How do you know... ON/KUN and beyond

[Amigo]

Hi, xtremevillan San,
Don't worry too much about drawing the kanjis. Focus on the meaning and how to read them.
About writing them you just learn the rules:
From up to down
From left to right
Vertical strokes crosses the horizontal strokes.
Don't close the "box" before writing inside. Etc...
That way you'll be able to write any Kanji only seeing them and its radicals.
After that... practice and practice. Writing sentence while learning grammar.

 

[Amigo]

How do you know when to use ON and KUN readings?

Well, this is my understanding:
"ON YOMI" is only a phonetic value for kanjis, like alphabet.
"B" doesn't mean anything. It's just a sound.

車体 しゃ たい Sha tai - body of a car. Either SHA nor TAI doesn't mean anything.


"KUN YOMI" is a word (with its meaning).
"Biscuit" isn't only a sound but a word.
車 くるま kuruma - car

That's why two kanjis together forming a word are read in ON YOMI.
Whereas a kanji alone is read in KUN YOMI. Because it's a word by itself.
As well as verb roots:
見 ・ る
見 ・ た
見 ・ たい

Needless to say that there are exceptions which can be learn only by experience.

 

[Putrefaction]

thanks, amigo! (lol)

I recognize that as the "bottom" of the Kanji for truth (Jitsu). What does that mean normally?

This one's pissed me off for a while, it looks so much like word, what is this?

 

[-Rudel-]

Nice thread here....I'm learning just a well. Thos Kun and On always get me confused, but this thread definately helped me out. This should be a sticky.

 

[Amigo]

Hi,
JITSU of truth? 実
Maybe did you mean GI of morality? 義
As far as I know, this 我 is used specially in the following cases:

As a kun yomi 我「われ」 「わ」

その時彼は我に返った。
そのときかれはわれにかえった。
Then he came to his sense.
あなたを我々のクラスの会員にしたい。
あなたをわれわれのクラスのかいいんにしたい。
I's like to enroll you as a member of our club.
我がまま「わがまま」 selfishness

As on yomi 我「が」

怪我 けが injury
我慢 がまん patience

About 言. I think it's not normally used alone but with other Kanji to form words like the following:
言葉 ことば
言語 げんご
言論 げんろん
or as the verb "to say"
言う いう
言い方 speaking style
and so on...

 

[Putrefaction]

Oh yeah I meant of justice/inlaws. there was one debate as well, not sure why i said jitsu...

thanks!

Nice thread here....I'm learning just a well. Thos Kun and On always get me confused, but this thread definately helped me out. This should be a sticky.

You might want to clean up the thread a lot...lol.

 

[Putrefaction]

Actually sorry to bump this but looking again at this image

is this really word, or is it something else?

 

[undrentide]

Actually sorry to bump this but looking again at this image

is this really word, or is it something else?

It is a kanji, and has meanings related word or to say, but normally is not used as a word on its own.
It really depends on the definition of "word" but I'd say it can be a part of a word such as;

ﾅ陳ｾ窶堋､ (verb: to say)
ﾅ陳ｾ窶杯 (noun: word(s), language)
just for example.

AMIGO's above post gave more detailed answer.

 

[Putrefaction]

Oh okay, see I thought he was just referring to the regular character, this one has a spiked tip or whatever. Sorry!
Here are two more.

This one says Vivi no kaimono? I know that the Kanji is to buy, and that is ka(u), so this is ka(i)mono, meaning Vivi goes shopping, right?

I recognize that the top part is a "house" of sorts, the bottom part ALMOST looks like owner or something. Like the other one I can't get around it, I don't think I've learned it yet! The one to the right I cropped incorrectly...that's to learn, Chi/Shi(ru)
--edit just found it, Zen/Matta, complete...hmm.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

--edit just found it, Zen/Matta, complete...hmm.

In this case, actually it's read "subete".

 

[Toritoribe]

This one says Vivi no kaimono? I know that the Kanji is to buy, and that is ka(u), so this is ka(i)mono, meaning Vivi goes shopping, right?

Right. 買い物 is read as "kaimono."
But it's one word, not a sentence, clause, or phrase. VIVIの買い物 means "VIVI's shopping."

 

[Amigo]

--edit just found it, Zen/Matta, complete...hmm.

Can you read KANA characters?
Have a look to the 窶堙Ъ/B] just after the kanji 窶牢. It's a nice hint to see that the pronunciation is SUBETE as Mikawa Ossan said above.

 

[Amigo]

Following the thread I have a good question for Japanese people:
I found these words in Japanese, ﾂ湘｣ﾂ唇ﾂ、窶ｰﾂｺﾂ唇ﾂ Upper lip and lower lip.
But, how to read them? I found in my dictionary that you can read both in ON YOMI and KUN YOMI as well !!
I have noticed that there are many many Japanese words like this, words that you can read in the both ways.
What that it mean? Talking in ON YOMI is always to be more polite or something like that? As if it were another KEIGO way to pronunce nouns?
:?

