Can someone explain 風邪 to me

[-悪魔-]

The 風 kanji is the kaze part, but what is the 邪 kanji there for?

 

[Giorgia_]

Because 風 and 風邪 have different meanings.

風 simply means a wind or breeze.
風邪, with 邪 instead means a cold. (like when you are ill...)

Is this what you meant??

 

[-悪魔-]

but when you write cold, is the 風 = ka, and the 邪 = ze? Or is 風 still read as kaze?

 

[mejuami]

cool

that is cool

 

[serewen]

風邪 means cold.once u just write 邪 is no meaning in Japanese but in chinese its evil.

 

[Giorgia_]

if you write as 風邪, it still read as KAZE.
i don't know if 風 is to be KA and 邪 to be ZE.
anyway, it's(風邪) hurigana is KAZE!! that's how it is...

 

[wakaP]

There are kanji expression words in which each kanji is not corresponding to its reading.
For example, 今日(kyou)、紅葉(momiji)、土産(miyage). In such kind of words,
the whole kanji is corresponding to the whole reading. 風邪 is one of such words.
Moreover, in the case of 百舌鳥 (mozu、もず、a shrike), the number of kanji is more than the number of hiragana!

ばらばらにしてしまうと読みとの対応がなくなる言葉があります。
今日（きょう）、紅葉（もみじ）、土産（みやげ）などがそうです。
これらの言葉では、漢字全体と読み全体が対応しています。風邪も同じです。
さらに、百舌鳥（もず）などは、漢字の数の方がひらがなの数よりも多いケースです。

 

[seasurfer]

風邪 means cold.once u just write 邪 is no meaning in Japanese but in chinese its evil.

邪, pronounce as よこしま in Japanese, has the meaning of evil too. Most of the kanji actually have the chinese meaning.

Just like WakaP has said, I think when we read Japanese words, we cannot correspond a kanji to its reading...There are many examples, such as 明日、今年、服部。。。

 

[PaulTB]

Just like WakaP has said, I think when we read Japanese words, we cannot correspond a kanji to its reading...There are many examples, such as 明日

*nod-nod*

今年

Eh? Given that 年 = とし then こ = 今 Admitedly こ = 今 only for that word that I know of ;-).

Presumably it just lost the ん somewhere along the way.

 

[seasurfer]

*nod-nod*

Eh? Given that 年 = とし then こ = 今 Admitedly こ = 今 only for that word that I know of ;-).

Presumably it just lost the ん somewhere along the way.

Yeah, you are right...I find it confusing... I can't type the word 今 by typing こ...

PaulTB, is 今年 considered as one of the irregulars?

One of the difficulties in learning Japanese is about the reading of Kanji.

For example, if the 振り仮名 of (服部) was not given to me when I first encountered it, I wouldn't know how to read at all. I probably read it as ふくぶ。 You will never expect it to be read as はっとり.

 

[PaulTB]

Yeah, you are right...I find it confusing... I can't type the word 今 by typing こ...

PaulTB, is 今年 considered as one of the irregulars?

Oh I'm pretty sure it's irregular. But it's not the case that you can't tell which 'bit' of the reading 'belongs' to which kanji. As there are two kanji and one can be 'matched' to a standard reading I suppose you could consider it half irregular.