Crazy: Kanji - PDFCOFFEE.COM (2024)

crazy

i j n a k for

A Student’s Guide to the Wonderful World of Japanese Characters Eve Kushner

Crazy

i j n a K

for

Crazy

i j n a K for

A Student’s Guide to the Wonderful World of Japanese Characters Eve Kushner

Stone Bridge Press • Berkeley, California

PUBLISHED BY

Stone Bridge Press P.O. Box 8208 Berkeley, CA 94707 www.stonebridge.com • [emailprotected] PHOTOGRAPH AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS The author and publisher would like to thank the many artists and photographers who contributed to this book. Image credits are presented in the forms stipulated by the rightsholders and are referenced by text page number. All other images were provided by the author. P. 18: Mikako Shindo; p. 23: Toru Uyama; p. 27: Sammy Engramer, private collection; p. 30: Masaaki Miyara (argyle street tea room); p. 34: Tsuji Keiko; p. 47: Mike Oliveri, www. mikeoliveri.com; p. 56: Michael Rowley, www.papernapkin.com; p. 58: Jenni Sophia Fuchs; p. 73: Steven Elliott James; p. 83: Jenni Sophia Fuchs; p. 85: Jenni Sophia Fuchs; p. 91: photograph by Sakamoto, Takeshi, a.k.a takeratta(tm)*; p. 102: Pierangelo Rosati; p. 105: Matthew Tyndale-Tozer; p. 106: Timothy Takemoto; p. 113: ©Walnut Creek CDROM, photograph by David Leong; p. 115: Paul Osborne, www.flickr.com/photos/paopix; p. 126: Edward Poet; p. 129: Ciro Cattuto; p. 132: Jenni Sophia Fuchs; p. 137: Neil Gray; p. 138: calligraphic scripts by H. E. Davey, from The Japanese Way of the Artist, www.senninfoundation.com; p. 139: Ed Jacob, www.quirkyjapan.or.tv; p. 143: Kanko*, www.flickr.com/photos/kankan; p. 146: Eden Politte; p. 147: Kanko*, www.flickr.com/photos/kankan; p. 154: George Bourdaniotis; p. 161: Sergio Quinonez / Custom Tattoo & Multi-Medium Artist; p. 167: ©iStockphoto.com / Andrew Cribb; p. 169: ©iStockphoto.com / Dan Brandenburg; p. 172: Kensuke Tsuruma; p. 174: ©iStockphoto.com / Frank Leung; p. 184: Matt Smith; p. 195: Ayumi Matsuzaki; p. 199: Forestry Commission of Wales; p. 211: Sébastien Bertrand.

Cover design by Linda Ronan. Text © 2009 Eve Kushner. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Kushner, Eve. Crazy for kanji : a student’s guide to the wonderful world of Japanese characters / Eve Kushner. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-933330-20-4 (pbk.) 1. Japanese language—Study and teaching (Secondary)—English speakers. 2. Chinese characters— Study and teaching. I. Title. PL519.K793 2007 495.6’11—dc22 2007032429

contents Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

• THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Words You’ve Heard 14 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Place Names of Note 15 • SPECTACULAR SHAPES: Busy Bodies / Real Lookers 15 • GAME: What Do You Get? 16 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Words of Import / Tongue Twister / Warning! Kanji Essential to Health! 17 # 6 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: What’s in That Udon?! 18 # 7 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Bloopers 19 # 8 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Atari and Other Brand Names 20

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5

Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles? #9 # 10 # 11 # 12 # 13 # 14 # 15 # 16 # 17

• JUST THE FACTS: Drawing 101 24 • JUST THE FACTS: Stroke Order 25 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji As One of Several Scripts 26 • JUST THE FACTS: What Else “Kanji” Can Be 27 • JUST THE FACTS: How Many Kanji Does It Take? 28 • JUST THE FACTS: Pictograms and Ideograms 29 • JUST THE FACTS: One Kanji or Two? 30 • JUST THE FACTS: The Japanese Syllables 31 • JUST THE FACTS: How to Pronounce Japanese Words 34

Chapter 1: Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability # 18 • JUST THE FACTS: Okurigana 39 # 19 • GAME: Kun or On? 42 # 20 • JUST THE FACTS: The Empty Sky and Other Variable Meanings / 43 GAME: One Kanji, So Many Yomi # 21 • JUST THE FACTS: Shape Shifters 46 # 22 • JUST THE FACTS: Kana from Kanji 48

contents Chapter 2: The Architecture of a Character # 23 # 24 # 25 # 26 # 27 # 28 # 29 # 30 # 31 # 32 # 33 # 34 # 35

• THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Kanji of a Feather Flock Together 53 • JUST THE FACTS: A Radical Concept / GAME: Radicals 54 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: The Hill and the Village 56 • JUST THE FACTS: The On-Echo 57 • JUST THE FACTS: Easily Confused Kanji 61 • GAME: Which Is Which? 64 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Strategies for Conquering Look-Alikes 65 • JUST THE FACTS: Classiﬁcation of Characters 68 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Elegant Etymology 70 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Charmingly Illogical Characters 72 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Just Add Water 74 • GAME: The Missing Link 75 • GAME: Create a Kanji 76

Chapter 3: Compounding the Pleasure # 36 # 37 # 38 # 39 # 40 # 41 # 42 # 43 # 44 # 45

• JUST THE FACTS: Doesn’t Sound the Way It’s Spelled 80 • COMPOUND INTEREST: Cool Compounds 84 • COMPOUND INTEREST: Crazy Compounds 85 • JUST THE FACTS: Combinational Exceptions 86 • JUST THE FACTS: Wago, Kango, and Kokugo 88 • JUST THE FACTS: Multiple Readings of Certain Compounds 90 • JUST THE FACTS: Helping Hands 92 • JUST THE FACTS: How Kanji Modify Each Other in Compounds 96 • GAME: Will the Real Compound Please Stand Up? 98 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Homonyms and Near Homonyms / GAME: Homonym Match-Up 100 # 46 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Syllabic Similarity 103 # 47 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Look-Alikes in Compounds 106 # 48 • COMPOUND INTEREST: Wonderful Words 107

contents Chapter 4: What Kanji Say About Japan # 49 # 50 # 51 # 52 # 53 # 54 # 55 # 56

• SPECTACULAR SHAPES: Gates, Birds, and Thread 111 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Metals 114 • GAME: What’s the Meaning of This?! 116 • JUST THE FACTS: Country Kanji / GAME: International Intrigue 117 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: You Can Say That Again! 120 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Double Meanings 122 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Hyperbolic Humility 127 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Shades of Meaning 130

Chapter 5: Japanese Feelings About Kanji # 57 # 58 # 59 # 60 # 61 # 62 # 63 # 64 # 65 # 66 # 67 # 68

133

• JUST THE FACTS: Typefaces 138 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Ablaze 140 • GAME: Weekday Sûdoku 141 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Meditation 142 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Calligraphy and Clarity of Mind 143 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: The Way of Culture and the Arts 144 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Sound Effects in Manga 147 • SPECTACULAR SHAPES: Kanji Sandwiches 148 • GAME: Kanji Word Find 149 • JUST THE FACTS: Genkôyôshi 150 • JUST THE FACTS: Don’t Use These Kanji! 152 • JUST THE FACTS: Typing Kanji 153

Chapter 6: Double Happiness # 69 # 70 # 71 # 72 # 73 # 74 # 75

109

155

• JUST THE FACTS: Mind the Gap 161 • JUST THE FACTS: A Crash Course in Chinese Terminology 162 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Chinese Words You’ve Heard 164 • JUST THE FACTS: The Tones of Hanzi 166 • GAME: On-Yomi Tongue Twister 168 • JUST THE FACTS: Phonetic Markers Used in Taiwan 169 • JUST THE FACTS: Hanja in Korea 170

contents # 76 # 77 # 78 # 79 # 80

• JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Compounds That China Imported from Japan 173 • JUST THE FACTS: Representing Grammar with Hanzi 174 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Animal Signs in the Zodiac 175 • JUST THE FACTS: Signs for the Traveler 176 • SPECTACULAR SHAPES: Double Happiness 178

Chapter 7: Ten Tips for Studying Kanji # 81 # 82 # 83 # 84 # 85 # 86 # 87 # 88 # 89 # 90

179

• THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Inadvertently Appropriate Kanji 185 • JUST THE FACTS: Flash Card Layout 186 • JUST THE FACTS: Sample Landmark Cards 188 • JUST THE FACTS: Landmark Categories 190 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Parallel Features 193 • SPECTACULAR SHAPES: Swooping and Cradling Characters 194 • THEMATIC EXPLORATIONS: Take Care 195 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Dictionaries 196 • JUST THE FACTS: Kanji Wood 199 • GAME: Kanji Crossword 200 Answer Key 203 Glossary 208 Works Cited 210

Falling in love with kanji preface

As my husband and I walked through Berkeley one summer day, I stopped to examine a tattered box of sesame seaweed crackers. I spotted Chinese writing and some English translations, and though Chinese characters can differ from Japanese ones, I felt drawn to the multilingual label, eager to see if I could work out any meanings. Mostly I couldn’t, but I relished the momentary challenge. My husband smiled, saying, “It’s a sign of obsession if you stop to read trash in the road.” I laughed, realizing how absurd I must have seemed. But then I’m so obsessed with kanji that these little moments of self-awareness don’t shift my focus in the slightest. For six years I’ve been hung up on kanji, one of three scripts used in Japanese writing. This interest makes virtually no sense in my life, as I don’t intend to live in Japan and have few fantasies of even traveling there again. I don’t read manga or play Japanese video games, so I rarely profit in a practical way from my kanji knowledge (though it helps me determine how long to boil soba noodles). I’m far from fluent by any measure. And yet I’ve allowed kanji to consume hours and hours of my life, my addiction even interfering with work at times. I’ve had dreams about kanji, about the formation of certain characters. Once when I awoke, I realized I’d been wrong, but close! And being close afforded the strangest joy. I know I’m in the minority on this, but Japanese conversation feels far removed from what I love about studying the language. Instead, my •

passion has everything to do with cracking the code of kanji. At times I become so immersed in it that I feel it’s my own private code, and I’m surprised when I remember that millions of other people think along similar lines.

Creating Order out of Chaos

But not everyone has discovered the joy of kanji. As a Japanese-language teacher told me, “Kanji is one of the hardest things to interest students in. I’ve seen a lot of students stop learning Japanese because of kanji, and every time, I feel sorry that I can’t interest them in it.” I think many students feel shut out, as if they can’t find the proper map to orient them in the vast and often chaotic world of kanji. I certainly know that feeling. I haven’t always experienced bliss and rapture at the mere sight of these complicated characters. When we began learning them in my third Japanese class, I felt as if I were flailing around in the ocean without a life preserver or any view of terra firma. As many grammar and conversation books do, our textbook introduced a few kanji per chapter, drawing them from dialogues that incorporated useful phrases. The kanji bore no relation to each other, which made for a scattershot approach, as if we were memorizing the phone book a few names at a time in no particular order. The teacher may have briefly explained why characters tend to have two readings, but I probably felt overloaded and blocked out this information. After that, I never heard more about it. We focused on drawing strokes in the right order, in the proper proportions, and knowing what the characters said. But it came to bother me more and more—why were there two radically different pronunciations for each character? Why do the Japanese interweave three scripts? They have two serviceable phonetic scripts and could write every word with these. Why, then, do they use kanji? In my confusion, I turned to Michael Rowley’s Kanji Pict-o-Graphix, which breaks kanji down to meaningful, smaller components, revealing the ingredients in each kanji concoction. Working with Rowley’s fun, light-hearted book, I began to compile information about characters. That gave me some sense of control and ownership, though still not nearly enough. Things took a turn for the better when I started making connections between words. Ah—社会 (shakai: society) and 会話 (kaiwa: conversation) share a kanji, 10

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

会, which means “to meet.” So maybe we would keep encountering the same characters, which would allow us to build on our knowledge, rather than continually starting from scratch. Perhaps patterns would emerge from the randomness, all the dots turning into a lovely pointillist painting. That didn’t happen right away. But when I took a kanji-centric course that used a terrific textbook (Basic Kanji Book by Chieko Kano, Yuri Shimizu, Hiroko Takenaka, and Eriko Ishii), I began to gain a sense of an underlying order. By the time I took two more kanji courses, the obsession took over my life, motivating me to spend hours upon hours with the characters. I scored well on tests, and I could recognize and reproduce hundreds of kanji. When I moved back into grammar and conversation classes, my classmates seemed to think I knew a great deal about kanji. I thought I did, too. Only when I researched the information in this book did I realize how much I’d been working in the dark. I’d had no idea what goes on inside a character, giving it sound and meaning. I’d known that when kanji look alike, they often have similar pronunciations, but I didn’t know why. I couldn’t make sense of why certain kanji become irregular at times, dropping their usual readings or meanings in favor of unrelated ones. I knew only a handful of prefixes and suffixes, nowhere near the range available. Now I know so much more, including the role kanji can play in Japanese arts, in religious rituals, in advertising, and even in historic fireworks displays! Much to my surprise, I investigated Japanese metallurgy and Chinese sericulture (breeding silkworms to produce silk) because, believe it or not, these have shaped kanji! I also learned how these characters function in modern-day China and Korea (and in one tiny part of Wales!). With all this new information (which you’ll find in the pages to come), I’m all the more enamored of kanji. I bring to this book a passion not only for kanji but also for organizing things. With this book, I aim to create order out of apparent kanji chaos by providing background information and context. I believe that the key to kanji success is being able to think clearly when you confront nearly identical characters and a plethora of possible readings. I hope the information in this book provides you with a map to the world of kanji, helping you keep things straight so you can relax, look around, and enjoy the sights.

How Kanji Beneﬁts Language Learners

Kanji reveals the deeper meaning of words, the ingredients in an object. Consider, for example, the word for “volcano” (火山, kazan), which is “ﬁre” (火) + “mountain” (山). This kind of equation is simple, poetic, and fun, but it's also informative. Only when I encountered the kanji for “iceberg” and “glacier” did I even ponder the diﬀerence between the two concepts: iceberg glacier

氷山 (hyōzan) = ice + mountain 氷河 (hyōga) = ice + river

“Iceberg” refers to a floating, icy mass. Meanwhile, a glacier, as I’ve learned, is a body of ice moving down a slope or valley, possibly spreading outward on land in a riverlike way. So the characters nail it perfectly! See Exhibit 5, “Thematic Explorations: Words of Import,” for more ways in which kanji illuminates English. Often, until you’ve understood the kanji for a word, you don’t truly know that word. Take the word genkan, the entrance hall in a Japanese house. If you asked me several years ago whether I knew the word, I would have shrugged and said yes. Then I learned the kanji 玄関, which breaks down as “occult” + “barrier” or “connection.” What’s occult about an entrance hall? Well, if you think about it, a genkan is hidden behind the front door, revealed only to the select few who enter. But how can the second character, 関, mean both “barrier” and “connection”? Aren’t those opposites? Yes, but an entrance hall (and by extension a front door) both locks people out and allows them to enter. The kanji captures this paradox! And yet people think these characters get in the way of understanding Japanese! Quite the contrary. Kanji lends clarity to a language so riddled with homonyms that kami means “god,” “hair,” and “paper” (all with different characters). “Insect” and “selflessness” are both mushi. And the word for “awarding a prize” sounds exactly like that for “receiving a prize,” both jushō. Kanji makes clear what the ear misses. If you’ve ever wished a Japanese speaker would slow down so you could sort through homonyms, kanji provides a nice change of pace. If you go to Japan, you’ll definitely want to know kanji. Many students figure they’ll only need to speak Japanese there, not read or write. They’re shocked when they arrive in Japan and feel defeated by the signs. It was my turn to be shocked when I learned that knowing kanji can add prestige to your spoken Japanese! When English speakers use words derived from Latin or Greek versus from Old English, we may not consciously register it, but that impresses us. Consider

the impact of “solar” versus “sun” or of “ﬁlial” versus “son.” Knowing kanji gives you access to a set of vocabulary that will similarly wow people. It will also help you understand formal speech, such as that on TV news reports. Including more kanji in your writing will deﬁnitely impress the Japanese. However, that’s only true if you use the right kanji for homonyms! Exhibit 7, “Thematic Explorations: Bloopers,” alerts you to the sorts of funny mistakes you might make if you’re not careful with your kanji.

Oh, What a Feeling!

Clearly, kanji is practical to know. More surprisingly, it can also touch you emotionally. Consider the following spiritual benefits. Understanding kanji affords a wonderful feeling of being in the know, as when you can decipher kanji on restaurant signs, tattoos, and T-shirts. The child in us longs to decode. That’s why kids spend hours solving puzzles. And that’s why you’ll enjoy unlocking the door to a hitherto sealed-off area. Teasing out the tangles in kanji provides endless entertainment, as well as thrilling epiphanies. For instance, 花火 (hanabi: fireworks) breaks down as “flower” + “fire”—a perfect way of describing fireworks! Kanji affords one “aha!” after another, putting a bounce in your step and drawing you back for more. When I’m feeling low, kanji is my antidepressant. It’s hard to know why this “drug” works so effectively, but I think it gives my overactive mind something to chew on, so it won’t devour itself. Kanji presents a compelling challenge: I need to figure out what a character means and why. Kanji requires me to concentrate fully and has, in fact, become a form of meditation for me. By “meditation,” I don’t mean sitting with closed eyes, chasing away thoughts. Rather, I mean that kanji brings on a focused, accepting state in which I’m happy to be doing what I’m doing and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I should note that kanji can also bring one close to insanity! After studying kanji for four hours one Sunday, I told my husband, “I feel like I’ve been in some other world.” “Japan?” he said. “No,” I replied, “it was more like that windowless room in A Beautiful Mind where numbers fly by Russell Crowe’s head while he tries to find patterns.” As unstable as this “insanity” feels, it’s also as invigorating as a caffeine high. Studying kanji brings you into contact with Old Oh, What a Feeling!

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Japan—with a pure form of the culture and the Japanese mind. Dating back about ﬁfteen hundred years in Japan (and much longer in China), kanji provides a time capsule, giving us insight into the way people once made sense of the world. As timeless human symbols, kanji characters can evoke the deepest feelings, above all joy.

