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The Kanji Appreciation Thread

The Chinese part I wouldnt expect (its even funny lol rs) I thought theyd be the same

About Root I had seen something related, I like these connections between radicals (some dont make much sense though, but most of them do)


Buntaro said:
How many kanji radicals do you know?
Click to expand...
I have plenty written down and screenshotted, I just didnt memorize yet though (Im absorbing little by little)

I know theres tree and one similar to book, that has the root radical

This week I memorized 人 and 今日、including pronunciations (hope I dont forget though lol, but Im not rushing)

So far my biggest source of Kanjis is JapanesePod101, not the only one but the largest, they have a few cool videos explaining them
 
日本語 Class said:
I thought theyd be the same
Click to expand...

We assume that vocabulary terms in Japanese and Chinese have the same kanji, just different pronunciations, but this is not true in many cases. There are many vocabulary terms that use one kanji in Japanese but a different kanji in Chinese. Look at this short list.

Vocabulary terms in English:
I — not same character in J/C
go — not same character in J/C
eat — not same character in J/C
to be — not same character in J/C
(past tense form) — not same character in J/C
(question particle) — not same character in J/C
breakfast — not same character in J/C
lunch — not same character in J/C
book (n.) — not same character in J/C
newspaper — not same character in J/C
pen — not same character in J/C
pencil — not same character in J/C
like — not same character in J/C
want — not same character in J/C

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm glad you know the word "person" (ひと) (人). Take a look at the kanji 休 (やすむ). The left radical is a condensed version of "person" (ひと) (人). The right radical is "tree" (き) (木). The kanji 休 is a picture of a person resting against a tree, and means to rest or relax.
 
The kanji for Tokyo is 東京 （ちょうきょう）. The first kanji is "east" and the second kanji is "capital" but it actually a picture of a stone lantern.




In ancient China, only rich people had stone lanterns, so 京 became the symbol for rich people. The most important person was the Emperor, and his stone lantern became the symbol for the capital city. During the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese emperor renamed his capital 東京 meaning "Eastern Capital", to put it on par with the two Chinese cities Beijing 北京 (Northern Capital) and Nanjing 南京 (Southern Captial). (京 is pronounced "jing" in Mandarin but "tou" in Japanese.]
 
日本語 Class,

The kanji for "north" is 北 (きた). It is a picture of two people sitting back-to-back. More importantly, the two people are sitting back-to-back on top of the world, at the North Pole:
 

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日本語 Class,

The kanji for "west" is 西 (にし). It is a picture of a bird standing in a nest in a western tree. In ancient China, there was a famous story of a tree in the west and everyone knew the story, so it was easy to connect the ideas of tree, bird, nest, and west.
 
日本語 Class,

It is time for a new kanji, 事 (こと), which means "experience" or "event". It is a picture of a hand holding a Japanese writing brush. The bottom part is a hand, and the top part is the point of a writing brush pointing up in the air. The writer is watching or listening to something that is happening. The idea here is that the writer is not writing at the moment, but is listening to or watching what is going on, and will write about it later.
 
Thx
 
日本語 Class,

Now it is time to turn the writing brush downwards and do some writing. The kanji for "writing" is 書 (かく). In this situation, the hand is at the top of the writing brush and the brush is pointed down. The brush is touching a piece of paper and the action of writing is happening.
 
日本語 Class,

大 vs. 小

Here are a couple of kanji that use the human figure to represent size. First is 大, pronounced (おおきい) and meaning "large". It is an image of a person stretching their arms out and symbolizing the idea of "large".

Next is 小, pronounced (ちいさい) and meaning "small". In this kanji, the person has now pressed their arms to their sides, simulating the idea of "small".
 
日本語 Class,

Yes, 大 is pronounced (おおきい) as well as (だい). Both have the same meaning. You may be wondering why one kanji has more than one pronunciation. (As a matter of fact, my dictionary says the kanji 生 has eight pronunciations!) The answer is that 大 uses both a 'Chinese pronunciation' and a 'Japanese pronunciation' in the Japanese language. The first kanji reached Japanese shores in the year 391 A.D. (Before that, Japan had no writing system at all — hard to believe isn't it?) In the beginning 大 was only read using its 'Chinese pronunciation' (だい), because everything was written only in Chinese. It was only later that Japanese people would look at 大 and start to pronounce it with its 'Japanese pronunciation' (おおきい). This is why most kanji have at least two pronunciations.

By the way, if you ever become serious about learning kanji, I strongly recommend you buy the kanji dictionary by Nelson. The hardback edition has 1109 pages and is considered the 'Bible' when it comes to kanji dictionaries. (At least it was considered to be the 'Bible' of kanji dictionaries many years ago when I first started learning kanji). I still have the copy I bought when I was in college, and it is still a great resource for me.

Amazon product ASIN 0804804087
 
To be more precise, the kun reading of 大 is just おお, and きい (or its inflections like きく or きな) is 送り仮名. Thus, 大 is not pronounced おおきい as a single kanji, so 大掃除 is おおそうじ, not おおきいそうじ, or 大勝負 is おおしょうぶ, not おおきいしょうぶ. Please refer to the following wikipedia page.

Okurigana - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As for the difference between だい and おお, they are not always the same in meaning or function. For example, だい has a function as a suffix, meaning "the same size as~", e.g. 等身大(life-size), こぶし大(fist-size). おお doesn't have this function.
 

Good, thanks a lot
 
日本語 Class,

Here is another kanji for you, 口, pronounced (くち) and meaning "mouth" or "entrance". This kanji is shaped as a simple box, and it is easy to see how this shape was chosen for this meaning.
 
Buntaro said:
日本語 Class,

Here is another kanji for you, 口, pronounced (くち) and meaning "mouth" or "entrance". This kanji is shaped as a simple box, and it is easy to see how this shape was chosen for this meaning.
Click to expand...
Yes, obviously they had prototypes of Minecraft in those days and the connection was self-explanatory.
 
Buntaro said:
日本語 Class,

Here is another kanji for you, 口, pronounced (くち) and meaning "mouth" or "entrance". This kanji is shaped as a simple box, and it is easy to see how this shape was chosen for this meaning.
Click to expand...
So its nearly the same as ロ Kana?? I would never think of this, what else may I be misreading

But its part

(Like the Kanji that looks like カ and I still never found its meaning (didnt even look for it actually))
 
日本語 Class said:
So its nearly the same as ロ Kana?? I would never think of this, what else may I be misreading
Click to expand...
As far as I know, it's written the same and looks the same. But it's easy to tell them apart in context.
It looks like they do draw them slightly differently in the font.
ロ vs. 口

日本語 Class said:
(Like the Kanji that looks like カ and I still never found its meaning (didnt even look for it actually))
Click to expand...
カ vs. 力
It means ちから or パワー！
 
日本語 Class said:
So its nearly the same as ロ Kana
Click to expand...
Incidentally, katakana ロ was made from a part of the kanji 呂.

The original shape of 呂 was two circles. In ancient period, kanji were engraved on bones with a knife. It's hard to engrave circles with a knife, so the shape changed to two squares. Thus, the etymology of katakana ロ has nothing to do with the kanji 口 even though they look like almost the same.

The pronunciation of the katakana ロ "ro" is also from 呂, and this is also why it has nothing to do with the pronunciation of the kanji 口 (コウ or ク).

日本語 Class said:
what else may I be misreading
Click to expand...
katakana - kanji
エ - 工
チ - 千 or 干
ト - 卜
ニ - 二
ハ - 八
 
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