Kodomo?

[rquethe]

My question is concerning the difference between 子供 and 小人? Since I read that the latter is also pronounced kodomo and means child as well. Is there a difference in the situation it is used? Like 大人 means adult and is used for describing somebody's maturity.

 

[rquethe]

Same question, another set of words:

休日 - kyuujitsu - holiday
休み - yasumi - holiday

To me, I would guess it is a matter of formality. Kyuujitsu probably being more polite.

 

[NANGI]

Konnichiwa Rquethe-san!

At first, child is "子供" usually. An instance...

I have a child.
私には子供がいます。

But "小人" is used for contrast against "大人". An instance...

The admission fee for adult is 1,000 yen, and child is 500 yen.
入園料は大人千円、小人五百円。

about holiday
I have the same opinion with you, I thnk Kyuujitsu is more formal than Yasumi.

NANGI

 

[rquethe]

Oh that makes sense. Arigatou Nangi-san

 

[kara]

and 小人 has other pronunciations/meanings.

小人(kobito):
1)physically very small person. 2)small tribe in fantasy tales (like dwarf).

小人(shoujin):
people of narrow-minded/mean/stingy.

 

[rquethe]

Oh yeah, I remember kobito. I forgot about that one. Haven't heard about "shoujin" though and it's meaning.

What would be you say is the frequency of use for each meaning? Like is one super common that you basically don't use the others?
小人(kobito): I would guess this one is most common?
小人(kodomo): Like Nangi-san said, for contrast to 大人.
小人(shoujin): For describing a person.

 

[kara]

What would be you say is the frequency of use for each meaning? Like is one super common that you basically don't use the others?
小人(kobito): I would guess this one is most common?
小人(kodomo): Like Nangi-san said, for contrast to 大人.
小人(shoujin): For describing a person.

小人(shoujin) is apparently of least frequent among them. But there's a popular kotowaza "小人閑居して不善を為す", which translated from a famous old Chinese maxim "小人閑居為不善".

Both 小人(kobito) and 小人(kodomo) are frequent. But we use such words like 子供, XX以下(ex. 高校生以下), XX未満(ex. 18歳未満) as well as 小人(kodomo), while 小人(kobito) has no nearly favorite alternative.

休日 - kyuujitsu - holiday
休み - yasumi - holiday

To me, I would guess it is a matter of formality. Kyuujitsu probably being more polite.

休日(kyuujitsu) means a day of rest from work/school.
休み(yasumi) means a rest/stop/interval. It has no connection to time/term. so in some case, yasumi means a pause of a second, in other case it means a stop of billions of years.

So, both 休日(kyuujitsu) and 休み(yasumi) can mean a day of rest. In such case, it may be a matter of formality as you guessed(and NANGI said).

 

[Elizabeth]

And according to my 漢英熟語字典, こども is given as しょうにん for child, although apparently this would be an even rarer reading.

 

[rquethe]

Another case of words which must be synonyms I would guess:

体 and 肉体 both having the meaning of body.

I guess there are many things like this. I just don't know when one is more appropriate than another. Like 新しい車 vs 新車。Is one more like describing the car, and the other is a way of saying what the car is?

 

[Elizabeth]

体 and 肉体 both having the meaning of body.

Sure, just like English has physical (closer to nikutai), corporal, body, material etc. For physical beauty as constrasted with the spiritual realm you would use "Nikutai no utsukushisa" for a person's "bodily condition" : "Karada no choushi." It's just a matter of learning new boundaries and deliniations for how meanings are parsed.

And then there are those unfortunate instances like "体調" (taichou) which incorporates "body" but connotes something more like bodily as well as mental （精神, seishin）well-being.

彼らの文化はわれわれのとは違っていますね。:shifty:

Karera no bunka wa wareware no to wa chigatte imasune.

 

[rquethe]

On a unrelated note, it is difficult for me to distinguish the lines in most of the kanji on the forums here and the text size thing in the View menu doesn't change the size of the font. So I can't even see the strokes in order to look up the meaning of kanji that everyone uses. Is there any way to make it bigger?

I only know about 100 kanji right now. But I'm fast learning more

 

[PaulTB]

On a unrelated note, it is difficult for me to distinguish the lines in most of the kanji on the forums here and the text size thing in the View menu doesn't change the size of the font. So I can't even see the strokes in order to look up the meaning of kanji that everyone uses. Is there any way to make it bigger?

I know at least three ways.
1. Tools -> Options -> Accessibility -> Ignore Font Sizes specified by web pages [X]
2. Use Mozilla / FireFox
3. Have a forum designed to use proportional font sizes instead of fixed font sizes. (97% of the time fixed font sizes are a bad idea)

 

[Elizabeth]

I only know about 100 kanji right now. But I'm fast learning more

Sorry about that. I just went back and annotated mine. As for new car, as in "This is my new car" you'd say "Kore ga watashi no atarashii kuruma desu"
even new type of car, such as hybrid, hydrogen, is "atarashii". Although it seems new model machinery and commercial products are often expressed more naturally as shin ~~ (新機 (?))

 

[Glenn]

Although it seems new model machinary and commercial products are often expressed more naturally as shin ~~ (新機 (?))

I'm pretty sure that new models (across all fields) are expressed with 新型 (しんがた).

 

[Elizabeth]

I'm pretty sure that new models (across all fields) are expressed with 新型 (しんがた).

You're right of course. I was thinking of new model aircraft in particular and forgot the 型.