Preview of Coming Attractions

This book is about a complicated topic, so there’s a lot going on in these pages. But it shouldn’t be hard to find just what you need. Here’s how the chapters break down: • The Preface will ideally whet your appetite for kanji. • The Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 look at how single kanji behave. • Chapter 3 examines their behavior in groups of two or more. • Chapter 4 explores what kanji say about Japan. • Chapter 5 conversely looks at what the Japanese say about kanji. • Chapter 6 compares Chinese and Japanese kanji, with a section on the use of these characters in Korean. • Chapter 7 provides tips on studying kanji in enjoyable, effective ways. Each chapter starts with “main text” that gives an overview of a topic. As one thinks about kanji, one’s thoughts tend to shoot off in several directions. The structure of this book accommodates those trains of thought; a host of exhibits follow the main text. Crossreferences within the main text let you know when it might be a good time to visit an exhibit. The Table of Contents (which you’ve already passed) provides a comprehensive list of exhibits. If you want to read main text and exhibits in the order presented, you should have a smooth ride. And if you zigzag between the main text and exhibits, that’ll work, too. The book has something to offer all levels of learners, from those who don’t know a word of Japanese (or who think they don’t!) to experts in the language and in kanji. Those who want a solid explanation of the workings of kanji would do well to read the first half in order, from the Introduction through Chapter 3. In the second half, Chapters 4 through 6 investi12

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

gate cultural themes, from kanji-shaped bonfires to animal signs in the Chinese zodiac. In those chapters, the information doesn’t build on itself, and you won’t miss a thing if you read at random. Chapter 7 presents tips on studying kanji. The main text should speak to students. But even casual kanjitourists might enjoy some of the exhibits, including one on kanji in a Welsh national park. The Answer Key comes next, providing solutions to the games scattered throughout the book. These puzzles and brain teasers vary in difficulty, and you’ll find the level of difficulty rated on a scale from 1 (easiest) to 3 (most challenging). Making an easy game takes considerable skill and experience, and I probably came up short in that arena. I apologize for any frustration this may cause. Some of the games require no prior knowledge of kanji or even of Japanese. In those cases, I’ve noted “Kanji Level: 0.” Many games favor those who know a lot about kanji. The most extreme cases will say “Kanji Level: 3.” For certain games you’ll need to know hiragana and katakana (two phonetic scripts that are collectively known as kana). Those will be marked with “Kana Needed: Y.” The others will say “Kana Needed: N.” At the very end, just before Works Cited, you’ll find a Glossary. If you forget the meaning of a term you saw earlier in the book, the Glossary should prove helpful. Some kanji books present characters in a predetermined order, matching the simple-to-complex sequence in which Japanese kids learn them. This book is nothing like that. You’ll find rare and complicated characters in the Preface, and you’ll find an exploration of the simple gate (門) shape halfway through the book. Students who are hellbent on memorizing kanji will want to know how many characters they’ll acquire by reading this book. Not an easy question to answer! Exhibit 13, “Just the Facts: How Many Kanji Does It Take?” addresses the difficulty of counting the kanji in one’s repertoire. Same goes for counting the kanji presented in this book. I hope this book invites you to stop counting the trees and instead to lose yourself happily in the vast forest of kanji. Intuition tells me that that has to be more rewarding in the end.

Acknowledgments

Spending a year scrutinizing characters as complex as 響, 撃, 魔, and 雄鶏, one could easily go oﬀ the deep

end. To the extent that I didn’t, I have several people to thank: • My husband, Haroon Chaudhri, who seems to believe I can do anything except drive a stick shift. (We’re both clear about that.) • Laura Peticolas, who expressed boundless excitement about every stage of this project. She understands how I think, what I need, and all the ways in which kanji and writing feed me. • Tom Immel, for his indispensable technical support. After my computer went belly-up in the middle of the project, he brought me a spare entirely of his own initiative, loaded it with software, helped me through rough patches with that machine, and later set up my new computer. • Karen North Wells, who gave me the idea to write about kanji. With her trademark positive thinking, she cheered me on every step of the way. • Saori Shiraishi, the first person to encourage my love of kanji. Oh, how patient she was, never acting as though I were a hopeless case! • Peter Goodman, the Stone Bridge Press publisher who saw potential in my original, amorphous ideas and steered me in a more effective direction. When he asked me to write about Chinese, Korean, and several other topics well beyond my reach, I was stunned and more than a little nervous. But as answers began to come my way, I marveled at his keen editorial intuition. How lucky for me that he could see where to take this project. Thanks to the rest of the Stone Bridge staff, as well. I’m also grateful for the Internet (especially Wikipedia, which supplied loads of useful information). As I exchanged emails with Chinese people in the States, an American expert in Korean based in the United Arab Emirates, and a Japanese woman in Italy, I marveled at how the Internet has shrunk distances and national differences. But technology is only part of the story. I wouldn’t have made progress without the extraordinary goodwill of strangers who said, “Sure, I’d love to explain my

extremely complicated language to you. Ask me anything.” For this I owe a huge amount to several people who speak Chinese: Tian Tang, Yaling Zhu, George Fang, Bei Li, Eva Shu, and Shawn Wang. I’m also quite grateful to a brigade of native Japanese speakers, all of whom cheerfully hunted down answers for me: Mayumi Sumiyoshi, Hitomi Iida, Yūta Yamada, Kenji Nagafuchi, Satoshi Watanabe, Kensuke Tsuruma, and Tomohiro Matsuzaki. Additional thanks go to Rodney Tyson, an expert in Korean, and Tim Harland, who shared his knowledge of Afan Forest Park in Wales. I’m also grateful to Kanji Haitani for allowing me to quote from his website. The editing process brought me many more reasons to be appreciative. Editors Laurence Wiig and Hiroshi Mori impressed me to no end with their insightful observations and sharp eyes for mistakes. I’m incredibly lucky that they brought enthusiasm, intelligence, and vast knowledge to the job. I’m indebted most of all to a Japanese man so modest that he would prefer not to be named here. Back when he was my teacher, he made me feel that Japanese needn’t be an impenetrable mystery. And as we worked on this book, he conveyed that all the more. It was quite a privilege to have access to his mind with its overarching, organized view of the language and everything that has shaped it. His generosity of spirit also amazed me. Though strapped for time, he worked with me week after week, patiently answering questions, searching for information that I couldn’t find, offering the gentlest of corrections, and treating my ideas as if they were of utmost importance. He gave me all the room I needed to present material in quirky, personal ways. Reading English isn’t his favorite activity, but he pored over hundreds of pages. And with Libra flexibility, he considered the text from multiple points of view: as a native speaker, as a teacher, and as a hypothetical non-native reader. Above all, he continually shared my excitement about kanji and about this project. For this and so much more, I am deeply grateful to him.

Acknowledgments

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thematic explorations

Words You’ve Heard Even if you’ve never studied Japanese, you know more words than you might realize. Here’s how they look in kanji, which tells you what they really mean.

Kimono

Karate

空手 (karate) = empty + hand The hand is “empty” of weapons. According to Wikipedia, “The name can be interpreted literally or as a philosophical reference to the concept of the Void (Tao).”

着物 (kimono) = to wear + thing That’s simple enough—a kimono is a thing to wear. But kimono is no longer a generic word for “clothes” in Japanese. Now it refers speciﬁcally to traditional Japanese garments.

芸者 (geisha) = art + person, or “person of the arts” As geisha perform dance, music, and poetry, these kanji suit them perfectly.

Sushi

Zen

寿司 (sushi) = congratulations + to preside over Japanese has had many writings for sushi. This odd combination is one of the most recent, the kanji chosen for their sound rather than their meaning. An alternate writing is 鮨, a single character that breaks down as “ﬁsh” + “delicious.”

Tofu

豆腐 (tôfu) = bean + rotten Rotten beans?! Surely something’s wrong! No, 腐 breaks down as “meat rotting in a storehouse.” Besides TÔ, the ﬁrst kanji, 豆, can be read as mame, from which we get edamame.

Origami

折り紙 (origami) = to fold + paper The character 紙 (paper) is normally read as kami. But it seems that origami ﬂows off the tongue more smoothly than orikami, so the k changed to a g in a process known as “voicing.” We’ll learn more about this later.

Akita

秋田 (akita) = autumn + rice ﬁeld How does this add up to a big, furry dog? Akita is also the capital of Akita Prefecture in northern Honshu, Japan’s main island. This ﬁghting dog comes from that beautiful region. Also of note: There is or was a Japanese boxer called Kanji Akita. A light-middleweight boxer, that is—not the dog breed!

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

Geisha

禅 (zen) This character originally meant “clearing land in order to build an altar.” Now some see the character as standing for “simple religion.”

Kamikaze

神風 (kamikaze) = divine + wind Though you may be tempted to ﬁt this word into Japanese conversation, don’t try, because native speakers probably won’t hear it as a reference to suicide attacks. Instead, they associate the word with a typhoon that supposedly saved Japan from a Mongol invasion in 1281 (hence, a divine wind). Rather than referring directly to that typhoon, though, the Japanese tend to use kamikaze to speak metaphorically of something good that has miraculously happened. Also note that whereas we pronounce the word as “comma-kahzee,” in Japanese it’s “kah-mee-kah-zay.”

Harakiri

腹切り (harakiri) = abdomen + to cut Committing harakiri means fatally plunging a sword into one’s abdomen (hara), so this kanji combination makes perfect sense. As with our word “guts,” hara indicates courage or resolve. By the way, the word harakiri tends to make Japanese people gasp. Many people instead refer to this form of suicide as seppuku.

thematic explorations

Place Names of Note Most Populous Cities

It’s helpful to know kanji for place names, especially at train stations. But the names also have interesting breakdowns, prompting one to puzzle over the etymology.

Fukuoka: 福岡 (fortune, happiness + hill) Hiroshima: 広島 (wide + island). Hiroshima isn't on an island. Well, everything in Japan is on an island. But the kanji might make you think that this city is on an island in the nearby Inland Sea, when in fact it's on Honshu, the main island in Japan. Go ﬁgure. Kawasaki: 川崎 (river + land jutting out into water) Kitakyûshû: 北九州 (north + 9 + province) Kôbe: 神戸 (god + door). An auspicious address, I would say! Kyôto: 京都 (capital + capital) Nagoya: 名古屋 (name + old + shop) Ôsaka: 大阪 (big + slope) Sapporo: 札幌 (paper money + awning) Sendai: 仙台 (wizard, hermit + platform) Tôkyô: 東京 (east + capital) Yokohama: 横浜 (side + beach)

The Country

Nihon (Japan): 日本 (sun + origin). This name means “origin of the sun.”

Main Islands (North to South)

Hokkaidô: 北海道 (north + sea + way) Honshû: 本州 (origin + province) Shikoku: 四国 (4 + country) Kyûshû: 九州 (9 + province) Okinawa: 沖縄 (open sea + rope)

spectacular shapes

Busy Bodies Some kanji are laughably complicated:

tsuyu: dew

議

露

熱

驚

odoro•ku: to be surprised KI: machinery, chance

atsu•i: hot

GI: discussion

hana•reru: to separate

離

Real Lookers A great-aunt of mine sometimes says in a thick New York accent, “Oh, I was a real looker (look-ah) back then!” I consider these kanji to be real lookers:

I: intention

風

意

FÛ, kaze: wind, style

歯

歌

SHI, ha: tooth

巡

KA, sugi•ru: to exceed

刻

KA, uta: song

機

過 HI, to•bu: to ﬂy

飛

KOKU, kiza•mu: to engrave

JUN, megu•ru: to go around

Real Lookers

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# 4 GAME! GAME! GAME! GAME! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 3

What Do You Get? Even if you don’t know what any kanji mean, you can still take this quiz. Here’s an example: What do you get when you add water and silver? a. Oil spill b. Titanium c. Mercury d. Wet, grey hair ANSWER:

c. Mercury: 水銀, suigin, is 水 (water) + 銀 (silver). In some cases, two answers are correct. Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai. (Good luck!) 1. What do you get when you invert a big sheep? a. Beautiful b. Dog c. Road d. Arrive 2. What do you get when you combine piety with violence? a. Religion b. War c. Politics d. Teaching 3. What do you get when you look at a needle? a. Sewing b. Laser eye surgery c. Intimacy d. Parents 4. What do you call it when a cow goes to temple? a. Sweet b. Devout c. Special d. Bizarre

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

5. What do you get when you talk about dying and the heart? a. A fatal heart attack b. Heartbreak c. Busyness d. Forgetting 6. What do you become if you split yourself open? a. Bloody b. Public c. Embarrassed d. Famous 7. What is rain that you can hold in your hand? a. Snow b. Ice c. Teardrops d. Dew 8. What do you get when you put a pig in the river? a. Feast b. Famine c. Drowning d. Blowfish 9. If I said, “My, that’s a capital fish!” what would I have seen? a. Goldfish b. Dolphin c. Whale d. Piranha 10. What do you get from a pleasure garden? a. Blooming roses b. Opium c. Prostitutes d. Paradise

thematic explorations

Words of Import Kanji continually opens my eyes to the meaning of English words. Take 空港 (kûkô: airport). As 空 means "air" and 港 means "port," this word breaks down as “air” + “port.” The second character, 港, contains the water radical 氵, and when I ﬁrst noticed this, it struck me as strange. There's little connection between airports and water. Then I realized that in English, we also create “ports” for airplanes, the ships of the sky. On a trip to Los Angeles, I connected the English word “port” with kanji in another way. In a Japanese restaurant I scrutinized the kanji on the menu, especially stumped by 入荷. I knew 入 as “to enter” (read as NYÛ or hai•ru), and I recognized 荷 as “load” (as in 荷物, nimotsu: luggage). But I couldn’t ﬁgure out what word they formed. Nyûka, or “import,” said the server, explaining that the wine had been imported and that

荷 can be read as KA, not just ni. So “to enter” + “load” = “import.” Well, that makes sense. An imported load of goods enters the country. But it’s so different from the way English speakers think. Or is it? I realized with a rush of excitement that our word “import” breaks down the same way: “im” is a form of “in,” and “port” = “to carry” (as in “portable”)! A further thought occurs to me now: maybe “important” has the same root and meaning as “import.” I consult my dictionary, and sure enough that’s correct! “Important” is abstract, so it’s harder to see the connection. But if an object is important, you carry it with you. Or if you consider an idea important, you want to bring it into existence. Look how imported wine in L.A. has made me see my language with fresh eyes!

Tongue Twister The following sentences come from a terriﬁc grammar book (Japanese Verbs at a Glance by Naoko Chino) that neglects to mention how confusing this tongue twister would be to the ear (my ear, at any rate): 乗るなら飲むな。飲んだら乗るな。 Noru nara nomu na. Nondara noru na. If you drive, don't drink. If you've been drinking, don't drive.

Kanji proves elucidating here. When you see the romanized version of the Japanese, you may grasp little. But kanji reveals the meaning of these similar sounds. Through the kanji, you can see that the no- of 乗 means “to board a vehicle,” making it very different from the no- of 飲, which means “to drink.”

Warning! Kanji Essential to Health! Knowing kanji may be essential to your health! Imagine working near dangerous chemicals in Japan and being unable to read the kanji on warning labels. According to Sunstar, a Japan-based corporation that addresses health issues, Filipino migrants take dirty, dangerous, and difﬁcult (“3D”) jobs that Japanese typically avoid. Such work is also called “3K” for kiken

(危険: dangerous), kitsui (きつい: difﬁcult), and kitanai (汚い: dirty). Legally hired workers are required to study Japanese, but illegal laborers don't want to invest the necessary time, and their employers don't enforce the rules. When foreign workers can't read kanji on signs, instructions, and labels, accidents sometimes result.

Warning! Kanji Essential to Health!

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thematic explorations

What’s in That Udon?! Udon are thick, white wheat noodles, often served in soup. The kanji for three types of udon will make you wonder, what’s in that udon?!

狐うどん kitsune udon: fox udon To make: Add fried tofu. Kanji: 狐 (kitsune) is a single kanji made of two parts: “dog,” 犭, on the left and “rounded” or “melon” on the right. So a fox is a rounded dog?! Actually, the part that means “rounded” gives the kanji its sound. Background: According to Japanese folktales, foxes have supernatural powers and love fried tofu! Some people say the udon acquired its name because fried tofu is as bright as fox fur.

狸うどん tanuki udon: raccoon-dog udon To make: Add the fried bits of ﬂour that remain after one has made tempura (though this udon varies regionally).

The largest characters, 阪急 (Hankyū), denote the name of a chain department store. This branch is in Shijō Kawaramachi (四条河原町), a Kyoto shopping district. If you’re hungry in Japan—whether you’re looking for udon or other typical lunch items—you’ll always ﬁnd a reasonable restaurant in a big department store like this one.

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

Kanji: 狸 (tanuki) breaks down as “dog” + “village,” for some reason. Background: In folklore, the mischievous tanuki keeps getting into trouble. That lends the additional meaning of “cunning” to this kanji, as in 狸親父, tanuki oyaji (cunning old man, made from “cunning” + “relative” + “father”) and 狸寝入り, tanuki ne-iri (feigning sleep, made from “cunning” + “to sleep” + “to enter”).

月見うどん tsukimi udon: moon-viewing udon To make: Add an egg without breaking the yolk, which represents the moon. Kanji: 月見 (tsukimi) is “moon” + “to see.” For once it’s simple! Background: The Japanese hold otsukimi (moonviewing) festivals in October, enjoying the full moon after harvesting crops. In the word otsukimi, the initial letter is an “honoriﬁc o,” usually indicating that the Japanese hold something in high regard.

thematic explorations

Bloopers If you type in kagaku, the computer will ask whether you want to replace this homonym with 化学 (chemistry) or 科学 (general science). This technology is magical ... unless you're not so clear on kanji. Then sentences can go horribly awry. Mistakes during kanji conversion have become the basis for an annual typo award in Japan. Recent candidates included the sentence that turned a “sweeping victory after five seasons” (五季ぶり快勝) into “cockroach extermination” (ゴキブリ解消). One would read both phrases as gokiburi kaishô. With this potential for errors in mind, here are kanji bloopers—sentences that one would pronounce in identical ways but that contain different kanji and therefore mean different things. 1. Tsukenasai! 点けなさい！ Turn it on! 漬けなさい！ Marinate it! 2. Aa, itai desuyo. ああ、痛いですよ。 Oh, it's painful! ああ、遺体ですよ。 Oh, it's a dead body! 3. Ano kuni dewa, shiki wa atsui desu. あの国では、四季は暑いです。 In that country, the four seasons are hot. あの国では、式は熱いです。 In that country, ceremonies are passionate.

5. Tesuto o shita toki, jishin ga arimashita. テストをした時、自信がありました。 When I was taking the test, I felt conﬁdent. テストをした時、地震がありました。 When I was taking the test, there was an earthquake. 6. Kono gakki wa nagai desune. この学期は長いですね。 This school term is long, isn't it? この楽器は長いですね。 This musical instrument is long, isn't it? 7. Kono kikai o riyô shiyô! この機会を利用しよう！ Let's take this chance! この機械を利用しよう！ Let's use this machine! 8. Seikô suru chansu o fuyasu tame ni, mijikai sukāto o haita hô ga ii. 性交するチャンスを増やすために、短いスカートを履いたほうがいい。 To increase your opportunities for sex, wear short skirts. 成功するチャンスを増やすために、短いスカートを履いたほうがいい。 To increase your opportunities for success, wear short skirts.

4. Rekishi to wa hidoi mono desu. 歴史とはひどいものです。 History is terrible. 轢死とはひどいものです。 It's terrible to be run over and killed.

Bloopers

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thematic explorations

Atari and Other Brand Names Atari

当たり (Atari) Atari means “success,” and its kanji (当) means “to hit” or “to win the lottery.” But the company name derives from the game Go, in which atari resembles the concept of “check” in chess.

Nintendo

任天堂 (Nintendô) In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo as a playing-card company. The kanji breaks down as “to leave it to” + “heaven” + “hall.” But taken together, the last two (天堂) mean “heaven.” Some interpret this combination as “leave luck to heaven,” but other translations abound, including, “Heaven blesses hard work” and “Work hard, but in the end it’s in heaven’s hands.”

Seiko

精工 (Seikô) The company used to be called 精工舎 (Seikôsha), “House of Precision Engineering.” At one point the company dropped the 舎 (sha), which means “house.” Thus, the ofﬁcial name now means “precision engineering.” However, the company name is now written without any kanji (instead represented phonetically as セイコー).This ambiguity must help business, because people automatically associate the name with several seikô homonyms, all of which have positive connotations: 成功 (success), 精巧 (exquisite or delicate), and 性交 (sexual intercourse).

