write in hiragana, but I figured it would be a really good example to put my kanji writing to the test as well, so I would write in kanji as much as possible (we did have to put furigana along with the kanji to show we heard it right, though, which I think only helped me more). So during one test, I just completely blanked out on one of the kanji for a particular word (may have been something embarrassingly simple like 自分), and wrote one character in hiragana and the other in kanji. The teacher made a similar note on my test to the post I made above. I realize the strategy is followed a lot by the news with words like 急遽 (急きょ) and 曳船 (えい船) and perhaps 埠頭 (ふ頭) as well, but my character was definitely not 常用外. Anyway, I found it amusing, is the point of all this. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom