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Pronunciation Of Kanji...

Reiku

先輩
23 Aug 2004
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Heh, I've been online all night trying to find this out...

...I need to know how to pronounce the kanji in my signature.

I know what they mean, but so far I haven't found a single site or reference that could tell me the names of the symbols themselves.

I ask this because I wanted to make a banner for my website that had the names in it. (sort of like the "Aku Soku Zan" thing from the anime "Rurouni Kenshin")

I'd really appreciate any information on the subject.
 
jyou, ton, kai (these are on-youmi)

The kanji mean sympathy, chaos, and broken.

"nasa-ke" is the kun-youmi for the first, "kowa-reru" is the kun-youmi for the third one.
 
They normally dont come in 3's like that, unless one is a modifying suffix.prefix type kanji. That really has no meaning at all.
 
Probably thinks you can just string kanji together any old way you like and everybody will know what the hell it's supposed to mean.
 
...

Actually, it is meant to be three seperate statements, not a phrase or sentance.

(You shouldn't assume another's ignorance so readily, mikecash)

Also, when used individually like this they can be interpreted as: Passion, Chaos, and Destruction.

The first meaning "strong emotion" (ie: passion for your work, ect.), and the second translating more literally as "primeval chaos". (referring to the random nothingness from which the universe was created)

The third kanji can mean "Broken", but this is usually when it is combined with another word. (ie: chair + destruction = broken chair)

Thanks for the pronounciation, cicatriz esp--now I just have to figure out which one of the 3 pronounciations is most accurate for the definitions I'm using...

(I've seen several different Kun readings for each symbol--that's why I was asking here.)
 
You still cant string individual kanji and pick the meaning you like most, same way you cant just patch bits of english words together to make new ones.

馬 鹿 者
 
>sigh<

I'm well aware of that, Ewok85.

If you had paid attention to the first line of my post you would have noticed that I said: "Actually, it is meant to be three separate statements, not a phrase or sentence."

If I had meant it to be a single statement I would have written it vertically, the way kanji is supposed to be written.

Perhaps the reference to "Aku Soku Zan" is what gave the impression that I was writing a sentence
kopfpatsch-1.gif
--but in this case, each kanji can be considered a sentence in and of themselves. Granted that this is not grammatically accurate, but it's not supposed to be--it's a list of three things, not a phrase.
 
3 things with meanings that aren't accurately reflected by a single kanji alone。Make a pretty haiku using those 3 in their suitable forms and it would make sense.

At least Aku soku zan, a ficticous phrase from an anime, gets google hits.
Your search - 情沌壊 - did not match any documents.
情沌壊に該当するページが見つかりませんでした。
 
...

Ewok85 said:
3 things with meanings that aren't accurately reflected by a single kanji alone

Actually, you're wrong about that.

At any rate, I started this thread to ask how to pronounce the names of the kanji--not argue about their use. If you can't answer the question that's fine, but please don't try to start an off-topic argument in here.
 
If they are meant to be seperate, then you should use the kun-youmi. The middle one doesnt really have a kun-youmi though, at least not that the japanese use. And you can interpret them as you wish, but people who are native speakers are definitely only going to read them one way.

Funny unrelated story: the neighbor of my friend has a doormat with the kanji that he thinks means "safe", but by itself it actually means "cheap" hahaha.
 
In chinese it means safe 👍

Jyou ton kai would be a sensible reading, altho it still has no meaning.
 
Ewok85 said:
In chinese it means safe 👍

Jyou ton kai would be a sensible reading, altho it still has no meaning.

Sure, but here are the Chinese words for safe, according to zhongwen.com: 安平, 安全, and 保険. It seems that 安 is never used on its own, so the very usage is the problem, and not just what it could mean.
 
Reiku said:
...I need to know how to pronounce the kanji in my signature.
QUOTE]

Just a quick well-intentioned quibble. What you should ask for is the "reading" of a particular kanji. Other forum members understood what you meant, nevertheless it's useful to know the jargon associated with the study of language.
 
Reiku said:
Actually, you're wrong about that.

At any rate, I started this thread to ask how to pronounce the names of the kanji--not argue about their use. If you can't answer the question that's fine, but please don't try to start an off-topic argument in here.

Normally, someone as familiar with what can and can not be done with kanji as you profess yourself to be has also learned to read the danged things along the way somewhere.

Normally, that is.

Reiku said:
(You shouldn't assume another's ignorance so readily, mikecash)

You're right, I shouldn't.

Thanks for the pronounciation, cicatriz esp--now I just have to figure out which one of the 3 pronounciations is most accurate for the definitions I'm using...

But when I see howlers like that, I just can't help myself. It's a character flaw, I know.
 
Heh...

mr.sumo.snr said:
ust a quick well-intentioned quibble. What you should ask for is the "reading" of a particular kanji. Other forum members understood what you meant, nevertheless it's useful to know the jargon associated with the study of language.

Yeah...