Toyota

豊田 (Toyota) Kiichiro Toyoda founded this company in 1937. But he changed the da of his name to ta because it takes a lucky eight strokes to write Toyota phonetically in katakana (トヨタ), as opposed to ten for Toyoda (トヨダ ). The kanji are fortuitous, too, breaking down as “excellent” or “rich” + “rice ﬁeld.”

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Preface: Falling in Love with Kanji

Honda

本田 (Honda) In 1948, Soichiro Honda established this company. The characters mean “origin” + “rice ﬁeld.”

Subaru

昴 (Subaru) Subaru means “Pleiades star cluster,” as depicted in the company logo.

Suzuki

鈴木 (Suzuki) Michio Suzuki founded Suzuki Loom Works in 1909. Not until 1954 did it become Suzuki Motor Co. The kanji breaks down as “bell” + “tree.”

Mitsubishi

三菱 (Mitsubishi) The ﬁrst kanji (三) means “three,” and 菱 means both “water chestnut” and “rhombus” (a diamond shape). The company logo features three rhombuses.

Kawasaki

川崎 (Kawasaki) Shozo Kawasaki founded this company in 1896. The name has nothing to do with the city of Kawasaki, though they have the same kanji: “river” + “land jutting out into water.”

Nissan

日産 (Nissan) Nissan is a contraction of Nihon Sangyô (日本産業), which means “Japan industry.” ition deﬁn For a kana, see ta of ka t 11, “Just i i h x E b ts: Kanji ac F veral the of Se e n O as ts.” Scrip

what are all those squiggles? introduction

When one sees such oddities as 芝, 包, and 虚偽, one can't help asking, What are all those squiggles? Is there any underlying order to the lines going hither and thither in these characters known as kanji? What function do kanji serve in Japanese? The kanji system is beautifully intricate, as awe-inspiring in its complexity as the human psyche. Reading the characters brings you face to face with scads of irregularities, but ultimately the system has a deep, solid structure. The more you understand this framework, the easier it is to approach kanji with an organized, calm mind.

The Same Strokes for Diﬀerent Folks

The underlying structure becomes a bit more apparent once you grasp the concept of stroke order, the sequence with which you should draw lines in each kanji. Remember those charts across the top of ﬁrst-grade blackboards, the charts showing the proper way to travel around a w or an R? In Japanese, there’s 山 (SAN, yama: mountain) instead of w, as well as 尺 (SHAKU, SEKI: measure, length) instead of R. But the same idea exists—to make the shapes look right, you need to draw lines in a certain sequence and direction. See Exhibit 9, “Just the Facts: Drawing 101,” for instructions on how to draw these characters. Even if you don’t follow the instructions in Exhibit 9, you can still produce good likenesses of 山 and 尺, which might lead you to wonder why anyone makes a big deal about stroke order. With simple characters, it’s largely inconsequen•

tial if you deviate from the instructions. But when you draw large conglomerations of strokes such as 勝 (SHŌ, ka•tsu: to win), you’ll want some guidance. And if you draw this character as textbooks say you should, you’ll see it isn’t such a scary conglomeration after all, as it has three sections: , , and . When you notice such patterns in kanji, it all feels much more manageable. For more on this, see Exhibit 10, “Just the Facts: Stroke Order.”

The Origin of Kanji

But I've gotten ahead of myself. You've begun drawing kanji without any kind of context for these squiggles. They originated in the Yellow River region of China in about 2000 BCE, etched onto turtle shells, animal bones, and clay pots for divination purposes and state inventories. Scholars have identified three thousand characters from the earliest years. By about 200 CE, the number of characters had grown to a staggering fifty thousand. From China the characters spread to various parts of Asia, including Japan, over perhaps nine hundred years, starting in the third or fourth century CE. Through both miscopying and intentional simplification, the characters have since evolved considerably in both China and Japan. But kanji haven't changed in the same ways in the two countries. Many Chinese and Japanese characters now have different shapes and meanings. Enough similarities remain that Japanese natives can grasp the central ideas in a Chinese newspaper, though not the details. Chinese natives have the same experience when looking at a Japanese paper, except for one key difference; Chinese has only one script, whereas Japanese texts intertwine four: kanji, hiragana, katakana, and ever so occasionally rōmaji. See Exhibit 11, “Just the Facts: Kanji as One of Several Scripts,” for an explanation of how that works. And for a different take on the meaning of the word kanji, see Exhibit 12, “Just the Facts: What Else ‘Kanji’ Can Be.” Exhibit 13, “Just the Facts: How Many Kanji Does It Take?” provides information about how many kanji you need to know for proficiency in reading.

Kanji as Ideographic . . . or Not So Much?

Given that kanji originally represented real-life objects, you may wonder whether characters still have pictorial

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Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

meanings. With beginners, teachers often tout kanji’s pictographic aspects, hoping to make the case that kanji is fun and easy. “Look,” they say brightly. “木 (MOKU, ki) is ‘tree.’ Don’t you think 木 looks like a tree?” Yes, it does. But in implying that kanji is usually pictographic, they’re flat-out lying. The truth is, only a handful of kanji closely resemble the objects they represent. You’ll find more examples of such characters in Exhibit 14, “Just the Facts: Pictograms and Ideograms.” There’s no real way to symbolize abstract concepts pictorially. That’s why 生 (SEI, i•kiru) doesn’t look much like “life,” 怒 (DO, ika•ru) comes nowhere close to suggesting “anger,” and 世 (SEI, SE, yo) simply doesn’t do justice to “world.” And yet, on a more micro level, subsections of kanji are often loaded with meaning. For example, 怒 contains three parts, each with its own significance: 女 means “woman,” 又 means “hand,” and 心 means “heart.” However, meanings in kanji are often kaleidoscopic, shifting in dazzling and dizzying ways as the parts combine. It turns out that when you put 女 and 又 together, as in the upper portion of 怒, they form a separate kanji (奴, DO, yatsu) meaning “slave” or “servant.” For an explanation of how meaning varies with spacing in this sort of way, see Exhibit 15, “Just the Facts: One Kanji or Two?”

Kanji and the Japanese “Alphabet”

This type of analysis may be difficult for us to grasp if we think in terms of our alphabet. The letters a, d, b, p, and q all contain a circle plus a line. Does that give them meaning, either individually or as a group? Not in the least. Our letters acquire meaning only when we assemble them into words or into units such as un-, neo-, -ed, and so on. Taken individually, English letters are flat and inanimate tools, compared with kanji, which brim with life and significance. Speaking of letters, you may wonder how one can read 怒 as ika•ru or 奴 as yatsu. Do kanji correspond to letters in the Japanese alphabet, or does each kanji match up with one word? Neither idea is quite right, though they both have elements of truth. Although kanji can represent whole words (e.g., 奴 as yatsu), the characters frequently represent portions of words, with hiragana finishing the job. Thus, 怒 says ika. The whole word, ikaru, is written as follows: 怒る. This kind of kanji-hiragana hybridization occurs with many adjectives and verbs, as in these examples (in which the kanji appears in bold):

美しい (utsukushii: beautiful) The kanji covers utsuku, and the hiragana says -shii. 行きます (ikimasu: to go)

The kanji covers only i, and the hiragana says -kimasu. In the next chapter, Exhibit 18, “Just the Facts: Okurigana,” will explain more about hiragana leftovers. As these examples demonstrate, a single kanji character may be several syllables long (e.g., utsuku) or as short as the i in ikimasu. Note that I said “syllables,” not “letters.” Japanese is a syllable-based language. Instead of an alphabet, it has a “syllabary.“ Whereas we write English words by stringing together letters (as in “h-a-t” or “h-a-t-e”), the Japanese write words by stringing together syllables. That is, the Japanese alphabet provides ready-made syllables such as ra, ri, ru, re, and ro. To write sushi, you add the syllable su to the syllable shi. Similarly, sake is sa plus ke. When I first learned about these ready-made syllables, I wasted considerable mental energy resisting this approach. It’s so different from ours that I felt it had to be flawed somehow. It isn’t. It’s just different. There’s no point in raising objections, because that’s simply the way the language works. See Exhibit 16, “Just the Facts: The Japanese Syllables,” for an explanation and display of Japanese syllables. As the exhibit shows, most syllables consist of one consonant plus one vowel (e.g., ka or hi). Some include two consonants followed by a vowel (e.g., tsu, chi, and ryo). In Japanese, the sound n also constitutes a full syllable, as do the vowels a, i, u, e, and o. Except for n, all Japanese syllables end in vowels, making the language sound Hawaiian compared with consonantheavy English (which yields words such as schism). You can see from Exhibit 16 that each hiragana character equals one syllable. The same is true for katakana. Using hiragana and katakana to write words may therefore make you consider how many syllables each word has. Ikimasu has four (いきます, i-ki-ma-su), and utskushii has five (うつくしい, u-tsu-ku-shi-i).

But the word “syllable” is slightly misleading here, given the way we associate it with the number of sounds uttered in a word. In Japanese, the u is often silent in various syllables. As a result, ikimasu sounds like ickkey-mahs—three enunciated syllables. Utsukushii includes another silent u (this time in tsu), as well as a doubled i, which means you hold it longer. The word therefore sounds like oots-koo-sheeee, again three syllables to the Western ear. A word containing an n poses a similar problem, as the sound of the n merges with the sound of the previous syllable. For example, ginkō (bank) sounds as if it has only two syllables, gin and kō; one wouldn’t dream of enunciating an extra syllable by separating the gi and the n. For more on pronunciation, see Exhibit 17: “Just the Facts: How to Pronounce Japanese Words.” The linguistics term “mora” (plural “morae”) could help us here, as it properly describes Japanese syllabic units in a way that has nothing to do with sound. But “mora” (and certainly “morae”) is a bit hardcore for our purposes, so I’ll stick with “syllable,” deceptive though it is. But, for the sake of clarity, I will use “mora” just once to make a final point right now. When you can’t represent a full word in kanji and you need to tack some hiragana onto it, the hiragana will never start in the middle of a mora. Take, for instance, 速い (hayai: fast). The kanji covers haya (the syllables ha and ya), and the hiragana provides the final syllable i. It doesn’t matter that the ear hears yai as one sound. The individual kanji 速 embodies haya, determining the way the kanji-hiragana division will play out, almost as genetic material directs a sunflower seed to grow into a sunflower. These rules may seem quirky at times, but the more you know about kanji, the more the behavior of these characters feels genetically determined, deriving from their collective and individual histories.

The way to read Japanese signs nowadays is from left to right. But to understand this old-style sign, you’ll need to read from right to left. If you do, perhaps (perhaps!) you can recognize the highly stylized characters as 觀音堂 (Kannon-dō), which means that this is a temple building dedicated to Kannon (the Buddhist deity of mercy). The character 觀 is an old form; the modern form of that kanji is 観. The sign is at the temple Fukuzen-ji in Tomo, Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture.

觀観

Kanji and the Japanese “Alphabet”

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# 9 just the facts Drawing 101 To draw 山, start with the central vertical line, drawing it from top to bottom. Next, draw the left-hand vertical line. Without lifting your pen or pencil, turn the corner and create the horizontal line. Finally, draw the righthand line, bringing it down to meet the horizontal one. And you have yourself a mountain! To draw 尺, start with the uppermost horizontal line, pulling it across to the right. Without lifting your writing implement, turn the corner and go down a ways. Now pick up your pen or pencil and draw the

second horizontal line from left to right, bringing the line to meet the one you left behind. Lift your implement two more times, once to draw the longest vertical line from top to bottom, then to draw the downward-swooping diagonal line. Now you've created . . . what, exactly? A character people rarely use. Not to worry; you'll need it for the common 駅 (eki), where it teams up with the “horse” character 馬 to mean “station.”

山尺馬駅 1

SAN, yama:

mountain

SHAKU:

1 Japanese “foot,” a unit of measure

4 5

BA,

uma: horse

eki: station

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Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

# 10

just the facts

Stroke Order You’ll ﬁnd it most natural to draw kanji if you observe these rules (to which there are many exceptions): •

Draw from top to bottom. That is, draw uppermost strokes before lower ones. And when making a vertical line, go from top to bottom, as with the ﬁrst stroke of a capital D in English. To draw 子 (child), move down the character, almost as if drawing a 3, ﬁnishing it off with a horizontal line.

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Draw from left to right. You might be tempted to draw ヨ of 良 (good) by extending horizontal lines from the vertical one. Instead, bring the last two horizontal strokes to meet that vertical line.

•

Draw enclosures ﬁrst (e.g., the outermost box in 回 (to turn) and the 門 in 聞 [to listen, ask]), but if there's a bottom closing line (as in 回), draw that last.

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Draw horizontal crossing strokes before vertical crossing strokes. The last lines drawn in 中 (middle) and 用 (to use) are the vertical ones down the middle.

To look up words in kanji dictionaries, you may need to know how to count strokes. This brings us back to the matter of drawing kanji properly, because you count strokes according to the number of times your pen leaves the page. Even if you turn a corner with a line, ﬁrst drawing left to right and then moving down the page (as in the initial part of ヨ, above), that counts as one stroke, because the motion should be continuous. Here are the stroke counts for the kanji in this exhibit: 子 (2) 良 (7) 回 (6) 聞 (14) 中 (4) 用 (5) More detailed guidelines about these issues appear inside the front cover of Kenneth Henshall's Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters.

子回中良聞用 1

4 5

3 4

7 8

Stroke Order

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# 11 just the facts Kanji As One of Several Scripts Kanji is just one of several scripts interwoven in Japanese texts. Each script plays a different role, as follows: Kanji: The most complicated-looking of all the scripts (e.g., 議, GI: discussion), though some characters are quite tame (e.g., 今, ima: now). Kanji can represent all parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs), as well as place names, people’s names, and pronouns. Hiragana: Loopy, cursive writing (e.g., ひらがな, which says “hiragana”) used mainly for grammar but also for kanji that are too difﬁcult to write. Katakana: Angular writing used for words not of Japanese or Chinese origin (e.g., マクドナルド, which says Makudonarudo, meaning “McDonald’s”). Collectively, hiragana and katakana are called kana. As if all that weren’t enough for Japanese schoolchildren to learn, they’re also introduced to rômaji, which is the romanized (i.e., our alphabet) rendering of their language. Here’s dog in all four scripts: kanji hiragana katakana rômaji

犬いぬイヌ inu

The following sentence incorporates these four types of writing: 私の犬はSPCAの犬で、名前はメアリーです。 Watashi no inu wa SPCA no inu de, namae wa Mearī desu. My dog is an SPCA dog, and her name is Mary. Here’s how the sentence breaks down in terms of scripts: Kanji 私犬名前

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watashi: I inu: dog namae: name

Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

Hiragana の no: the equivalent of ‘s は wa: subject marker で de: short form of desu, explained in next line です desu: is Katakana メアリー Mearī: Mary Rômaji SPCA A typical sentence contains 51 percent hiragana and 36 percent kanji. Japanese text generally alternates between kanji and hiragana, as follows: 私の犬は汚いですが、可愛いですよ。 Watashi no inu wa kitanai desu ga, kawaii desuyo. My dog is dirty but cute. But sometimes the kanji-hiragana proportions appear to be out of whack, as when text includes monstrous strings of kanji such as these: 日本建築構造技術者協会九州支部 Nihon Kenchiku Kôzô Gijutsusha Kyôkai Kyûshû Shibu Architecture and Structural Engineering Association of Japan, Kyushu Branch 次世代育成支援対策推進法 jiseidai ikusei shien taisaku suishin hô law promoting the governmental policy supporting the rearing of the next generation Whew! I love kanji, but having ﬁfteen in a row is intense! It feels much better when hiragana provide breathing room between kanji. Then they stand out in contrast, just as a few stalks of bamboo create dramatic beauty in a minimalistic Japanese garden. ’s y do g ally, m ji! u t c A is Kan name

# 12

just the facts

What Else “Kanji” Can Be In this book, kanji refers to a concept represented by these characters: 漢字. The ﬁrst (pronounced KAN) means the “Han Dynasty“ in China; the second (JI) means “character.“ Japanese also has scads of other words pronounced kanji. Here’s what these homonyms mean and how they’re written: 感じ幹事監事官事閑事甘辞冠辞寛治寛司莞爾

perception, impression, feeling manager, secretary inspector, supervisor, auditor government business idleness clever speech, ﬂattery stereotyped epithet an era in Japan lasting from 1087 to 1093 a male given name (e.g., the modern dancer Segawa Kanji, 瀬河寛司) part of the phrase kanji to shite (莞爾として), meaning “with a smile.“

And then outside Japan, the word has various meanings • • • • • •

•

a gnarled Australian tree known as a “kanji bush“ or “baderi“ a city and a dam in Nigeria (Kanji Dam) a first name in parts of Africa a first or last name in India rice gruel in India, related to congee in China a game reserve in northern India filled with ibex (wild goats); the sole village within that game reserve is also called Kanji a manufacturer of “drop shot weights“ for fishing; based in Hartsdale, New York, Kanji International uses baits made in Japan

Kanji can also be a shelf! Sammy Engramer designed this 2008 wooden creation (110cm X 130cm X 35cm), which represents 見 (mi•ru: to see). A native of France, he calls this the Kanji “Voir”shelf (“voir” is French for “to see”).

What Else “Kanji” Can Be

•

# 13 just the facts How Many Kanji Does It Take? It’s much easier now to read Japanese proficiently than it used to be. Until 1946, the Japanese needed to know at least four thousand kanji to read newspapers and magazines. Now, thanks to a series of reforms, people need only half that many. But you may require even less than that, depending on your goals. If you master the Jôyô kanji, you’ll be in great shape. The Jôyô (常用, meaning “ordinary use“) are 1,945 characters that the Japanese Ministry of Education selected for regular use in 1981. The ministry determined that newspapers and magazines would limit their kanji to this pool and that schools would require students to know these characters. Children learn 1,006 of the Jôyô in primary school. These first 1,006 constitute the Gakushû (学習, or “study“) kanji. Students learn the remaining 939 characters by the end of ninth grade, thereby acquiring the requisite 1,945 characters. But in a kind of “gotcha,“ 284 more kanji pop up in given and family names. In junior high, the Japanese also study this group of characters known as the Jinmei-yô (人名用, “used for people’s names“) kanji, which fall outside the Jôyô. The total then comes to 2,229 kanji. On top of that, native speakers know certain kanji that have long existed in personal and place names and that the Japanese can’t see fit to change, no matter what the reformed rules say. For instance, although 丘 has replaced 岡 in the Jôyô as the way to write oka, “hill,“ the old kanji persists in the place name 福岡 (Fukuoka) and in the family name 岡本 (Okamoto). These extras bring the number of need-toknow kanji to about 2,300 characters. Sound daunting? Perhaps. But the good news is that if you know the 1,006 Gakushû kanji, you can understand 90 percent of kanji in Japanese publications. The National Language Institute affirmed this fact after analyzing the use of kanji in ninety magazines. To do so, they worked from data about which characters appear most often in texts. For example, the three most frequently used kanji are 一 (ichi: one), 日 (nichi: sun, day), and 人 (hito: person). The researchers deduced the following: •

The 100 most frequent kanji account for 40 percent of kanji used. •

Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

• • • • •

The 200 most frequent kanji account for 50 percent of kanji used. The 500 most frequent kanji account for 75 percent of kanji used. The 1,000 most frequent kanji account for 90 percent of kanji used. The 1,500 most frequent kanji account for 96 to 98 percent of all kanji used. The 2,000 most frequent kanji account for 99 percent of all kanji used.