 

[Toritoribe]

Generally, 音読み[on'yomi] sounds more formal or erudite than 訓読み[kun'yomi] probably because of historical reasons, official documents were traditionally written in 漢文[kanbun] for many centuries, etc.
As for 上唇, 下唇, they are basically read as "uwakuchibiru," "shitakuchibiru" respectively. The pronunciation "joushin," "kashin" are mainly used as medical terms, not common expressions in daily use.

 

[Putrefaction]

And actually another question guys. I can identify the characters I've learned in the past with little difficulty, but writing them down/remembering stroke order is quite hard. I did a 3 hour review yesterday with characters 1-290 and thought I had them, but reflecting on it just now...I don't remember a lot of them! Is it embarrassing to reach for a stroke dictionary?

 

[Coolie4]

well considering you know more japanese than i do, i cant say much.

but maybe its just because its a new thing. with english and most other languages the stroke order of letters is irrelevant. Just keep at it and im sure you'll get it. I'm sure you have a particaular stroke order for english now that youve been using it for awhile. The only difference with japanese is that the order is defined beforehand, instead of you defining it yourself.

Whenever you see a kanji and think of what it means, also try to think of the stroke order.

Same with writing. Its always easier to read a language than to write it, and its always easier to understand a language by sound, rather than speaking it. It just takes practice. Just think of things in terms of learning English. Japanese and English is basically learned the same way, just they have different components.

 

[Putrefaction]

Perhaps. I'm sure I'll remember more as I go along, I have some of the "core" ones down. I'm up to ~300 now, how are you doing in Essential Kanji?

BTW: By 300 you should recognize 3/4 Red Kanji on the back of the book, as well as many of the characters littered on the front/back pages.

 

[Glenn]

Is it embarrassing to reach for a stroke dictionary?

For me it is. It's also inconvenient.

 

[Putrefaction]

I can also see why it's inconvienent, if I finished all 2000 and I didn't remember where in the book Hen/Kae(ru) (return) is I'd have to flip through all those pages! Imagine if I forgot the symbol alltogether!

This is going to get reaaaaaaaaally hard once I hit 1000...in fact most of the Kanji I learned yesterday I can't remember the strokes to!

 

[Aurura]

I don't know how much/little this would be of a help to you at this stage, but I do want to recommend trying out iKnow! for your kanji learning. It's been helping me out tremendously. It's free does not require downloading software.

Here's a quick link: http://www.iknow.co.jp/

This has truly been a great tool - Even if Cerego started charging for it one day, I'd make a paid subscription in a hot minute!

If you do try in out, please let me know if it was helpful for you.

 

[Putrefaction]

So my first Japanese sentence in about a month:

WILLIS SAN, NANI O HANASHIMASU?

I butchered it, didn't I.

How about this combination?

Watashi wa yoku shichiji gozen goro toshokan de benkyoshimasu.
I often study at the library around seven AM.

 

[undrentide]

Watashi wa yoku shichiji gozen goro toshokan de benkyoshimasu.
I often study at the library around seven AM.

7:00am = gozen shichiji.
7:00pm = gogo shichiji.

gozen/gogo comes before the time.

 

[Putrefaction]

Oh. Oops. Was the rest of my sentence right? Also another question.

\
Do I need this "wa" there? Because so far I've been getting examples right and I put:

Kyo Kyoto ni ikimasu.


And how about this one?

Ashita Kyoto ni ikimasen. (Tomorrow I'm not going to Kyoto)

And one final editing question:

This means to extend an invite to eat.

So lets say a person is talking about their day and for some reason I want to ask if they didn't eat, wouldn't I say, kyo zenzen tabemasenka?

 

[Glenn]

You don't need to use は with temporal nouns (今日, 昨日, 去年, 来週, などなど). When you use it it means that you're contrasting something, so 今日は京都に行きます would be like "(Tomorrow I'm going to Nara/I'm not going to Kyoto tomorrow, but) today I'm going to Kyoto." 今日京都に行きます just means you're going to Kyoto today. 明日京都に行きません means "I'm not going to Kyoto tomorrow."

To ask if someone didn't eat, you could say もう食べましたか. I'm sure お腹が空いていませんか, お腹が空いていますか, まだ食べていませんか, and もう食べていますか (I believe) would be fine, too. It depends on just what you want to say, though. もう食べましたか is the most straightforward.

 

[Putrefaction]

明日京都に行きません means "I'm not going to Kyoto tomorrow."

Bright day = tomorrow so was my sentence good except the ni?

Your second paragraph is over my head. All I understand kanji wise is sky and part of eat. But I understand mo, isn't that, Also?

And all my questions were right, correct?