...well I had been up all night--besides, I see no reason to use technical language when regular speech can do the job. I find that throwing terms around like that can make a person seem like an elitist snob, so I was trying to avoid that.

Speaking of elitist snobs...

...get a life, mikecash.

You should find a better way to spend your time than trying to make fun of people who politely ask for information.
 
And we've given you information, which is that those 3 kanji used as you have in your signature has no meaning.
 
Reiku said:
Speaking of elitist snobs...

...get a life, mikecash.

You should find a better way to spend your time than trying to make fun of people who politely ask for information.

I probably should. But then Emoni would quit giving me them way kewl red rep points.

I thought I was doing rather well confining my comments strictly to points you have brought up yourself, and refraining from offering comment on the butt-ugly calligraphy.
 
Huh, I just noticed something:

Glenn's signature has a link to the site I used to look up those three kanji, Jim Breen's online dictionary/kanji lookup...

...well, nothing really important to add, I mainly wanted to test out the "quick reply" feature.

BTW: I know my calligraphy sucks--but considering the late hour I wrote those at and the pen I was using (and the fact that it was the first time in my life I'd ever tried to draw a kanji) I think I did pretty well.
 
You know I almost completely missed this way kewl thread due to it being in the wrong forum...

mikecash said:
But when I see howlers like that, I just can't help myself. It's a character flaw, I know.

Hmm, what did you make of this bit then?

"If I had meant it to be a single statement I would have written it vertically, the way kanji is supposed to be written."

[EDIT] *psst* Reiku. You can't negative rep vote for **** with a rep like yours and incidently no, kanji is not (currently) restricted to 縦書き except for certain specific occasions such as when writing in 草書.
 
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Reiku said:
Heh, I've been online all night trying to find this out...

...I need to know how to pronounce the kanji in my signature.

I know what they mean, but so far I haven't found a single site or reference that could tell me the names of the symbols themselves.

I ask this because I wanted to make a banner for my website that had the names in it. (sort of like the "Aku Soku Zan" thing from the anime "Rurouni Kenshin")

I'd really appreciate any information on the subject.
And incidentally, before this gets too far back on topic, are the kanjis somehow eventually meant to relate in some way to 'burn with abandon' ?

Something like this 燃え尽きるぐらい愛して perhaps ? 😊 :p
 
chikazukiyasui said:
e.g, a calligraphic signature, I suppose.
Not necessarily a signature but definately calligraphic of a certain style. In fact to most people studing Japanese a better description would be 'illegible' :D

If you stick 草書 in a Google image search you'll get plenty of examples and if you can read much of them you're a better Japanese scholar than I am.
 
Glenn said:
Sure, but here are the Chinese words for safe, according to zhongwen.com: 安平, 安全, and 保険. It seems that 安 is never used on its own, so the very usage is the problem, and not just what it could mean.

What you said is not really right. It is true that in chinese, the common word for safe is 安全(あんぜん)。But the word 安 is the true word the gives the meaning of safe or peace.

Firstly, each individual kanji or chinese character have its own meaning, it can exist by itself and can also be used on its own.

The character 安(あん)、actually means peace or safe. In both chinese and japanese as an individual character. So when this word is used as an individual, what comes to the mind is "something related to safe or peace". If you present the word 安 to a chinese or japanese, I believe most of them will understand the meaning.

Another example, 食, if you just have this character alone, it can mean anything related to food or eating, in chinese or japanese it literally means the same thing. Ditto, the word 安.




Reiku said:
Actually, it is meant to be three seperate statements, not a phrase or sentance.

(You shouldn't assume another's ignorance so readily, mikecash)



Thanks for the pronounciation, cicatriz esp--now I just have to figure out which one of the 3 pronounciations is most accurate for the definitions I'm using...

(I've seen several different Kun readings for each symbol--that's why I was asking here.)


情 じょう JYOU
沌 とん TON
壊 かい KAI

I think the above three pronunciations are most appropriate if you were to have the meaning of each individual kanji which mean passion, chaos and destruction as you have said. However, the third character 壊、can also means "bad" as a single word, it is the meaning of the chinese word, as most kanjis have the chinese meaning individually. But may not be used regularly by Japanese.

PaulTB said:
You know I almost completely missed this way kewl thread due to it being in the wrong forum...



Hmm, what did you make of this bit then?

"If I had meant it to be a single statement I would have written it vertically, the way kanji is supposed to be written."

[EDIT] *psst* Reiku. You can't negative rep vote for **** with a rep like yours and incidently no, kanji is not (currently) restricted to 縦書き except for certain specific occasions such as when writing in 草書.


There is actually no restriction whether a calligraphy kanji should be written 縦書き or 横書き. Today, it is up to the choice of the writer. All kanji are written vertically because it was originally written vertically in China when it was imported into Japan during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). All chinese articles were written vertically at that time. It was because before the invention of paper, people in china used to write on stones or bamboos or even woods. It seems most natural to write vertically on bamboo at the time. After writing on the bamboos, those bamboo will be tied or bind together, vertically.
 
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