Maybe it’ll suit you fine to learn 100 kanji and to grasp two-fifths of what you see, filling in the gaps with good guesses. Or if you want to be able to read kanji in the least violent video games (the ones that are open to anyone, just as a G-rated movie is), you’ll only need the 1,006 Gakushû kanji, because the target audience for such games is children. For the bloodiest games, you’ll need the roughly 2,300 that appear in newspapers. Reading manga is quite a bit easier; they’re required to be annotated with furigana (small hiragana written underneath, above, or beside kanji, indicating their pronunciations). For menus, you’ll want to master food-related kanji. Menus will largely present Jôyô kanji, as will train-station signs. Stations require a mastery of place-name kanji, but signs indicating the name of the station will often be in rômaji, as well. The issue of quantifying the kanji characters in one’s repertoire still strikes me as very odd. How many kanji do I know? I haven’t the foggiest notion. Back when I used a 500-kanji book that numbered the kanji as we learned them, I had a good sense of the “score.“ But of course there’s no guarantee that just because I’ve reproduced a kanji on a quiz, I’ll actually know it when I see it somewhere else. Some kanji have meaning for me only as parts of words, not when standing on their own. Then there’s a nebulous “sort of know“ category—the kanji I remember just as soon as I’ve looked them up for the nth time. This all makes me wonder—when people talk about how many kanji they know, do they fudge the numbers a bit, as many of us do with our weights?

# 14

just the facts

Pictograms and Ideograms A close cousin to the pictogram is the ideogram (指事文字, shijimoji). These kanji represent abstract concepts, such as numbers and directions. Group B includes a few common ones. In the case of 上 , the bottom stroke represents a baseline; anything higher than that line is “above.“ Same with 下; anything beneath the top line is “below.“ One supposed ideogram looks like the opposite of its meaning: 円 (maru•i) means “round,“ with “yen“ as an associated meaning. If you see nothing round in the orthogonal 円, perhaps the derivation will help. Originally this was 圓, with 囗 indicating roundness. The inner part, 員, meant “round kettle“ and emphasized roundness, culminating in the meaning “circle.“ Did that help? No, I didn’t think so. Let’s return to some less common ideograms that actually make sense:

It’s worthwhile to notice which kanji are still good likenesses of the objects they represent. In Group A below, you’ll ﬁnd several such characters (line 1), along with their meanings (line 2) and readings (lines 3 and 4): Pictographic kanji are called 象形文字 (shôkeimoji), which also means “Egyptian hieroglyphics.“ The pictograms displayed in Group A, below, are common kanji, and once you start learning more obscure characters, you may think you’ve left pictorial ones far behind. Most likely, yes. But here’s one you might stumble upon eventually: r 串 KAN: to pierce; kushi: skewer es fo r nam rigana e h t O u f e am This seems quite a clear picture the s t include ep c and n ,” i co b u s of a shish kebab! Here’s another rm ,” “r “ruby .” These te o d e t o that’s almost as pictorial: a t “ag ing noth s stones. e v a h ou an preci 傘 SAN, kasa: umbrella with , “ruby” is or r f e d h r t o Ra w h ritis face The topmost part ( ) proold B oint type p te a .5 t o a5 n vides shelter from rain, the n to an uments. I used c e o h cross (十) represents the s, t ed d print ited State nt e n w U frame, and the personlike e ac the typef hen the e m a W s shapes (人) provide further ped gate.” by “a se ﬁrst ty d support to the top. e e s Japan a, they u e. n c a a furig int typef by u o a 7-p ilarity to r e m m i a s n s It e he red th inspi ubi). See t ple. m (r a s ビ ra ル ary fo Gloss

凹

Ô: indentation, depression; kubo: hollow,

凸

depression TOTSU: protrusion, bulge

Notice how nicely these ﬁt together, like two continents that have drifted apart. Ah, if only all kanji were this obvious!

Group A 山 mountain

門 gate

火 ﬁre

川 river

口 mouth, opening

SAN

MON

SEN

KÔ

yama

kado

kawa

kuchi

一 one

二 two

三 three

上 above

下 below

中 middle

大 big

ICHI

SAN

JÔ

CHÛ

DAI

hito•tsu

futa•tsu

mi•ttsu

shita

naka

ô•kii

Group B

Pictograms and Ideograms

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# 15 just the facts One Kanji or Two? How many kanji do you see in these examples? 日月重力女子

明動好

In every row, the left-hand column contains two kanji, whereas the right-hand column contains just one. You can tell because there's more space between the two kanji on the left than between the components on the right. This may seem analogous to treating the roman o and e as distinct letters (as in poem) versus typing them in one fell swoop with the French ligature œ (as in œuvre). But in Japanese this is no mere typographical matter. The spacing entirely changes the meaning, as follows: 日月明

jitsugetsu: sun and moon MEI, aka•rui: bright

重力動

jûryoku: gravity DÔ, ugo•ku: to move

女子好

joshi: woman KÔ, su•ki: favorite

When I ﬁrst learned kanji, I could reproduce the correct spacing in 地下鉄 (chikatetsu: subway), making 土 and 也 touch each other, as well as 金 and 失. But in my mind, the word had ﬁve parts, not three. It

And how many kanji do you see in this ranking list, known as a banzuke (番付)? A banzuke lists sumo wrestlers for a particular tournament, ranking them in accordance with their performance in a previous tournament. The names appear vertically. The top half of the rightmost column says 白鵬 (Hakuhō), but this word bleeds oﬀ the right side, obscuring parts of each kanji. To the left of that, we partially see 朝青龍 (Asashōryū), although only the lower half of 朝 appears. These are the names of the Grand Champions. The typeface style is known as sumōmoji, a font used for sumo-wrestling posters and programs. For more on typefaces, see Exhibit 57, “Just the Facts: Typefaces.”

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Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

escaped me that by inserting more space, I would be writing different kanji. Instead of this breakdown . . . 地下鉄

CHI, JI: ground KA,

shita: below, under

TETSU, kurogane: iron

. . . my characters would have had this meaning: 土也下金失

DO, TO,

tsuchi: earth, soil nari: to be KA, shita: below, under KIN, kane: gold, money SHITSU, ushina•u: to lose YA,

If I had written 土也下金失 , it would have meant “to be losing gold under the earth.“ On second thought, that’s pretty much how it feels to buy an overpriced subway ticket!

# 16

just the facts

The Japanese Syllables Whereas English has an alphabet, Japanese has a syllabary, a collection of syllables. Japanese contains the same vowels as in English (though the order is different: a, i, u, e, o). In Japanese, vowels function as full syllables. For instance, the syllabic breakdown of ukiyoe (woodblock prints) is as follows: u-ki-yo-e. The ﬁrst and fourth syllables are solely vowel sounds. Consonants also team up with vowels to form such syllables as ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko. Therefore, the syl-

lables displayed below mostly come in sets of five. In each section of the chart, the first line shows the rômaji (R) reading, the second line reflects the hiragana (H) for that syllable, and the third line contains the katakana (K) for the same syllable. As the last entry shows, the pronunciation of the n syllable varies, depending on the context. Sometimes ん, as in えんぴつ (enpitsu: pencil), sounds more like an m.

R: H: K:

a あア

i いイ

u うウ

e えエ

o おオ

R: H: K:

ma まマ

R: H: K:

ka かカ

ki きキ

ku くク

ke けケ

ko こコ

R: H: K:

ya やヤ

R: H: K:

sa さサ

shi しシ

su すス

se せセ

so そソ

R: H: K:

ra らラ

R: H: K:

ta たタ

chi ちチ

tsu つツ

te てテ

to とト

R: H: K:

wa わワ

R: H: K:

na なナ

ni にニ

nu ぬヌ

ne ねネ

no のノ

R: H: K:

n/m んン

R: H: K:

ha はハ

hi ひヒ

fu ふフ

he へヘ

ho ほホ

mi みミ

mu むム

me めメ

yu ゆユ ri りリ

ru るル

mo もモ yo よヨ

re れレ

ro ろロ (w)o をヲ

The Japanese Syllables

•

# 16 just the facts Small Kana Although the y- line got short shrift, as there are only three y- syllables, they serve an important function. When written small and placed after many of the main consonants, ya, yu, and yo help create “contracted“ syllables as follows: きゃ (kya). In the table below, I don’t show the katakana version of these diphthongs (called 拗音, yôon, meaning “warped sounds“), but they’re quite common in katakana words. In fact, katakana has extra yôon that enable Japanese to accommodate sounds from foreign languages. For instance, some loanwords (terms that have entered Japanese from any language other than Chinese) include a small e, as in チェック

(chekku: check), and a small i, as in フィルム (ﬁrumu: ﬁlm). Additional consonants include syllables starting with f, v, d, and ts.

Tenten and Maru When the marks ゛(tenten or 点々）and ゜(maru or

丸) follow syllables that start with certain consonants, the sounds of those consonants change. (A syllable including a tenten is considered to be “voiced,“ whereas a syllable with a maru is called “plosive.“) Although I’ll use hiragana here to show how this works, the same rules apply to katakana. Also, when I say ka, for instance, that’s shorthand for all the syllables in the ka series (i.e., ki, ku, ke, and ko).

Small Kana

Tenten and Maru

き: ki:

か ka

が ga

きゃ kya

ぎゃ gya

は ha

ば ba

ぱ pa

ひゃ hya

びゃ bya

ぴゃ pya

さ sa

ざ za

しゃ sha

じゃ ja

た ta

だ da

きゃきゅきょ kya kyu kyo (e.g., きょう, kyô: today)

し: shi:

しゃしゅしょ sha shu sho (e.g., でんしゃ, densha: train)

ち: chi:

ちゃちゅちょ cha chu cho (e.g., おちゃ, ocha: tea)

に: ni:

にゃにゅにょ nya nyu nyo (e.g., にゅうがく, nyûgaku: matriculation)

ひ: hi:

ひゃひゅひょ hya hyu hyo (e.g., ひゃく, hyaku: hundred)

み: mi:

みゃみゅみょ mya myu myo (e.g., だいみょう, daimyô: feudal lord)

り: ri:

りゃりゅりょ rya ryu ryo (e.g., りょうり, ryôri: cooking, cuisine)

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Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

# 16

just the facts

Doubled Vowels When speaking Japanese, hold doubled vowels twice as long as single vowels. Rômaji, hiragana, and katakana all have different conventions for marking “long“ vowels. In this book, horizontal bars, “macrons,“ go above long vowels in rômaji (as in the word rômaji). In hiragana, お (o) is the most commonly doubled vowel. You usually double お by adding う (u) , though on occasion you add another お. Here are examples of each: ぎんこうおおきい

ginkô: bank ôkii: big

The Japanese pronounce “Tokyo” with two syllables: To-kyo. If you invert these, you get Kyo-to, which again has two syllables. But writing these place names in hiragana and rômaji reveals a slight difference between the syllables in the two words: とうきょうきょうと

Tôkyô Kyôto

Both o’s are long in Tôkyô, whereas in Kyôto the ﬁrst o is long and the second is short. In hiragana, double え (e) by adding either another え or more commonly い (i), depending on the word: おねえさんれい

o: こここうこう

koko: here kôkô: high school

u: しゅじんしゅうじん

shujin: husband shûjin: prisoner

One caveat: Just because the same vowel occurs twice in a row doesn’t necessarily mean that you hold it longer or double it with a macron in rômaji. For instance, ekiin (station employee) has two adjacent i’s because it combines the characters for “station“ (駅, eki) and “employee“ (員, -in). Therefore, you need to enunciate i twice. To indicate this, there’s sometimes an apostrophe between the two i’s in rômaji, though not in this book. Similarly, when a word includes ん (n), you’ll sometimes see an apostrophe in the rômaji version. For example, the apostrophe in hon’ya (bookstore) tells you not to read or spell the letters in question as nya. The hiragana for hon’ya is ほんや, not ほにゃ. In the same way, an apostrophe distinguishes kin’en (禁煙, きんえん: no smoking) from kinen (記念, きねん: anniversary, memorial). This book does include apostrophes for words where ん precedes a vowel or y.

Doubled Consonants

In terms of pronunciation, doubled consonants work the opposite way from doubled vowels. Whereas you hold a doubled vowel longer than a single one, you inAs for doubling the other three vowels, simply repeat sert a small pause between doubled consonants. Take the letter in question (as in まあまあ, māmā: so-so, sakka (作家: writer). Insert a tiny pause between the passable). two k’s, much as Brits stop ever so brieﬂy in the middle In katakana, show a long vowel with a long dash, as of Eddie. To write a doubled consonant in hiragana or follows: katakana, don’t write the consonant twice. Instead, replace the ﬁrst of the コーヒー kôhī: coffee s i i two consonants with a small tsu (っ d uble en as ビール bīru: beer A do t t i r in hiragana, ッ in katakana). Thus, w rarely use that a c Note how doubling vowels changes meanings in e sakka becomes さっか, and chiketto s b d ī, ten ond i he end c e s (ticket) is チケット. the following pairs of words: ll at t oneesan: elder sister rei: example

a: おばさんおばあさん

obasan: aunt obāsan: grandmother

e: げしゃげいしゃ

gesha: disembarking geisha

i: おじさんおじいさん

ojisan: uncle ojiisan: grandfather

to fa djective, a of an ing to g n cha hing t m so e hen you . else w the word t c e , inﬂ shii Tano (E.g., able,” can u y k “enjo e tanoshi m .) o a c t at be oshik or tan

The Japanese Syllables

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# 17 just the facts How to Pronounce Japanese Words The ﬁve Japanese vowels sound something like the corresponding vowels in the following English words: father (e.g., Tanaka’s ramen) egg (e.g., zen) machine (e.g., Akita) go (e.g., kimono) tune (e.g., futon)

a e i o u

When i and u come between certain consonants, the vowels practically disappear. For example, the i in Yamashita can be practically silent. If i and u appear at the end of a word, they can also be silent. That’s true

This is a photo of an ema, a small wooden plaque at a Shinto shrine on which worshipers write prayers or wishes. Some ema have animals or other Shinto images painted on them. The original image was of a horse, which is the source of the word ema (絵馬: drawing + horse). The ema in this picture features a treasure ship (takarabune: 宝船), a symbol of good tidings to come. The kanji on the sail means “treasure.” In typical images or models of takarabune, seven gods of fortune sail on the treasure ship. But the image in the photo was a special design for the Year of the Rabbit in 1999. This ema appeared at Yushima Seidō, a 17thcentury Confucian temple in the Yushima district of Bunkyō Ward in Tokyo.

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Introduction: What Are All Those Squiggles?

when verbs are in the -masu form, as in tabemasu: (I) eat. Theoretically, ai should be pronounced as two sounds (as in the English word “naive”). Actually, the Japanese ai (e.g., aikidô) sounds to me more like one syllable, but then again I also don’t hear the eggy sound in words such as deshita. Instead I hear something more like “day.” When you double an e, it ofﬁcially acquires that “ay” sound (as in geisha). The pronunciation of the other vowels doesn’t change when you lengthen them.

Kanji in all their glorious variability

1 一

We’ve all encountered names we don’t know how to pronounce. What do you do with “Anneli” or “Gaije”? I inevitably balk at “Kirsten,” because two acquaintances have this name, and whereas one calls herself Keer-stin, the other is Kurr-stin. Think how it would be if most words in a language posed these multiple possibilities for pronunciation. Imagine having circumstances dictate which one you should choose, so that, say, on Monday through Wednesday you’d have to read “Kirsten” as “Keer-stin,” whereas you’d otherwise say “Kurr-stin.” Welcome to Japanese in all its variability! Most kanji present at least two readings. The way you pronounce a kanji often depends on whether it’s paired with another one. Take the following sentence: 大学時代には友達が電気代を払う代わりに私が水道代を払いました。

Daigakujidai ni wa tomodachi ga denkidai o harau kawari ni watashi ga suidōdai o haraimashita. In college, my friend paid the electric bills, and I paid the water bills.

If you underline the kanji, here’s how the sentence looks: 大学時代には友達が電気代を払う代わりに私が水道代を払いました。

Omitting the hiragana, we have these eight areas of kanji: •

大学時代友達電気代払代私水道代払

4 5

Areas 1, 2, 3, and 7 contain compounds of two, three, and even four kanji. In areas 4, 5, 6, and 8, the kanji appear as singletons. What does “singleton” mean? Well, it’s by no means an oﬃcial term. I use it to refer to a lone kanji, one that’s not bonded to another. If it helps, you can think of singletons as being like freeﬂoating electrons, whereas compounds contain tight unions of protons and electrons. (Or maybe that brings up bad memories of high school science, in which case forget I said anything about it.) As you may have noticed, 代 appears four times in the sentence above, once as a singleton (area 5), as well as in three compounds (areas 1, 3, and 7). The words containing this kanji are pronounced as follows: daigakujidai 1

denkidai ka•wari 3 5

suidōdai 7

The singleton 代 is usually pronounced ka (as part of the words kaeru, “to change or exchange,” and kawaru, “to take the place of ”). In the company of other kanji, 代 almost always becomes DAI. The examples above hold true to these patterns. In the rest of this chapter, we’ll examine how such complications developed.

Importing a Writing System

To understand why characters have multiple personalities, you need to know a little about how the Japanese imported kanji. By the way, when I first heard a Japanese native say “import” in reference to kanji, I thought it a wonderfully fanciful use of English. After all, “import” usually refers to merchandise, such as wine, caviar, and cars. We never say that anyone “imported” Latin, Greek, or French words into English. But it turns out that all my English-language reference material about kanji speaks of “importing” it. This is, I suppose, a succinct way of referring to the arrival of kanji in Japan. But beyond that, I think the word points to the great need Japan had for a script, the deliberateness with which they sought one, and the value they’ve since accorded this writing system that’s now the soul of Japan. That wasn’t always the case. Until about fifteen hundred years ago, the Japanese were illiterate. Speaking of words, I’m not sure “illiterate” is the right one. It’s not so much that they couldn’t read as that there 36

•

Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

was nothing for them to read. Imagine how that must have shaped daily life. No signs over shops—only pictures perhaps. No way of writing an address. No postal workers, because there was no mail to deliver. No detailed way to record plans for the future or memories of the past. What a problem! Fortunately, in about the fourth century CE, migrants from neighboring Korea shared their knowledge of kanji and of Buddhism with the Japanese people. Koreans had borrowed both kanji and Buddhism from China, an adjacent land mass. The kanji that Japan imported from Korea are called 呉音, go’on. The first character (呉, go) refers to the Go region in China. And 音, on, which roughly rhymes with “bone,” means “sound.” During the eighth century, many Japanese students studied in China, and along with other elite Japanese tourists in China, these students brought a second round of kanji back to Japan. Chinese envoys and scholars also shared kanji with the Japanese. The characters that entered Japan during this era are called 漢音, kan’on, named for the Han tribe in China. Four hundred years later it happened again. In the late twelfth century, Japanese priests studied Zen and Confucianism in China. Chinese priests also traveled to Japan. The kanji introduced to Japan during this era go by the name of 唐音, tō’on, because at that time the Japanese referred to China as 唐 (Tō). The kanji that entered Japan during these eras originated in various regions of China, ensuring different pronunciations of the same characters. As dynasties changed, so did the rulers’ dialects, which also altered the sounds of characters. These facts help explain why 月 (moon, month) has the similar-sounding pronunciations of GATSU (go’on) and GETSU (kan’on). Sometimes, multiple Chinese-inspired readings are much further apart, as is the case below, with the third pronunciation of 行: go’on: GYŌ, as in 一行 (ichigyō: first line of text) and 行事 ( gyōji: event) kan’on: KŌ, as in 銀行 (ginkō: bank) and 旅行 (ryokō: travel) tō’on: AN, as in 行脚 (angya: pilgrimage, travel on foot) Dictionaries for native Japanese speakers indicate the era in which each reading originated; this information is still relevant to native speakers’ grasp of the

language. The rest of us needn’t learn kanji at such a microscopic level. But this type of analysis does provide a fascinating slice through the layers of the language, a geological cross-section as beautiful as the multicolored striations in the Grand Canyon. Over and over, the study of kanji reveals itself to be a study of linguistic evolution, and if etymology excites you, you’ll have a ball with kanji.

