School related vocabulary

hideway · 1 Apr 2007

I'm currently working into getting some school related vocabulary and I found out (not sure if correctly) that most of the words seem to be conjuctions of two or more simplier words.
For example:
school: がっこう (がく)
school student: がくせい
college/university: だいがく
college/university student> だいがくせい

Also the word teacher (せんせい) also ends with せい. So I'm concluding that せい is something like "who belongs to". I've read that だいがく literaly means big school, so I'm guessing だい is the word for big.

I get even more of these already familiar words as I continue to assimilate more vocabulary. Take math's homework as an example:

すうがくのしゅくだい

Assuming that I'm correct, the word for math is associated with school and homework for something BIG? I've never seen any other word with すう or しゅく so I can't figure what exact meaning it could have.

Am I right about the construction of these words? And if I am, are most words in japanese built like this?
:?

JimmySeal · 1 Apr 2007

Most of what you are referring to as "words" are not words. They are morphemes. Those school-related terms are made up of morphemes.

And dai does not always mean "big," just like the way the "ill" in "illogical" does not mean "sick."

nice gaijin · 1 Apr 2007

This is a great example of why it's important to learn kanji.

Elizabeth · 1 Apr 2007

hideway said:
I'm currently working into getting some school related vocabulary and I found out (not sure if correctly) that most of the words seem to be conjunctions of two or more simpler words.
For example:
school: がっこう (がく)
school student: がくせい
college/university: だいがく
college/university student> だいがくせい

Also the word teacher (せんせい) also ends with せい. So I'm concluding that せい is something like "who belongs to". I've read that だいがく literally means big school, so I'm guessing だい is the word for big.

I get even more of these already familiar words as I continue to assimilate more vocabulary. Take math's homework as an example:

すうがくのしゅくだい

Assuming that I'm correct, the word for math is associated with school and homework for something BIG? I've never seen any other word with すう or しゅく so I can't figure what exact meaning it could have.

Am I right about the construction of these words? And if I am, are most words in japanese built like this?

Is this your first set of words in the language ? Guessing is a huge waste of your own and a partner's time. Assuming you are not correct is more accurate 99.9% of the time in Japanese. There are tons of homonyms in the language not to mention similar meaning words with different kanji.

If you aren't familiar with kanji yet and want to concentrate on vocabulary development don't worry about the make up of the word for now. If you know enough to look them up in a dictionary, just as a heads up that is my best advice to avoid this thread going on for years as you, for whatever reason, hopelessly struggle trying to define every word never before seen (practically every one but these it sounds like...).

Elizabeth · 1 Apr 2007

It is 生 and is more like "birth" or "life." "Student" only when used as a suffix.

hideway · 1 Apr 2007

Thanks everyone for the answers. I really apreciate it.

I guess I was being naive about this to say the least. I know school related vocabulary isn't the most useful bunch of words to know but I just happen to find a big list with hiragana/meaning, and I figured that it was as a good place to start as any. Since I'm not really in a hurry or in need to learn japanese, I'm facing this task more as a memorizing exercise.

I did recon that studing the kanji at the same time as I study the words is a good study method, but the fact is that kanji scares the hell out of me. Still this thread made my understand that it can also ease my vocabulary learning so I'll finally put my hands on it.

Thanks again for the replies.

School related vocabulary

hideway

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JimmySeal

Tubthumper

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

Elizabeth

先輩

Elizabeth

先輩

hideway

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