Oh, hello oft-neglected blog. Things have been going rather well lately. My Japanese is improving, albeit slowly, and I know enough Chinese characters to pass my proficiency test this Saturday. Well, at least the Kanji part. Here they are, for the most part (the JLPT people mix them up year to year):
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This is not to mention the ones I pick up in my weekly class, ones I learn just from seeing them all over…
But the real challenge is to know each reading for each character, and the ways they can change. This comes from the fact that Japanese, as a language, existed as an oral language (or set of languages and local dialects) long before Chinese characters, rice farming and (maybe, I could be wrong, and I’m not in the mood to go fact-checking) Buddhism were brought by (Korean) rice farmers, monks and fishermen over a thousand years ago.
And with that, you get a lot of permutations. A kanji will mean something. Against a different Kanji it’ll imply something else.
For instance – 口 guchi – mouth. Or opening, depending on how you read it. For instance, if I say “That dipshit has a big mouth.” It’d be something like “konno hito wa okii guchi imasu.” However, there are tons of names like 川口、野口、山口 – kawa guchi, no guchi, yama guchi which mean “river mouth.”, “field mouth” and “mountain mouth”, respectively. However in this context, “guchi” means “opening”. The area around Agassiz in BC or some places in Nepal could be known as “Yamaguchi”, for instance. They’re openings to mountain ranges.
As well, every Kanji has at least one reading, or phonetic sound, ascribed to it. However, most have at least 2-3, many have a lot more. And this isn’t even taking names into account, wherein the exact reading of someone’s name can be very difficult. For example, one of my coworker’s surnames is Okutani – 奥 oku 谷tani. However, she comes from the Kansai area (Osaka and its environs). “Tani” is an Osaka areading of 谷,and Kanto folk may pronounce her name oku ya. One of my co-teachers surnames is Someya 染谷, and the “ya” in her name is the same character that is “tani” in Noriko’s surname.
And what I’m really trying to get my head around is combinations.
Each Kanji has a kun-yomi reading and an on-yomi reading. On is the Sino-Japanese, or original “name” of the Kanji. The Kun reading is the word in its original native form, i.e. a word that has been in the Japanese language since oral times, and has had a synonymic Chinese character ascribed to it.
Combinations of Kanji generally revert to the on-yomi reading. For instance, 魚 on its own is read as “sa ka na” – fish. 金 on its own is “ka ne”, money/gold. But if you were to use it in one of its combination, it’d revert to the Chinese reading, kin/gyo. 金gold 魚fish is read as きんぎょう, kingyo.
So like I said, I know (compared to last year at this time) a ton of Kanji at this point. In fact, I prefer to have the Kanji in a sentence because since there are so many that sound the same, it’s better to have the pictograph in my face to remember what the word is. There are so many Kanji with the reading “ka” that it can get confusing, especially with different verbs. 買うka u ”buy” and 書くka ku ”write”. If it’s all written in kana – the basic syllabics – it’s かうka u and かく ka ku.
Two example sentences: 1. I buy a bicycle. 2. I write a book.
1. わたしはじてんしゃをかいます。Watashi wa jitensha wo ka imasu. With Kanji in the mix, it looks way different. 私（わたし）は 自転車（じてんしゃ）を買います（かいます）。
2. わたしはほんをかきます。Watashi wa hon wo kakimasu. Again, Kanji makes it look a lot different. 私は本を書きます。
Sometimes it’s very difficult, but as you learn more, it lends a certain linguistic power to the language that regular old words don’t help with.
Another thing about Kanji that I love is radicals – parts of Kanji.
田 – da – field.
力 – chikara – power
男 – otoko – man: a combination of field and power. So “fieldpower”=man.
There are also combinations, which make things extra fun.
車 on its own is read as ku ru ma. But in a combination, it’s read as “shya” so if you add it to 電 – den (electricity), it becomes 電車 den shya – train.
話 （す）is either hana (su) which is the verb “speak” 私は日本語を話します。Watashi wa nihongo wo hanashimasu. I (subject) Japanese speak.
But if you add it to 電、its reading turns back to the Onyomi, and 電話 is read as “denwa” (telephone). Electric speak = telephone.
The kanji “気” (ki - energy) is in a lot of things. 元気 - genki – that refers to wellness, health. So a common greeting is お元気ですか？Well, is? Basically, are you well?
天気 ten ki 天- sky, heavens 気 – energy. So – 天気 - weather – means “sky energy.”
電気 den ki 電 den- electric気 ki – energy. So -電気 – electricity – “electric energy”
Which leads me to the time I was out surfing and a lightning storm blew in rather quickly. I didn’t yet know the word 雷 kaminari – lightning – and this other surfer hadn’t noticed the storm. I had to let him know, so all I could say was “天気電気！” Tenki-denki! Weather electricity! He shot me a quizzical look, but then he understood.
So I’m off to Mito City on Saturday to take the test. It’s the bottom level test, I had been shooting for the one higher, but it’s just not possible at my level. I could probably pass level 3 at this point, but I’m not confident enough. I’d rather get a good mark on level 4. We’ll see how it goes. At this point I’ve already studied about ½ of the Kanji I need for level 3, and the next possible time to take the test isn’t for another year. So… I should be ready by then.