Assigning Japanese Words to Symbols

The Japanese call imported readings on-yomi (音読み). Rhyming with “foamy,” yomi means “reading”—that is, a way of reading a particular character. Some people refer to on-yomi as Chinese readings, but that’s somewhat misleading. From the time they were imported, Chinese pronunciations changed in Japanese mouths. Plus, in both China and Japan, these sounds have evolved over the millennia. So we’ll use the term onyomi. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to remember their Chinese origins, because that aﬀects a great deal that we’ll explore. Meanwhile, kun-yomi (訓読み) are the “Japanese” way of reading kanji. (Kun more or less rhymes with “noon” and means “teachings.”) Again, this nomenclature creates potential confusion, because both on-yomi and kun-yomi have long been integral parts of the Japanese language. But kun-yomi are called Japanese because they refer to the language spoken in Japan before kanji arrived. And now we’ve hit on a key issue that the Japanese confronted when they imported characters. They already had a complete spoken language. How were they to match their native vocabulary with symbols for Chinese words? Those symbols, after all, came with their own sounds. For instance, the Japanese word for “new” is atarashii. The Chinese write “new” as 新, which has an on-yomi of SHIN. (In this book, we’ve represented on-yomi with small capital italics. By contrast, kun-yomi appear in lowercase italics.) How could this kanji accommodate Japanese grammar? Not easily. Matching native Japanese vocabulary with Chinese characters turned out to be like jamming the proverbial square peg into a round hole. In the face of a dilemma, many people use an eitheror mentality. But the Japanese opted for a both-and approach. To continue with the example of atarashii, the Japanese decided to keep that word in the lexicon while also absorbing SHIN into the language. They would associate both readings with 新. When it came to writing

atarashii, they decided that this kanji would represent the root atara. They would use hiragana to write any parts of the word that had grammatical significance. In atarashii, the shi has grammatical significance; it’s known as an “infix.” And the final i of atarashii can change (e.g., to ku or katta), depending on the situation. In other words, the Japanese began to write atarashii in this hybridized way: 新しい. As you can see, the hiragana are like long legs that stick out over the end of the kanji “bed.” These “long legs” become particularly apparent when we write the yomi of 新しい in romanized letters. The portion representing hiragana is known as okurigana, and the convention is to put parentheses around that part of the word, yielding atara(shii). In this book, you’ll see a raised dot instead of parentheses. The raised dot is an alternate convention. Atara(shii) means the same as atara•shii. For more on how trailing hiragana work with kanji, see Exhibit 18, “Just the Facts: Okurigana.” When the Japanese imported 新, that character represented the whole sound SHIN, so they didn’t need to worry that any leftover syllables would trail behind this on-yomi. That’s true for all on-yomi. And because they come with no parts sticking out, grammatically speaking, on-yomi can fit together in a neat, modular way. Whereas kun-yomi are like spiky snowflakes that would jab each other if you tried to unite them, on-yomi are more like hexagons that lie alongside one another with smooth joints. In fact, on-yomi generally must pair off with each other; they rarely stand alone. Exceptions include 茶 (cha: tea), 絵 (e: picture), and 福 (fuku: good fortune). But it’s not as if the Japanese had to figure out which on-yomi could fit together. In many cases, the Japanese imported whole kanji compounds from Chinese, especially when those words expressed concepts that didn’t yet exist in Japanese or that said something better than any native Japanese term could.

On and Kun Rules of Thumb

When you see a kanji by itself, you should probably use kun-yomi. When two or more kanji have “bonded” into a compound, then you’re pretty safe in trying their on-yomi. Of course there are exceptions. What would a language be without exceptions?! But the rule illuminates why we read the sentence about electric and water bills as we did. Here are all eight groups again, followed by an analysis of the yomi: On and Kun Rules of Thumb

•

大学時代友達電気代払代私水道代払

1. 大学

時代

2. 友達

5 6

daigaku: university This compound links two on-yomi, DAI (big) and GAKU (study). jidai: era This compound joins two on-yomi, JI (time) and DAI (which can mean “era”).

Daiga k jidai u and are tw sepa o ra but b te words, e Japan cause the e use t se often he they m togeth place er, kanji t comp hese side b ound s y no in side with te gram rstitial mar.

tomodachi: friend This compound breaks the rule, combining the kun-yomi tomo (friend) with the kun-yomi tachi (a suﬃx meaning “plural”).

3. 電気代 denkidai: electricity fee This compound joins three on-yomi: DEN (electricity), KI (air, atmosphere), and DAI, which means “fee” here. 4. 払

hara•u: to pay This singleton uses the kun-yomi, not the on-yomi FUTSU.

5. 代

ka•wari: substitute This singleton uses the kun-yomi, not the on-yomi DAI.

6. 私

watashi: I This singleton uses the kun-yomi, not the on-yomi SHI.

7. 水道代 suidōdai: water service fee This compound joins the on-yomi SUI (water) and DŌ (way). Once again, the on-yomi DAI means “fee.” 8. 払

Same as 4.

As you can see, most of these kanji follow the rule: singletons use kun-yomi, compounds use on-yomi. For practice with identifying kun-yomi and onyomi, try your hand at Exhibit 19, “Game: Kun or On?” For more on the mutability of yomi, see Exhibit 20, “Just the Facts: The Empty Sky and Other Vari-

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Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

able Meanings,” as well as “Game: One Kanji, So Many Yomi.” On the subject of mutability, see Exhibit 21, “Just the Facts: Shape Shifters,” to learn how even the shapes of kanji can vary, depending on the situation. And while you’re thinking about the shapes of characters, you’ll want to check out Exhibit 22, “Just the Facts: Kana from Kanji,” to learn how both hiragana and katakana evolved from kanji shapes.

How to Know Kun from On

Given that the rules don’t always hold, you may wonder how to determine whether you’re seeing kun-yomi or on-yomi when you consider a word such as 友達 (tomodachi: friend) in area 2. A number of resources can supply the answer. 1. Kanji dictionaries or other kanji reference books: The index will represent the two types of yomi differently, and the entries in the main part of the book should do the same. Many books represent on-yomi with katakana and kun-yomi with hiragana. Other books use capital letters for on-yomi versus lowercase for kun-yomi. 2. Sound: Kun-yomi and on-yomi often sound as different as atarashii and SHIN. Native Japanese words can be quite long, whereas SHITSU is the longest on-yomi that exists. By “long,” I mean both the number of romanized letters and the syllable count; on-yomi never exceed two syllables. For this reason, one Japanese teacher I know believes that on-yomi sound “crispier,” having staccato sounds such as KU. In The Japanese Language, linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi supports this view, saying that on-yomi generally have “clear sounds” (清音, seion) involving such consonants as k, s, ts, t, h, and ch. By contrast, he says, kun-yomi tend to use “unclear sounds” (濁音, dakuon) or so-called voiced versions of the same consonants: g, z, d, b, and j. For more on the sounds of kun-yomi and on-yomi, see Chapter 3 for Exhibit 46, “Thematic Explorations: Syllabic Similarity.” 3. Suru as a clue: Verbs involving suru (to do) are sure to be on-yomi compounds, as in 勉強する (benkyō suru: to study) and 食事する (shokuji suru: to dine). 4. Experience and context: After a while, you can often sense which yomi are on and which are kun, simply from context.

# 18 xx just justthe thefacts facts Okurigana When you use a kanji dictionary, you’ll find such puzzling entries as mô(shi)ko(mi). This looks like a complicated algebraic formula! What’s with all the parentheses? As noted earlier, you’ll see raised dots rather than parentheses to demarcate okurigana in this book. That is, you’ll see words such as sema•i, “narrow,” rather than sema(i). The raised dot enables us to avoid an excess of parentheses. Both conventions have to do with a concept called okurigana, 送り仮名. The -gana (仮名) part of okurigana refers to kana (that is, hiragana and katakana collectively). In the past, okurigana were often written in katakana. Now, however, people write them in hiragana. The first character, 送, means “to send,” and according to Michael Pye in The Study of Kanji, that’s because okurigana “send” a word off into the right inflection. Okurigana are the hiragana that trail after kanji, though they can also pop up between kanji, as in the very word okurigana, 送り仮名. Back when the Japanese imported kanji, they tried to marry their spoken language with the written symbols of the Chinese. In many ways it was an awkward fit. The Japanese could match most nouns entirely with kanji (e.g., 犬, inu: dog), except for verbal nouns such as 食べ物 (tabemono: food), as we’ll see shortly. But they couldn’t make a complete match with verbs (e.g., 行く, iku: to go) or -i adjectives (e.g., 高い, takai: tall, expensive), because these have conjugations (or “inflections,” as they say in terms of Japanese). With verbs and adjectives, kanji supply only the main idea of the word, and okurigana trail afterward, providing details. Another take on this: kanji provide the topic of the story, and okurigana tell you how it ends! Okurigana prove helpful in several ways. For one thing, just by glancing at text that interweaves kanji and okurigana, we know we’re reading Japanese, not Chinese. For another thing, okurigana provide inflections. Look at these forms of the adjective 長: 長い長くない長かった長くなかった

nagai: long nagakunai: not long nagakatta: was long nagakunakatta: was not long

The kanji says “long,” and the okurigana completes the picture by qualifying that statement. The same is true with okurigana verb endings: 買う買います買っていて買わない買わなかった買える買わせる買われる買おう

kau: to buy kaimasu: (I) buy katte ite: (I) am buying kawanai: does not buy kawanakatta: did not buy kaeru: to be able to buy kawaseru: to make someone buy kawareru: to be bought kaô: let’s buy!

With 来る (to come), okurigana even tell you how to pronounce the kanji verb stem, which changes as you conjugate from the dictionary form 来る (kuru) to the negative 来ない (konai) to the past tense 来ました (kimashita). Here’s a third beneﬁt—a huge one. When kanji have multiple pronunciations, okurigana help you determine whether to use kun-yomi or on-yomi. Consider these words: 明るい明かり明らか明ける明白 In your kanji dictionary, you'll see these as some of the many readings of 明: MEI: light; MYÔ: light, next, following; MIN: Ming

(dynasty) aka•rui: bright; a•kari: light, clearness; aki•raka: clear; a•keru: to become light Now return to the list of kanji containing 明. The ﬁrst four contain hiragana, the last one doesn't. The general rule of thumb is that if okurigana follow singleton kanji, you should go with the kun-yomi. If two kanji stand side by side with no okurigana in sight, you'll usually use the on-yomi for both characters. Knowing that, we can look at the line of rômaji readings starting with aka•rui and know that these are all kun-yomi. If we match the okurigana -るい, -かり, -らか, and -ける with the letters after the raised dots, we can ﬁnd the right reading: 明るい is akarui, 明かり is akari, and so forth. The last word in the list of kanji is hardest, because

Okurigana

•

# 18 just the facts we don’t know which of the three on-yomi to use for 明. By contrast, 白 (shiro: white) is more straightforward, its on-yomi almost invariably being HAKU. Turns out that in the case of 明白, the ﬁrst on-yomi of 明 is right, yielding meihaku, which means “clear, unmistakable.” Okurigana prove particularly useful in differentiating groups of kun-yomi with similar and therefore easily confused meanings: 話話す

hanashi: a talk, story hanasu: to talk

入れる入る入る

ireru: to insert hairu: to enter iru: to enter

Here again we see that a noun such as hanashi has no okurigana, whereas a verb such as hanasu can’t function without it. Alas, even okurigana can’t help with the last two kanji in the 入 list or with this tricky pair: 注ぐ注ぐ

sosogu: to pour tsugu: to pour a drink

To ﬁgure out which reading to use, you need to consider the context. Sosogu is the broader word, used literally for pouring liquids, as well as metaphorically (as in “pouring” one’s attention into a task). Tsugu is the more common word. In any case, it’s rare to have identical kanji and identical okurigana in this way. When okurigana emerge in the middle of a word, they present a different sort of trickiness, throwing off the rhythm that develops as you read word after word with kanji followed by hiragana. On seeing 買い物, for instance, you may approach 買い as one entity and 物 as another. Not knowing where a word starts or ends makes it harder to look things up in a dictionary. But when you realize that 物 can't stand on its own in this instance, you'll ﬁgure out that these characters collectively say kaimono, “shopping.” These interstitial bits of hiragana tend to occur in verb compounds: 考え易い焼き鳥申し込み

kangaeyasui: easy to think yakitori: grilled or roasted chicken môshikomi: application

All these words begin with the pre-masu forms of verbs. The “pre-masu form” is what you have when you take a verb such as iku (行く: to go), inﬂect it as 40

•

Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

ikimasu, and delete -masu, leaving iki. In the above list, the pre-masu forms are as follows: kangaeru (考える: to think) becomes kangae, yaku (焼く: to grill or roast) becomes yaki, and môsu (申す: the humble form of “to say”) becomes môshi. Appendages change these premasu verb forms into other parts of speech. This discussion of inflections and appendages brings us back to the parentheses mentioned in the beginning of this exhibit. Kanji dictionaries such as the one by Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky provide readings for just the kanji in a word, not the hiragana. You won’t actually find a listing for 申し込み. Instead, under the character 申, Spahn presents the compound 申込 as if this were a viable word. (It took me ages to realize otherwise.) You need to look at the rômaji rendering mô(shi)ko(mu) to understand the role that hiragana play in this word; anything in parentheses should be in hiragana. Even that’s not the end of the story; you need to make the leap that môshikomu is a verb (to propose, apply for), not the noun (application) that brought you to this listing in the first place. Though Spahn never mentions it, the noun form has the hiragana み instead of the verb ending む. Spahn has presented the bare bones, the stem that pertains to kanji. The hiragana details fall into a different realm. This approach reminds me of lowest common denominators (LCDs) in math. When you have pairs of transitive and intransitive verbs, such as tomeru and tomaru, they often differ by just one vowel. The kanji covers the word only up to the point before that fork in the woods. Thus, we have 止める (tomeru, “to stop something,” as in “I stopped the car”) and 止まる (tomaru, “to come to a stop,” as in “the car stops”). It doesn’t matter how long the word is; even with the mouthful yomaserareru, “to be made to read,” the kanji only represents the initial yo: 読ませられる. That’s because the same yo stands for the stem of the much simpler dictionary form 読む, yo•mu, “to read,” and must be able to cover all forms of that verb. When I first started learning kanji, I was perplexed about words such as 行きます (ikimasu: to go), for which one had to draw quite a bit of hiragana after going to the trouble of producing a kanji. Then I grasped the LCD concept that explained this. After that, I couldn’t see why adjectives such as 楽しい (tanoshii:

# 18 just the facts enjoyable) and 難しい

(muzukashii: difficult) ui (-易 g yas eaning n i d d had more than just い xm y, a l suffi ificall i, Spec adjectiva ngaeyasu i hanging off of them. It r a n い), a creates k Adding to . ,“ ,“ turns out that the し “easy adjective ing “bird n. n n u also a noun mea , also a no (-shi) tucked just beri (鳥), a ou yakito i (-込み) fore the final い (-i) y n. gives ding -kom mi, a nou o d k a i serves a function; h s d An em môs uces y, -komi se ical d o r p l this “infix” (the t ental mma y as (Incid neat gra nions var hat proper grammatii t fy to de cation. Op is a suffix art i p fi i cal term) indiclass ther -kom to itself, a t a e n to wh eaning u l noun [th cates something a m n lacks un, a verb inflectio d (usually human o e an of a n rund], or When us . s e u a g m emotion) that h a is, suc b ko e ver und verb komu h t f o ,” o one cannot omp apply in a c omu, “to de.”) objectively k i i s môsh “to go in s n measure. So mea these adjectives aren’t inefficiently written after all. But several verbs are inefficient—namely, 食べる (taberu: to eat), 終わる (owaru: to finish), 教える (oshieru: to teach), and 考える (kangaeru: to think). In each word, the kanji could have covered one more hiragana character. It can be tough to remember these exceptions when writing. When I write by hand, I always have to look up 分かる (wakaru: to understand) to figure out whether or not I’m supposed to write the か. But it turns out that wakaru isn’t an exception; this intransitive verb has a transitive twin, 分ける (wakeru: to divide). Fortunately, when you type Japanese on a computer, the software rescues you from much of this uncertainty, converting certain syllables into kanji and leaving the rest as okurigana.

But never fear—the world of kanji offers plenty more inconsistencies. For that reason, you may see the following words written in multiple ways: お見舞いお見舞 Both are omimai, “visiting a sick person.” 気持ち気持 Both are kimochi, “feelings.” 具合具合い Both are guai, “condition.” 空揚げ空揚 Both are karaage, “fried food.” 折り紙折紙 Both are origami, “artistic paper folding.” 買い物買物 Both are kaimono, “shopping.” In every case, the ofﬁcial reading appears in the lefthand column. Academics might sneer at the other, informal versions, but they do appear nonetheless, possibly as part of a contemporary trend. On the subject of inconsistencies, here are some words with unexpected, hard-to-remember, or even inexplicable okurigana: 同じ盛ん赤ん坊軟らかい, 柔らかい

onaji: same sakan: active, enthusiastic akanbô: baby both are yawarakai: soft

It seems that these words should have worn longer kanji to cover up more of their legs.

申し込み Okurigana

•

# 19 GAME! GAME! GAME! GAME! Kana Needed: Y / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 1

Kun or On? Kanji change each other alchemically. You generally read a character one way unless it’s positioned next to another kanji. Then both of them change. For example, without the influence of other kanji, 大 (big) has the reading ô, and 変 (to change) has the reading ka. Both of these readings are kun-yomi. But put these kanji together, and presto! Now 大変 says taihen (serious, terrible, very). That is, you use the onyomi of both 大 and 変 (respectively, TAI and HEN). This adds a surprise element to kanji, to say the least. (Another surprise: Uniting these two kanji doesn’t yield “big change.”) In each of the following examples, the first line presents a kanji with its on-yomi in small cap italics, followed by the kun-yomi in lowercase italics. In the next line, you’ll find a sentence using this kanji at least twice, employing multiple readings. You’ll then see the same sentence in hiragana, rômaji, and English. Write the kun-yomi and the on-yomi in the order in which they appear in the sentence, then indicate kun or on. For example: 日 (NICHI, hi, bi, ka: sun, day) 四日は日曜日です。よっかはにちようびです。 Yokka wa nichi-yôbi desu. The 4th (of the month) is Sunday. 日 yomi in this sentence: a. ka (kun) b. NICHI (on) c. bi (kun) Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai! (Good luck!) 1. 山 (SAN, yama: mountain) あの山は富士山です。あのやまはふじさんです。 Ano yama wa Fuji-san desu. That mountain is Mount Fuji. 山 yomi in this sentence: a. b.

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Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

2. 車 (SHA, kuruma: car) どうやって行きますか。車ですか。電車ですか。どうやっていきますか。くるまですか。でんしゃですか。 Dô yatte ikimasu ka. Kuruma desu ka. Densha desu ka. How will you go? By car? By train? 車 yomi in this sentence: a. b. 3. 高 (KÔ, taka•i: high, tall) あの高校の授業料 (jugyôryô: tuition) が高いです。あのこうこうのじゅぎょうりょうがたかいです。 Ano kôkô no jugyôryô ga takai desu. The tuition for that high school is expensive. 高 yomi in this sentence: a. b. 4. 月 (GETSU, GATSU, tsuki: moon, month) 来月は十月ですね。月は二回満月になります。らいげつはじゅうがつですね。つきはにかいまんげつになります。 Raigetsu wa jûgatsu desu ne. Tsuki wa nikai mangetsu ni narimasu. Next month is October, right? There will be two full moons. 月 yomi in this sentence: a. b. c. d.

# 20 just the facts The Empty Sky and Other Variable Meanings Recall how I said in the main chapter text that, as a singleton, 代 is usually ka, the beginning of kaeru (to change or exchange) or kawaru (to take the place of )? Two more possible readings include yo (generation) and shiro (price, substitution, materials). And remember how I said that 代 almost always becomes DAI when grouped with other kanji? True, but it can also be TAI (e.g., 交代, kōtai: to work in shifts). If kanji rules were consistent, then 代代 should be read as daidai, and it is. But it can also be read as yoyo. Both readings mean “from generation to generation.” And that’s not all! If you insert a little hiragana (e.g., 代わる代わる or 代わり代わり), the same pair of kanji can even be read as kawarugawaru or kawarigawari, both meaning “by turns, alternately.” Of course, all languages have exceptions, particularly English, which demands different pronunciations for “tough,” “cough,” and “bough.” But that doesn’t come close to the changeability of 下, which has meanings related to “lower” or “under” and has thirteen possible readings: KA, GE, shita, shimo, moto, sa•geru, sa•garu, kuda•ru, kuda•ranai, kuda•saru, kuda•sai, kuda•su, and o•riru. This state of affairs can be frustrating, for sure. But once you accept such vacillations as a fact of kanji life, they can inspire wonderment. Consider the following facts about kanji mutability. •

The kun-yomi and on-yomi can have vastly different meanings. Here’s how Spahn deﬁnes the following yomi: 安

AN: peacefulness

yasu•i: cheap, inexpensive 点

TEN: point

tomo•ru, tomo•su: to burn tsu•ku: to catch (ﬁre), be lit •

There can be multiple kun-yomi, as in the last example. That’s especially true of the next two kanji: 空

KÛ: sky, empty

a•keru: to empty, leave blank kara, kara•ppo: empty muna•shii: empty, vain, futile sora: sky

su•ku, a•ku: to be empty or unoccupied utsuke: empty-headed utsu•ro: hollow, blank 生

SEI: birth, life, student SHÔ: birth, life

-fu: grassy place, woods ha•eru, ha•yasu: to grow i•kasu: to let live, revise, make the best use of i•keru: to be living, be alive, arrange ﬂowers iki, i•ki: living, fresh i•kiru: to live, be alive ki-: pure, undiluted, genuine, raw, crude mu•su: to grow nama: raw, fresh, unprocessed, inexperienced na•ru: to grow (on a plant), bear (fruit) na•su: to bear (a child) o•u: to grow ubu: naive u•mare, umare: birth, origin, lineage, birthplace u•mareru: to be born u•mi: childbirth, bearing a child u•mu: to give birth to, bear, produce, yield (interest) But that’s not all! One dictionary also provides the following readings of 生, readings that even native speakers struggle to deﬁne: ai ike naba so

asa iku niu SÔ

chiru JÔ

nyû sugi

e kurumi o•i u-

gose mi ryû umai

gyû mô sa yoi

I present this plethora simply to drive home how variable kanji can be. The variability is indeed confusing. But it also allows us to concoct fun phrases such as 空の空 (kara no sora: the empty sky) and 夫の夫 (sono otto: that ex-husband of mine). •

Multiple kun-yomi can have widely disparate meanings, as the following example shows:

The Empty Sky and Other Variable Meanings

•

# 20 着

just the facts

CHAKU, JAKU: to arrive at, put on, wear

tsu•ku: to arrive at ki•ru, tsu•keru: to put on, wear ki•seru: to clothe, dress, put on You might wonder how all this developed. Why such large and occasionally mismatched collections of yomi for one kanji? When the Japanese matched kanji to their spoken language, they gathered together abstract words such as “life.” They then used only one kanji (生) to express such related concepts as “to be born” (u•mareru), “to be living” or “to arrange ﬂowers” (i•keru), “raw” (nama), and “to grow” (ha•eru), among many others. What once may have seemed convenient has since complicated the process of decoding sentences. Furthermore, when the Japanese imported kanji, they sometimes attached synonyms to the same kanji. In that way, higashi and azuma (both “east”) came to

Game: One Kanji, So Many Yomi Now you’re ready for a game, providing the hiragana or rômaji for kanji such as 空の空. Some of the kanji below have more yomi than you see here, but to simplify the game I've presented a limited number. Each yomi appears at least once in the Japanese sentence. Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai!

be the kun-yomi for 東. But even contradictory words can congregate around one kanji, as in this case: 先

SEN: the future, priority, precedence

saki: tip, point, end, (in the) lead, ﬁrst priority, ahead, the future, previous, recent, objective, destination, sequel, the rest, the other party ma•zu: ﬁrst (of all), nearly, anyway, well I’ve noticed that obscure words tend to show up in groups of kun-yomi associated with one kanji, as is true for this character: 縦

JÛ, tate: height, length; vertical

hoshiimama: self-indulgent yo•shi: even if This kanji isn’t used much in the last two ways indicated.

Kana Needed: Y / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 3

2. 脱 DATSU: to omit, escape

nu•gu: to take off clothes 彼は服を脱いで、世界から脱して、脱俗になりました。

1. 和 WA: peace, harmony, Japan(ese)

a•eru: to dress (food with vinegar, miso, sesame seeds, etc.) nago•yaka: mild, gentle, congenial yawa•ragu: to feel calm 和やかな女の人は和食に味噌を和えると、気持ちが和らぎます。

Additional kanji and vocabulary: 彼 (kare: he) 服 (fuku: clothes) 世界 (sekai: world) 俗 (ZOKU: worldliness) 3. 精 SEI, SHÔ: spirit, energy, vitality, semen, precise, to reﬁne, polish (rice) kuwa•shii: in detail, full

Additional kanji and vocabulary: 女の人 (onna no hito: woman) 食 (SHOKU: food) 味噌 (miso: fermented bean paste) 気持ち (kimochi: feeling) 44

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Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

彼は精力的に米の精製法を精しく説明しました。

# 20 just the facts Additional kanji and vocabulary: 彼 (kare: he) 力 (RYOKU: power, force) 的 (TEKI: sufﬁx such as -ic, -al, -tive to make -na adjective) 米 (kome: rice) 製 (SEI: to make, manufacture) 法 (HÔ: method) 説明 (setsumei: explanation) 4. 実 JITSU: actual, real, true; sincerity

makoto: sincerity mi: fruit, nut mino•ru: to bear fruit 彼は、実際に、実の心で全部の木に果物と木の実が実ると言いました。

Additional kanji and vocabulary: 彼 (kare: he) 際 (SAI: time, occasion) 心で (kokoro de: sincerely) 全部 (zenbu: all) 木 (ki: tree) 果物 (kudamono: fruit) 言 (i•u: to say) 5. 生 SEI: birth, life, student SHÔ: birth, life

ha•yasu: to grow i•keru: to be living, be alive, arrange ﬂowers u•mareru: to be born 花の野原で生まれて、あの学生は、生け花をするのと実生を生やすのが好きです。

Additional kanji and vocabulary: 花 (hana: ﬂower) 野原 (nohara: ﬁeld) 学 (GAKU: learning) 実 (JITSU: actual, real, true; sincerity) 好 (su•ki: fondness, favorite) 6. 直 CHOKU, JIKI: straight, immediate, direct, correct

jika•ni: directly, in person nao•ru: to return to normal, be ﬁxed, recover nao•su: to ﬁx, correct, revise, convert into, do over su•gu: immediately, readily, easily, right (near) tada•chini: immediately 自転車が直せないと困っていた子供がいました。青年と、地面に直に座って直ちに作業が来て「すぐ直るよ」と優しく言いましに掛かり、「直に家に帰れるからね」た。

Additional kanji and vocabulary: 自転車 ( jitensha: bicycle) 困 (koma•ru: to have a problem, be in trouble) 子供 (kodomo: child) 青年 (seinen: young man) 来 (ku•ru: to come) 地面 ( jimen: ground) 座 (suwa•ru: to sit) 作業 (sagyô: work) 掛 (ka•karu: to get to work) 家 (ie: house, home) 帰 (kae•ru: to return home) 優 ( yasa•shii: kind) 言 (i•u: to say)

The Empty Sky and Other Variable Meanings

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# 21 just the facts Shape Shifters It can be mystifying to copy a kanji from a dictionary, only to have a teacher strike through the shape and draw something different. The discrepancy may come from the fact that certain kanji look one way when typed and another way when handwritten. This is true in English, too; when we write g by hand, it looks nothing like a typewritten g. The handwritten style of kanji is called kaisho (楷書) or kaishotai (楷書体), meaning “standard script.” Developed in China along with cursive and semi-cursive styles in the third century CE, this handwritten style allows people to write kanji more quickly than if they tried to imitate the printed style, which is called minchô kaisho (明朝楷書). Minchô means “Ming Dynasty.” During that era (1368–1644), minchô kaisho was created, and printing with movable type ﬂourished in China. (For more on typefaces, see Chapter 5 for Exhibit 57, “Just the Facts: Typefaces.”) The kanji in the following lists differ when typed and when handwritten. I’ve supplied just one reading for each character. Reading and Meaning

Typed

hito: person

人

hai•ru: to enter

入

HACHI: eight

八

Handwritten

人入八

In the ﬁrst two rows, the characters resemble inverted Vs when typed but look like inverted Ys when handwritten. In rows 2 and 3, eliminate hooks when writing by hand. This also applies to such forms as 込 (ko•mu: to be crowded). Reading and Meaning

Typed

i•u: to say

言

suzu: bell

鈴

kota•e: answer

答

Handwritten

言鈴答

Take a different slant to these kanji when writing them. In row 1, angle the ﬁrst stroke of 言. This applies to any kanji containing 言, such as 話 (WA, hanashi: talk) and 語 (GO: word). In row 2, the component

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Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

below the right-hand takes on a new angle when handwritten. The same change occurs in writing kanji such as 冷 (REI, tsume•tai: cold). And in row 3, the last stroke of the bamboo on top ( ) should point back toward the left when drawn. That is, the two pieces of bamboo should cease to be identical. That’s true for any kanji with bamboo on top, such as 笑 (wara•u: to laugh, smile). Reading and Meaning

Typed

kokoro: heart

心

ie: house

家

Handwritten

心家

When drawing kokoro, reorganize the parts of the character as shown. When drawing ie, consolidate the two “trunks” (the two long vertical parts) into one. Reading and Meaning

Typed

te: hand

手

ko: child

子

ito: thread

糸

Handwritten

手子糸

With this group, loosen up the strokes when drawing them. It feels good to draw 手 with a rakish tilt at top and a little pizzazz to the form—so good that one wonders about other stiff kanji such as 系, 印, 臣, and 舟. Are we supposed to relax their shapes, too? Yes on the ﬁrst two, as follows: KEI: system, group

系

shirushi: sign

印

系印

As you can see, the 卩 in 印 doesn't relax nearly as much as the similar form in 鈴 did. As to the other rigid characters I mentioned, you can see here that they need to stay relatively rigid when drawn: SHIN: vassal, subject

臣

kita: north

北

fune: boat

舟

kata: one (of two)

片

ke: hair

毛

臣北舟片毛

# 21

just the facts

Reading and Meaning

Typed

KÔ: public

公

KYO: to leave, pass

去

ta•beru: to eat

食

kura•beru: to compare

比

koromo: garment

衣

arawa•su: to express

表

* * *

Handwritten

公去食比衣表

In the lower left-hand part of these typed kanji, the lowest line juts out to the left, possibly making you think you should pick up your pencil to draw a separate stroke. In reality, the bottom line in the handwritten versions continues a ﬂuid V formation or is merely a hook at the base of a vertical stroke. Go by the handwritten version when counting strokes. An exception is 以 (I: by means of), which does require the lower overlap and therefore takes ﬁve strokes.

These lists are not exhaustive. To ﬁnd the proper handwritten forms of other shape-shifting characters, you could consult various resources: •

• •

•

Kanji textbooks generally show stroke order, stroke direction, and the proper handwritten form. Websites such as “Jim Breen’s Japanese Page” have videos showing how to draw each kanji. The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary shows stroke order and handwritten variants for each kanji included. For what it’s worth, Chinese computer fonts generally match the look of Japanese handwritten kanji, so if you want to type handwritten shapes, there’s your solution.

The characters on the cover of this notebook say “karate.” The ﬁrst kanji, 空, means “empty.” The second one, 手, means “hand.” See the rakish tilt at the top of 手? These characters (drawn with a silver Sharpie and a stencil on a Moleskine) are full of vitality. The notebook lies on top of karate gear—a sword and a uniform.

Shape Shifters

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# 22 just the facts Kana from Kanji For centuries the Japanese have struggled with kanji. Initially, as they tried to represent their spoken language with imported Chinese characters, they grew frustrated with the phonetic and grammatical differences, so the Japanese thought up various solutions, including the creation of kana (hiragana and katakana) in the eighth or ninth century. The idea behind kana was to make writing more efficient. A contraction of the term kari na, the word kana (仮名) means “false name” or “borrowed name,” because kana were offshoots of kanji, the real deal. (Kanji also go by 真名, mana, which means “true name.”) Learning kanji required a rigorous education, a privilege reserved for noblemen. Therefore, noblewomen and commoners began using hiragana (平仮名, meaning “ordinary kana”). This script sometimes went by the names 女手 (onnade: by women’s hand), 女文字 (onna moji: female lettering), and 女仮名 (onna-gana: female lettering). Hiragana evolved from the cursive writing of kanji known as 草書, sôsho (grass script). The first character, 草, means “loose and sketchy,” as well as “grass,” and these are apt descriptions for this quickly written, hard-to-read calligraphy. Because sôsho bears so little resemblance to the kanji that most learners know, it can be tough to see the links between kanji and hiragana in Table 2 on page 50. Visually, katakana has a more obvious link, and this makes sense, given its origins. Elite men looked down on those who used hiragana. Wanting to set themselves apart while still hoping to avail themselves of a simpler alternative to kanji, these men developed their own kana by breaking off parts of kanji. The kata of katakana (片仮名) means “partial” or “fragmentary.” Considered suitable for men, katakana acquired the alternative moniker 男手 (otokote: by men’s hand). But the kanji-katakana connection is not as obvious as you might think. I always figured that オ (o) evolved from 閉, just as ム (mu) must have come from 払. I also had a hunch that タ (ta) or ト (to) derived from 外. None of that turned out to be true! The tables on the following pages show the real

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Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

origins of the kana. In Table 1, you can read columns 3, 4, and 5 as an evolutionary process. Start with the kanji in column 3. Then look at column 4 to see which part of the kanji turned into the katakana in column 5. In a sense, columns 1 and 7 also go together. Column 1 gives the on-yomi of the kanji. (Column 2 provides its meaning, which is irrelevant to this kanjito-kana study but has been supplied to satisfy curiosity.) Column 7 lists the yomi of the kana. Notice where columns 1 and 7 match (e.g., the ﬁrst three rows) and where they deviate (e.g., the fourth row). You may wonder why the on-yomi would be closely linked to the kana yomi and why the kun-yomi doesn't matter. The Japanese consider the on-yomi to be the purest sound of kanji, as that pronunciation is close to the original Chinese reading. But in a few cases below (i.e., those with the kana yomi of e, to, mi, me, and wi), the kun-yomi do sound like the kana yomi. That may be because, in the early days of kanji usage in Japan, the Japanese used the kun-yomi of those kanji more frequently than the particular on-yomi. The tables include two kana that might be unfamiliar to you: wi and we. Historically, four kana started with w: wa, wi, we, and wo (but not wu). Japanese pronunciation changed over the centuries, and by modern times the w had become silent in the last three kana, creating redundancy with the vowels i, e, and o. In 1946, as part of a general postwar orthographic reform, the Japanese rendered wi and we obsolete. In the case of katakana, they also jettisoned wo. But they retained the hiragana wo, を, as the “object o,” because it performs the distinct function of marking direct objects. As for hiragana, Table 1 shows that most derive from the kanji listed in column 3. For instance, when it comes to the kana yomi of u, う comes from 宇 (U: heavens, roof), just as ウ does. But sixteen hiragana derive from other kanji. Table 2 lists only those mavericks. Lacking information about exactly which part of each kanji gave rise to these hiragana, I have omitted the column called “Key Part.”

# 22

just the facts

TABLE 1: ORIGINS OF ALL KATAKANA AND MOST HIRAGANA

1. On-Yomi

2. Kanji Meaning

3. Kanji 4. Key Part 5. Katakana 6. Hiragana

KÔ

to ﬂatter that one heavens, roof inlet, bay

阿伊宇江

阝亻宀エ

at, in, on

於

方

to add how many long to mediate, shellﬁsh oneself

加幾久介己

カ

to scatter this should generation, world once, former

散之須世

艹之

many thousand river sky, heavens to stop

多千川天止

タ千川

what?, how? virtue, man slave, fellow ancestral shrine your

奈仁奴祢乃

eight to compare not, -un department, part to preserve

八比不部保

end three

末三

三

JO, NYO, NYÔ

mooing woman but one

牟女

ムメ

MÔ

hair, tiny amount

毛

A, O I U

KI KYÛ, KÛ KAI KO, KI SAN SHI SU, SHU SEI, SE SO, SÔ TA SEN SEN TEN SHI

NA JIN, NI DO, NU DEI, NE DAI, NAI HACHI, HATSU HI FU, BU BE HO, HÔ MATSU, BATSU SAN MU, BÔ

ク介コ

丷

ニ又礻丿ヒ阝木

7. Kana Yomi

アイウエ (kun-yomi: e) オ

̶ ̶ う ̶

a i u e

お

カキクケコ

かきく ̶ こ

ka ki ku ke ko

サシスセソ

̶ し ̶ せそ

sa shi su se so

タ ̶ チ ̶ ツつテてとと (kun-yomi: to•maru)

ta chi tsu te to

ナニヌネノ

なにぬねの

na ni nu ne no

ハヒフヘホ

̶ ひふへほ

ha hi fu he ho

マまミ ̶ (kun-yomi: mit•tsu or mi-) ムむメめ (kun-yomi: me-) モも

ma mi mu me mo

Kana from Kanji

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# 22 just the facts 1. On-Yomi

2. Kanji Meaning

to be, is to be based on, due to palanquin

也由輿

good advantage ﬂow, style courtesy backbone

良利流礼呂

peace, harmony, Japan(ese) well (water)

和井

wise, astute ﬂat, average

慧平

HEI, BYÔ JI, NI

thou, in that way

尓

YU, YÛ, YUI YO RYÔ RI RYÛ, RU REI, RAI RO, RYO WA, O SEI, SHÔ KEI, E

3. Kanji

4. Key Part 5. Katakana ユ

儿乚ロ (top box)

2. Kanji Meaning

peacefulness by means of garment measure, plan left small amount, inch plump, thick to know wave beauty military to stop, keep to do to bless far without

I I, E KEI SA SUN TAI, TA CHI HA BI, MI BU, MU RYÛ, RU I KEI, E EN, ON MU, BU

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3. Kanji

Kanji in All Their Glorious Variability

安以衣計左寸太知波美武留爲惠遠无

やゆよ

ya yu yo

ラリルレロ

らり ̶ れろ

ra ri ru re ro

ワ

わ

ヰ (kun-yomi: i) ヱヲ

(w)i

̶ ̶

(w)e (w)o

ン

4. Hiragana 5. Kana Yomi あいえけさすたちはみむるゐゑをん

7. Kana Yomi

ヤユヨ

TABLE 2: ORIGINS OF “MAVERICK” HIRAGANA

1. On-Yomi

6. Hiragana

a i e ke sa su ta chi ha mi mu ru (w)i (w)e (w)o n

the architecture of a character

2 一

I’ve mentioned that Michael Rowley’s Kanji Picto-Graphix makes kanji both fun and manageable by identifying the ingredients in each character. When I started studying kanji, I followed his lead, creating diagrams such as this one: 時 (hour)

日 (sun) 寺 (temple)

土 (soil) 寸 (inch)

After doing this type of analysis, I felt that I understood a character down to its bones, almost as if I’d seen an X ray of its anatomy. I did gain an in-depth understanding of characters this way . . . but at the same time I missed a big chunk of context—namely, that just a limited group of kanji have the kind of structure in which little bits of meaning add up to one larger meaning. Other characters contain pieces that contribute sound. Far from being random collections of strokes, kanji have distinct parts that serve purposes, much as walls, ceilings, and ﬂoors contribute to a building’s functionality. Let’s tour a character so we can understand its architecture.

Components

Every kanji consists of one or more components (also known as “elements”). The character 秋 (SHŪ, aki: autumn) has two: 禾 (which represents “rice plant”) and 火 (which symbolizes “ﬁre”). And 照 (SHŌ, te•ru: to illuminate) contains four: 日 (sun, •

day), 刀 (sword), 口 (opening), and 灬 (another way of representing “ﬁre”). By contrast, 木 (MOKU, ki: tree) has just one component: 木 (which means “tree,” not surprisingly). When I say “component,” I’m referring to an indivisible unit of meaning. Of course, you could break 灬 into four pieces, but as separate lines they don’t mean anything. For some fun with components, see Exhibit 23, “Thematic Explorations: Kanji of a Feather Flock Together.”

Radicals

Every kanji includes a radical, a component that helps us locate that kanji within the vast library of characters, much as the Dewey Decimal System makes it easier to find books. The radical may be a component with a clear meaning, such as 艹 (grass), 宀 (roof ), or刂 (sword), but that meaning may have little to do with the significance of the whole kanji. For instance, it’s hard to see how grass figures semantically into 荷 (KA, ni: load, baggage), how a roof pertains to 字 (JI: character, letter), or what a sword has to do with 到 (TŌ: to arrive). Rather than looking at how a radical adds meaning to a character, consider the way it allows us to group all kanji with that shared feature. For example, the hand radical 扌 appears in 押, 払, 持, and 指 (respectively, o•su: to push; hara•u: to pay; mo•tsu: to possess; and yubi: finger). For much more on radicals, see Exhibit 24, “Just the Facts: A Radical Concept,” as well as “Game: Radicals.” See also Exhibit 25, “Thematic Explorations: The Hill and the Village.”

Phonetics

Kanji are pictures plus sounds. It’s as if kanji can stream audio and video, compared with the mere audio function of kana or roman letters. The phonetic component (also simply called the phonetic) tells us how a character sounds. Not all kanji contain phonetics, but at least two-thirds do. When you can split a kanji into lefthand and right-hand sides, the radical will typically be

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The Architecture of a Character

on the left, the phonetic on the right. The on-yomi of the phonetic may tell you the on reading of the whole kanji. However, the kun-yomi of the phonetic is irrelevant to the kun-yomi of the entire character. Returning to the example at the beginning of this chapter, we see that the left side of 時 is the radical 日. Its meaning of “sun” does indeed relate to the meaning of 時, which is “hour” or “time.” The phonetic 寺 is the remainder. Its meaning, “temple,” is irrelevant here. But its sound is important. Because 寺 has the on-yomi JI, the bigger kanji 時 does, too. For much more on phonetics and characters with shared shapes, see Exhibit 26, “Just the Facts: The On-Echo”; Exhibit 27, “Just the Facts: Easily Confused Kanji”; Exhibit 28, “Game: Which Is Which?”; and Exhibit 29, “Thematic Explorations: Strategies for Conquering Look-Alikes.”

Putting the Pieces Together

So there you have it, the building blocks of a character: radicals, phonetics, and components. Some kanji include all three, but others lack a phonetic. Exhibit 30, “Just the Facts: Classification of Characters,” explains the four basic ways in which these building blocks can fit together, creating different types of kanji “architecture.” In only type (kaiimoji, Type 3 in Exhibit 30) do the smaller bits of meaning add up to a larger meaning. The deconstructive approach I adopted via Rowley is appropriate with just 25 percent of characters. And yet I confess that I haven’t shaken the habit. It’s just too much fun to break down characters and to discover what secrets they contain. You’ll find these kinds of investigations in Exhibit 31, “Thematic Explorations: Elegant Etymology”; Exhibit 32, “Thematic Explorations: Charmingly Illogical Characters”; and Exhibit 33, “Thematic Explorations: Just Add Water.” It’s also fun to do the opposite—to assemble and rearrange components until you’ve formed kanji. Try your hand at that in Exhibit 34, “Game: The Missing Link,” and Exhibit 35, “Game: Create a Kanji.”

# 23

thematic explorations

Kanji of a Feather Flock Together It’s not uncommon to see a component repeated within a kanji character. Take, for example, 多 (ō•i: many). Many kanji contain doubled components, but they usually come with extra strokes or components. For instance, 暗 (kura•i: dark) includes 日 twice but also contains 立. Characters such as 儡 (RAI: doll, puppet, defeat) and 器 (KI, utsuwa: container, tool) go so far as to triple or quadruple certain components, but once again, extra elements ruin the neat pattern. “Pure” forms of these multiples are rare. A few things to notice about the list of triples below: • •

•

Sometimes tripling greatly changes the meaning. Or the tripled kanji just means “more of the same.” In the Triple column, notice the similarities among on-yomi. I don’t know if it’s significant that so many have -Ō sounds, particularly SHŌ, but that trend might help you figure out the on-yomi if you ever encounter these kanji. The kanji 蟲 (CHŪ, mushi: insect) does not qualify because this is simply an alternate writing of 虫 (CHŪ, mushi: insect). Japan simplified many kanji right after World War II, and this triple hails from the prewar period. The last triple, 姦, is controversial in Japan. According to author Kittredge Cherry in Womans-

word: What Japanese Words Say About Women, feminists resent the suggestion that three women are thought to produce something as negative as noisiness (indicated by the kun-yomi). Cherry notes that no kanji shows a trio of “men”; presumably such a gathering would seem normal, not heinous. (In fact, the male ideogram 男 rarely appears in other kanji.) The on-yomi for 姦 has even worse connotations than noisiness; deﬁned as “wicked or immoral,” this syllable factors into such words as 姦する (kansuru: to seduce, assault, rape), 強姦 (gōkan: rape), and 姦通 (kantsū: adultery). Kanji triples are rare, but quadruples are more so: TETSU: garrulous, verbose

I suppose when four dragons get together, they have a lot to discuss. What about ﬁve or six of a kind? Until now we’ve examined singletons with repeated components. The only way to see ﬁve or six together is in a compound: 森林森森轟轟犇犇

shinrin: forest shinshin: deeply forested gôgô•to: thunderously, with a rumble hishihishi: ﬁrmly, tightly, thronging

Single

Triple

一 ICHI, hito•tsu: one 牛 GYÛ, ushi: cow 貝 BAI, kai: shell 口 KÔ, KU, kuchi: mouth 木 MOKU, BOKU, ki: tree 車 SHA, kuruma: car 水 SUI, mizu: water 馬 BA, uma: horse 日 NICHI, hi: sun, day 耳 JI, mimi: ear 鹿 ROKU, shika: deer 龍 RYÛ, RYÔ, tatsu: dragon 石 SEKI, ishi: stone 直 CHOKU: straight; nao•su: to correct 女 JO, onna: woman

三 SAN, mi•ttsu: three 犇 HON, hishime•ku: to jostle 贔 HII, HI: favor, patronage 品 HIN, shina: item, goods, reﬁnement 森 SHIN, mori: forest 轟 GÔ, todoro•ku: to roar, thunder BYÔ: vast (expanse of water) 驫 SHÔ: many horses 晶 SHÔ: clear, crystal 聶 JÔ, SHÔ, sasa•yaku: to whisper 麤 SO, ara•i: rough 龘 DÔ, TÔ: dragons on the move 磊 RAI: many stones, easygoing 矗 CHOKU: standing straight or tall 姦 KAN: wicked, immoral; kashima•shii: noisy

Kanji of a Feather Flock Together

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# 24 just the facts A Radical Concept Imagine an enormous, messy storeroom in a house. The only hope of creating order would be to devise categories: sports equipment over here, suitcases over there, paint cans in the corner, and so forth. In the vast “storeroom” of Chinese characters, radicals (部首, bushu) enable us to categorize kanji and therefore to look them up in dictionaries. Here are some radicals: 冫儿匚广女. Many can’t stand on their own; they only exist as parts of characters. That’s true of the first four here. If a kanji consists of just one component (e.g., 女), the whole kanji functions as the radical. When there are multiple components, the radical tends to be one of them. I say “tends to be” because a radical isn’t always as small as a component. The kanji 魚 (sakana: fish) contains three meaningful components: ク (to crouch), 田 (field), and 灬 (fire). Nevertheless, 魚 serves in its entirety as a radical. It would be nice if you could determine the radical based on whether components were connected or autonomous, but radicals such as 冫, 氵, 儿, and 魚 have disconnected pieces. Conversely, kanji consisting of interconnected lines may conceal a kanji made of fewer strokes. The radical 戈 (halberd) underlies 栽 (SAI: “planting,” as in bonsai) and 幾 (KI, iku-: “how much, how many,” as in ikutsu: “how many”). You can determine the radical by finding components corresponding to those in your dictionary’s radical chart. But the challenge doesn’t end there. Both 低 and 宿 (respectively, TEI, hiku•i: low; and SHUKU, yado: lodging) contain the component 亻(person). You might think this is the radical for each. Not so; 亻is the radical in 低, whereas the radical in 宿 is 宀 (roof).

Yomi and Meaning 貸側簡箱数驚

•

TAI, ka•su: to lend SOKU, kawa: side KAN: simple, brief SÔ, hako: box SÛ, SU, kazu: number KYÔ, odoro•ku: to be surprised

The Architecture of a Character

Even if all the components in a character are classifiable as radicals, only one radical at a time is “on duty.” The others are just along for the ride, adding meaning or sound but contributing nothing to the classification scheme. In the kanji displayed in the box, all components can serve as radicals. I’ve listed the onduty radical as it appears in Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky’s kanji dictionary (hereafter referred to simply as “Spahn”). Note that the kanji in the first two lines share亻and 貝 but have different radicals. The kanji in the last two lines share 攵, which serves as the radical only once. Determining radicals is hit-or-miss, but when there are several choices, these pointers should help: •

Start big and work down: Determine whether the entire character constitutes a radical. If not, maybe a signiﬁcant chunk of the kanji does. In Spahn, these are all radicals: 酉頁金飠馬 Look for the most inclusive radical, rather than ﬁnding 一 (ICHI, hito•tsu: one) in nearly every kanji.

•

Left and right: If the kanji divides neatly into a left and right side, look ﬁrst on the left. That’s where you’ll ﬁnd the radicals of these characters: 体 kanji: radical: 亻

明日

情忄(a variant of 心)

If the left side isn’t a radical, then the right side must be, as in these: 政 kanji: radical: 攵

別刂

都阝

On-Duty Radical

Radicals Along for the Ride

貝 (shell, money) 亻 (person) 竹 (bamboo) 竹 (bamboo) 攵 (to strike) 馬 (horse)

亻 (person), 弋 (stake) 貝 (shell, money), 刂(sword) 門 (gate), 日 (sun, day) 木 (tree), 目 (eye) 米 (rice), 女 (woman) 艹 (grass), 口 (mouth), 攵 (to strike)

# 24 •

just the facts

Up and down: If the kanji divides neatly into upper and lower parts, look ﬁrst on top. The upper portion can be a radical only if the component fully stretches across the character, as in these kanji: 会 kanji: (var. of 人) radical:

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悪祭心示

Enclosures: If a component encloses the rest of the character on at least two sides, you’ve found your radical: kanji: 区 radical: 匚

原厂

wide on the top wide on the bottom skinny on the left skinny in a pair practically invisible

高寝亠宀

By contrast, the bottom parts of the next characters are radicals because the topmost parts never exist as radicals: kanji: 無 radical: 灬 (var. of 火)

ing to their position in kanji. Take the simple form 木 (tree). See how it changes in these conﬁgurations:

進⻌

As I’ve said, Spahn presents these as the radicals for the characters in question, but other dictionaries categorize these kanji differently. This discrepancy has a historical context. In 1716, the Chinese grouped about 42,000 kanji into 214 radical categories. Japan followed suit. Then in 1946, the Japanese simplified several aspects of their language, including the classification and shapes of many radicals. (The idea was to make it easier for children to learn and easier for adults to read literature and periodicals.) Spahn’s dictionary features just 79 radicals, whereas other dictionaries retain the 214-radical system as an organizing principle. Dictionaries for native speakers vary, too; one has 245 radicals, whereas another has 257. As a consequence of simplification, 人 came to have the “variant” forms 亻and . All mean “person,” and all appear as components in kanji (or as an autonomous kanji in the case of 人). Although life has become simpler with the 79-radical system, in some ways you still need to know older forms and how they correspond to characters today. This isn’t an entirely bad thing; meanings were often more apparent in older radicals. For instance, it’s easier to grasp that 羊 signifies “sheep” than to see that symbolized solely in the top two strokes, which now represent that radical. As long as we’re discussing mutability, it’s useful to note how components change their shapes accord-

李 (RI, sumomo: plum) 栗 (RITSU, kuri: chestnut) 机 (KI, tsukue: desk) 林 (RIN, hayashi: forest) 鬱 (UTSU, fusa•gu: depression)

Although it’s nearly impossible to tell, the last character contains two trees, among many other things. And on the subject of positions within a kanji, there are seven such positions for radicals: •

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Positions 1–2: When a kanji divides neatly into left and right sides, the left is hen (偏: side) and the right is tsukuri (旁: side). Positions 3–4: For top-and-bottom-divided characters, the top is kanmuri (冠: crown) and the bottom is ashi (脚: foot). Positions 5–7: Enclosing elements are usually kamae (構え: structure), but there are two exceptions. Tare (垂れ: to sag) enclosures go down the lower left and across the top (e.g., 广), whereas nyō (遶: to surround) enclosures go down the lower left and across the bottom (e.g., ⻌).

As if all that terminology weren’t enough, each radical has a name. Usually (but not always) the name combines its yomi and its position within the kanji. Here’s how this plays out for certain radicals: • • •

hen: 牛 (ushihen), 土 (tsuchihen), and 貝 (kaihen) kanmuri: 艹 (kusakanmuri), ⺮ (takekanmuri), and ⻗ (amekanmuri) kamae: 門 (mongamae) and 口 (kunigamae) Kana Needed: N Kanji Level: 0 Difﬁculty Level: 2

Game: Radicals Give your radical muscles a workout:

1. Of the kanji for the seven radical positions, how many match their own descriptions? For example, does the kanji for hen (偏) depict a hen radical? 2. What’s the radical of 導? Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai.

A Radical Concept

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# 25 thematic explorations The Hill and the Village According to Michael Rowley’s Kanji Pict-o-Graphix, the radical阝 means “hill” when on the left side of a character and “village” when on the right. Let’s see how this plays out: Left: Hill 院降階際障

(IN: institute), as in 病院 (byōin: hospital) (fu•ru: to fall [e.g., rain]; o•riru: to come down) (KAI: stairs), as in 階段 (kaidan: stairs) (SAI: time), as in 国際 (kokusai: international) (SHÔ: to hinder), as in 障子 (shōji: sliding door with paper panes) 隣 (RIN, tonari: next door, adjoining) Right: Village 都郊郵部

(TO, miyako: capital), as in 京都 (Kyōto) (KÔ: suburbs), as in 郊外 (kōgai: suburbs) (YÛ: mail), as in 郵便局 (yūbinkyoku: post ofﬁce) (BU: part), as in 部分 (bubun: part)

I can see the hill connection in 降 (o•riru: to come down) and 階 (KAI: stairs). And the village theme con-

Here are two of Michael Rowley’s illustrative mnemonics for kanji with the阝radical. In each case, he has represented this radical with a flag, and for good measure he has planted both flags on hills, helping the twin associations stick in readers’ minds. In the left-hand drawing, the “flag” appears on the right, so 阝 means “village” here. As I mentioned above, “village” correlates with the meaning of 郊 (KŌ: suburbs). And in the right-hand illustration, the “flag” shows up on the left, so it means “hill.” The kanji is 陛 (HEI: majesty), which did not appear in the above list. It’s certainly hard to see a semantic connection between “majesty” and “hill.” By the way, those of you who own Rowley’s Kanji Pict-o-Graphix might notice that the illustrations here don’t match the ones in that book. These new drawings come from a set of flash cards that Rowley has produced.

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The Architecture of a Character

nects to 都 (TO, miyako: capital), 郊 (KÔ: suburbs), and possibly 郵 (YÛ: mail). But mostly these bits of meaning disappear in the shadow of other semantic parts. So even when it’s perfectly appropriate to assess the meaning of a component (as it is in the case of a radical), this type of analysis may not prove helpful. A ﬁnal note: Some dictionaries say that characters such as 院 and 都 have different radicals because 阝 has changed position. Other authorities consider 阝 on the left and阝on the right to be different radicals not only because of their positions but also because of their original shapes (埠 for the left-hand version, 邑 for the right-hand one). Both 埠 and 邑 mean “village,” although the primary meaning of 埠 is hill. Because of this shared meaning, still more experts say that 阝is just one radical, no matter where you locate it. Finally, the Nelson dictionary says that阝symbolizes a small village when on the left and a large one when on the right. A Japanese-language teacher told me that this is because you can build only a small village on a hill.

郊

陛

# 26

just the facts

The On-Echo If you’ve ever wished kanji were more logical, your wish may have come true. One pattern reveals order in the chaos. Consider these characters: 安案按鮟

AN: peacefulness; yasu•i: cheap AN: plan, proposal AN: to hold, consider, investigate AN: anglerﬁsh

Notice any commonalities? These kanji share not only the component 安 but also the on-yomi AN. Here’s a handy rule of thumb: When a character shows up as a component in other kanji (e.g., 安 in 案, 按, and 鮟), they may well share an on-yomi. You might not know anything about 鞍 and 晏, but if you guessed that their on-yomi was AN, you’d be right! There doesn’t appear to be a name for this phenomenon. The concept often arises during linguistic discussions of the “semantic-phonetic principle” or “semantic-phonetic compounds,” also called “phonetic compounds” (形声文字, keiseimoji, in Japanese). But I haven’t heard a term referring just to this rule. To rectify matters, I’ve dubbed it the “on-echo,” because the on-yomi reverberates through kanji containing a common element. Note that this shared shape has no bearing on meaning. The ﬁrst two kanji listed above share a radical (宀), which might seem to place them in the same semantic category (i.e., things concerning roofs), but that doesn’t prove true. And “anglerﬁsh” is a world away from “proposal.” Nor do the characters’ kunyomi matter at all; in fact, just three of the six kanji have kun-yomi, and the only one shown above (yasu•i: cheap) tends to have a different meaning from the onyomi of that character. The on-echo is all about shape as related to sound. This pattern relates to events that occurred two millennia ago. Before that, the Chinese had tried to create a pictographic system, representing mountain with 山 and so on. This was nice as far as it went, but it didn’t go very far, particularly in terms of depicting abstract concepts or names. For that reason, some words had no characters and existed only in speech. The written language was in a state of chaos, consisting of thousands of characters that had evolved with

little rhyme or reason. So in the second century CE, the Chinese set about reforming kanji. Rather than hammering out still more characters, the Chinese rounded up words with identical or similar sounds and matched them to characters that had common elements. The reformers went about this in three ways, according to John DeFrancis in The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. For example, 然 originally meant “to burn.” The Chinese then made this character serve double-duty; for a time, it also represented the abstract concept “thus, so,” which had the same pronunciation as the word for “to burn.” (Hence, this was a “phonetic loan.”) Having the same pronunciation and the same character for two words guaranteed confusion. To differentiate the two, the Chinese decided to use 然 for “thus, so.” Adding the ﬁre radical 火 to that character, the Chinese produced a new writing for “burn”: 燃. In Japanese, these characters still mean “so” and “to burn,” and they share an on-yomi of NEN, though 然 can also be read as ZEN. In other cases (called semantic extensions), the Chinese assigned characters to words with similar meanings. For instance, 方 meant “square” in a general sense. The reformers added the semantic element 土, creating 坊 (square, marketplace). They left 方 with its original meaning. Sometimes, as in this case, the newly associated word (also called the derived word) took the semantic element (that is, the radical). Other times, the original word took the new radical. With the third kind of change, the Chinese took an unwritten word and matched it to a character that had a sound but no meaning (a pure phonetic). “Sugar” had no character, and 唐 had no meaning, only a sound. They made a perfect pair. But every character needed a semantic category, so the Chinese added the grain element 米 as a radical, and 糖 became the new way of writing “sugar.” That’s what it means in Japanese, too. It’s pronounced TÔ, as in 砂糖, satô, the full word for “sugar.” With all three types of reform, the Chinese created “semantic-phonetic compounds.” That’s the ofﬁcial term for such singletons, but let’s call them “composites” so we can differentiate them from kanji

The On-Echo

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# 26 just the facts compounds (unions of two or more kanji). At any rate, each of these “semantic-phonetic” composites combines one radical (the semantic aspect) and one phonetic (governing pronunciation). From then on, the Chinese structured virtually all new kanji accordingly. In Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, William C. Hannas sums up the signiﬁcance of that shift: “Chinese writing moved decisively and irrevocably away from iconicity and toward phonetics as the dominant principle governing the creation of new character forms.” This is no minor statement. The popular way of looking at kanji is to emphasize that they all mean something and to overlook their phonetic aspects. In light of that misconception, one statement by DeFrancis sounds particularly startling. When it comes to semantic-phonetic composites, he says, the phonetic came ﬁrst and the radical was added later. He says the term “radical” is misleading “since the semantic element is not the basic root but a later accretion to the really basic phonetic.” Clearly, the phonetic aspect of kanji is essential. And the on-echo is amazingly widespread. In The Study of Kanji, Michael Pye extracted 600 on-echoes from the 3,000 most common kanji. In other words, 20 percent of ordinary kanji have on-echoes. It’s astounding, then, that the on-echo remains relatively unexplored and unnamed. One reason may be that it’s full of exceptions, enough to make it unreliable as a predictor of pronunciation. But when you’re

The word 音楽 (ongaku) means “music.” The ﬁrst kanji, 音, means “sound.” This same on shows up in the term on-yomi, 音読み. From this, we get on-echoes, or 音-echoes, one could say. This photo is of a poster hanging in a Tokyo subway station.

気軽

能書

ability + writing, drawing nôsho: calligraphy

能動

ability + to move nôdô: activity

5. Compounds with 力 (RYOKU, RIKI, chikara: power, force, strength, energy)

4. Compounds with 軽 (KEI, karu•i, karo•yaka: light; karo•njiru: to make light of, to slight) 軽食

light + to eat, meal keishoku: light meal

軽点

light + focus keiten: to relax, unwind

軽蔑

to slight + to despise keibetsu: contempt, disdain

軽石

light + stone karuishi: pumice stone

軽人

light + person keijin: thin person

軽薄

light + frivolous keihaku: insincere

軽快

light + fast keikai: light, nimble

軽々しい

light + light karugarushii: frivolous, rash

軽心

light + heart keishin: to unburden oneself emotionally

口軽

mouth + light kuchigaru: loose-lipped

spirit + light kigaru: lighthearted, ready

引力

to pull + force inryoku: gravitation, attraction

人力車

person + power + car jinrikisha: rickshaw

過力

to pass by + power kariki: power of past events over an individual or society

力士

power + samurai, warrior rikishi: sumo wrestler

出力

to go out + power shutsuryoku: output

報道力

public news (1st 2 chars.) + power hôdôryoku: power of the press

力落とし

energy + to fall chikaraotoshi: discouragement

力行

power + to act rikkô: exertion

脱力

to remove + power datsuryoku: drained of strength

感力する

to feel deeply + power kanryoku suru: to be overcome with emotion

怪力

mysterious + power kairiki: superhuman strength

発言力

to issue + word + power hatsugenryoku: a voice, a say

Will the Real Compound Please Stand Up?

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# 45 thematic explorations Homonyms and Near Homonyms The other word contains the same consonant but is followed by a full-sized や, ゆ, orよ. Here's another example featuring a b instead of a k:

There’s something odd about corpses and homonyms in Japanese. A profusion of corpse-related homonyms sets people right up for misunderstandings and jokes. Consider these confusing pairs: kojin kojin

故人 (dead person) 個人 (individual)

itai itai

遺体 (corpse) 痛い (painful)

shitai shitai

死体 (corpse) 肢体 (limbs)

shinin shin’in

死人 (dead person) 真因 (true cause)

Fortunately, kanji clariﬁes these types of mix-ups, allowing you to show that when you call someone chijin, you mean “acquaintance” (知人), not "idiot" (痴人). Similarly, kanji makes it clear whether, when you say jiko, you’re talking about yourself (自己) or an accident (事故). In the list of corpse homonyms above, shinin and shin’in (the last pair) are near homonyms, rather than the actual thing. By “near homonym,” I mean one of several types of situations: •

Pairs that sound identical except for a slight difference in how the n sound relates to surrounding vowels. (Shinin is しにん, whereas shin’in is しんいん.) This difference affects pronunciation and meaning, as we saw in Exhibit 16, “Just the Facts: The Japanese Syllables,” with kin’en (禁煙, きんえん: no smoking) and kinen (記念, きねん: anniversary, memorial). Here’s another example: tani tan’i

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谷 (たに: valley) 単位 (たんい: academic unit)

Pairs such as kyô (今日, きょう: today) and kiyô (器用, きよう: dexterous, clever). In these pairs, one word contains a consonant (k, in this case) followed by a small ya (ゃ), yu (ゅ), or yo (ょ), creating a diphthong such as kya (きゃ), kyu (きゅ), or kyo (きょ).

100 •

Compounding the Pleasure

byôin biyôin •

Words that are identical, except for short versus long vowels: hoshi hôshi hoshii

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星 (star) 奉仕 (service) 欲しい (to want, yearn for)

Pairs in which multiple syllables have this kind of short-long vowel discrepancy: yume yûmei

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病院 (びょういん: hospital) 美容院 (びよういん: hair salon)

夢 (dream) 有名 (famous)

Pairs whose consonants sound slightly diﬀerent (often voiced): hanasu 話す (to talk) hanatsu 放つ (to release)

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senshû zenshû

先週 (last week) 禅宗 (Zen religion)

daiyô taiyô

代用 (substitute) 太陽 (sun) or 大洋 (ocean)

Pairs in which native speakers place diﬀerent emphasis on otherwise identical syllables: haSHI HAshi

橋 (bridge) 箸 (chopsticks)

KIkan kiKAN

機関 (engine) 気管 (trachea)

NIji niJI

二時 (2:00) 虹 (rainbow)

Similar-sounding Japanese words obviously provide many opportunities for confusion! As Haruhiko Kindaichi wrote in The Japanese Language, “The lack of syllabic variety in Japanese has produced many words that are pronounced alike or nearly alike. The other day when I switched on the radio, I heard the words:

# 45 thematic explorations shikai shikai shikai. I wondered what it meant and later learned that the correct form was shika-ishi-kai shikai (chairmanship of the dentists’ conference)” (p. 111). He then mentioned that there are about thirty words pronounced kôshô. Thirty is unusually high, but it’s certainly not uncommon to have three or four words that are exact homonyms. During dictionary searches, it often seems that more words are homonyms than not. In fact, homonyms account for the majority of words on page 206 of my Random House Japanese-English dictionary. Of the 61 entries, 31 are homonyms or near homonyms, and 30 are not. Out of the 31 homophonous words, only 4 are near homonyms; the rest are perfect matches. Here’s a rare but particularly confusing situation: Some homonym pairs have the opposite meaning! That’s true of these: 好天荒天

kôten: good weather kôten: rough weather

This reminds me of how one word in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, means both “yesterday” and “tomorrow”! The verb tense allows Pakistanis to grasp the meaning. Some Japanese homonyms have entirely different kanji, which helps. That’s true in this group of yôshi homonyms:

Game: Homonym Match-Up Below, you’ll find groups of homonyms. Match compounds to definitions, filling in blanks with the appropriate letters. Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai! A. shinchô 1. 慎重 2. 身長 B. shinchû 1. 心中 2. 進駐 3. 真鍮

a. Person's height b. Cautious, prudent a. Occupation, stationing b. Innermost thoughts c. Brass

用紙要旨容姿養子

yôshi: blank page yôshi: gist, main idea yôshi: looks yôshi: adopted child

However, many homonym pairs share a kanji, so you need to be particularly careful with those. Consider, for instance, these homonyms or near homonyms: 機会機械

kikai: chance kikai: machine

書店商店

shoten: bookstore shôten: store

書名署名

shomei: book title shomei: signature

国家国歌

kokka: nation kokka: national anthem

不通普通

futsû: interruption of transportation service futsû: usual

会員海員

kaiin: member of an organization kaiin: sailor

Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 2 / Difﬁculty Level: 2

C. shindo (3 instances) and shindô (1 instance) a. Quaking, oscillation, trembling 1. 震度 b. Progress 2. 深度 c. Magnitude of an earthquake 3. 進度 (Japanese scale) d. Depth of water 4. 震動 D. shingai 1. 侵害 2. 心外 E. shingaku 1. 進学 2. 神学

a. Violation, infringement b. Unexpected, regrettable a. Theology b. Entrance into school of a higher level (e.g., university from high school) Homonyms and Near Homonyms

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# 45 thematic explorations F. shingi 1. 審議 2. 信義 3. 真偽

a. Truth b. Faith, ﬁdelity, loyalty c. Discussion, scrutiny

G. shingo and shingô a. Newly coined word 1. 新語 b. Trafﬁc light, signal 2. 信号 H. shinjin 1. 新人 2. 信心

a. Religious belief b. Newcomer

I. shinju and shinjû a. Pearl 1. 真珠 b. Double suicide 2. 心中

This kanji means “dragon” (龍, RYŪ, tatsu). Speaking of homonyms, there’s a plethora of kanji with the on-yomi of RYŪ, and quite a few kanji have the kun-yomi of tatsu. There’s even one other kanji with both of those yomi and with the meaning of “dragon”—namely, 竜. This is a newer version of 龍, which now appears mainly in people’s names. That’s a shame, because although 龍 has evolved considerably from the pictograph that originally showed a dragon’s pointy body parts, it’s easier to see an animal form in 龍 than in the simpliﬁed 竜.

102 •

Compounding the Pleasure

J. shinka 1. 深化 2. 進化 3. 心火 4. 真価

a. True value b. Fire of anger or jealousy c. Deepening d. Evolution

K. shinken 1. 真剣 2. 親権

a. Parental authority b. Earnest, sincere

L. shinkô 1. 進行 2. 親交 3. 信仰

a. Belief, religion b. Progress c. Friendship

M. shinkoku 1. 申告 2. 深刻

a. Report b. Serious, grave

# 46 thematic explorations Syllabic Similarity Once when I emailed a friend about a Japanese company, I remembered the name wrong and typed the second word in rômaji as Hanbei (anti-American), rather than Hanbai (sales). My friend must have been puzzled about just what kind of company this was! If I’d taken a moment to consider the kanji (反米, hanbei, which is “to oppose” + “America,” versus 販売, hanbai, which is “to sell” + “to sell”), I most likely wouldn’t have made this error. But the problem doesn’t just exist on my end. Throughout Japanese, similar-sounding words form traps for unsuspecting Joes and Janes. In Exhibit 45, we saw how homonyms and near homonyms create difﬁculties. Above and beyond that, countless words differ by only a single rômaji letter. I’ve just turned to my Random House dictionary, hoping to tell you about kôka, kokka, koko, and kôkô. And I see that the problem is far worse than I imagined. Just look at all these similar or identical words: kôka kôka kôka kôka

硬貨: coin 効果: effect 工科: engineering department 高価: expensive

kôkai kôkai kôkai kôkai

航海: sailing 公海: open sea 後悔: regret 公開: open to the public

kôkaidô 公会堂: public hall kôkan 好感: good impression kôkan 交換: exchange kôkatsu 狡猾: cunning I haven't even made it out of the kôka . . . range! To reach koko (here) and kôkô (high school), I’d have to wade through seven more sets of similar-sounding words. Despite slight variations in spelling and large variations in meaning, these words have one important commonality. All are kanji compounds. That is, they’re formed entirely from on-yomi. And on-yomi tend to sound alike. As I’ve come to understand, that’s at the root of the problem. I’d like to walk you through my thinking, even the wrong turns, because I hope this analysis can do for

you what it did for me. Getting a handle on the sounds of on- and kun-yomi has changed the whole way I think about Japanese words. Once, after a day of doing kanji research, I plopped down in front of the World Baseball Classic, which my husband was watching on TV. Too tired to complain about how boring baseball is, I shut my eyes and melted into the couch. But I couldn’t sleep, because I kept hearing Japanese names (since Japan was playing South Korea): Aoki, Nishioka, Fujikawa, Kawasaki, Matsuzaka. I tried to shut it all out, but my brain kept screaming, “Kun-kun constructions! These are kun-kun constructions!” I knew that partly because the names resonated with simple vocabulary: “green,” “tree,” “west,” “hill,” “river,” “pine forest.” But even more than that, all the sounds had the same rhythm. No long vowels, no doubled consonants, no kya-type contractions. I thought of all the Japanese people I knew and considered their names: Nagamatsu, Nakashima, Yamada, Shiraishi. . . . Yes, kun-kun combinations every time. But what about Yû Gôji, the name of the guy who has helped me immeasurably with this book? I opened my eyes and thought, “That name is all on-yomi! I know that without having the slightest idea what it looks like in kanji.” I tuned back into the game: Shimizu, Aikawa, Suzuki. Kun-yomi galore! Never before had baseball seemed so interesting! I wasn’t thinking anywhere along these lines when I ﬁrst contemplated the homonym problem. Instead, I initially wondered whether many words sound alike simply because the Japanese lexicon is large. Japan already had its own native vocabulary (wago) before absorbing thousands of words from Chinese (kango). That’s why there are at least two ways to say just about anything in Japanese—even the numbers from one to ten! The profusion of synonyms is undeniable, but still I sensed that that didn’t explain all or even much of the problem at hand. More likely, I thought, the issue had something to do with the syllabary. There are only ﬁve vowel sounds in Japanese, whereas English has three ways of pronouncing just a. Then, too, the Japanese syllabary has just nine main consonants: k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, and w. But none of this holds much water for a variety of reasons.

Syllabic Similarity

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# 46 thematic explorations When you take into account contracted syllables (that is, kya, kyu, kyo, and so on), you add 21 syllables to the list. And when you consider voiced syllables (that is, ga, ba, pa, bya, pya, and so on), you ﬁnd 36 more. The total, then, is 108 syllables. A word can start with any syllable but ん (n). Subsequent positions in a word can take all syllables. I don’t advise losing yourself in calculations of factorials, as I did! Let’s just ignore ん. Doing so still leaves 107 syllables that end in vowel sounds and that can therefore combine smoothly. This should allow for considerable variety. Theoretically, you could string together any of the 107 syllables and produce readable words, such as the following constructions, which I have invented: ta + ka + zu + ro + mi se + no + ra + ki kya + mo + ri If you tried this experiment with English letters (the building blocks of English words), you’d end up with things like “xlgf,” more often than not. Ah, but here’s the complicating factor—and the key to the issue, I believe. As you know, Japanese consists of two types of words, kango and wago. Of these, only wago words sound like strings of syllables. In fact, that’s exactly how the native vocabulary sounds: kanarazu mezurashii Hajimemashite

without fail rare How do you do?

Imagine for a moment the ancient Japanese stringing together many small syllables as if they were dainty pearls on a necklace. That’s wago. In sharp contrast, picture laborers laying two large rocks side by side. That’s closer to the construction of kango, which use on-yomi as building blocks. From Haruhiko Kindaichi in The Japanese Language and Yaeko Habein in The History of the Japanese Written Language, I gather that indigenous Japanese lacked contracted syllables (such as kya), long vowels, and doubled consonants. And, I realize, these are the three sources of syncopated rhythms in kango words (e.g., 薬局, yakkyoku: pharmacy; and 歩道橋, hodôkyô: footbridge). Wago therefore has fewer “ingredients,” but the

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Compounding the Pleasure

words tend to be long, which produces more differentiation between words. It would be hard to hear mezurashii as atarashii (new) or kanashii (sad), even though they share an ending. The opposite is true of on-yomi. They fall into patterns based on Chinese sounds, patterns that are quite limited and repetitive in Japanese. (The same problem doesn’t exist in Chinese, because tones differentiate words that would otherwise be homophones. But Japanese essentially lacks tones, so such distinctions disappear.) There are eighteen kanji called cho and seventy types of chô. Thus, you have chôshoku (朝食: breakfast), chôjo (長女: eldest daughter), and chôsa (調査: investigation)—all formed with different chô’s. These eighty-eight cho/chô syllables help to form innumerable compounds. It’s inevitable that many sound similar. How inevitable? I wanted to assess the matter systematically, so I consulted the rômaji readings index in Spahn and counted the two types of yomi from A through C. On the ﬁrst page (all A words), I saw only three on-yomi—and eighty-ﬁve kun-yomi! Then again, A is prevalent in native Japanese, according to Kindaichi. Patterns among on-yomi soon emerged, particularly with C yomi: CHA

CHAKU

CHI

CHIKU

CHIN

CHITSU

CHO

CHÔ

CHOKU

CHU

CHÛ

CHUTSU

These yomi all start off sounding similar (with roots of cha, chi, cho, or chu). If they continue from there, they include long vowels or else they have add-ons such as ku and tsu or, less frequently, n and i. And that’s it! The same patterns over and over again! Knowing that A–C might not be representative letters, I then sought letters with the most on-yomi. The winners: SA, SAI, SAKU, SAN, SATSU, SE, SECHI, SEI, SEKI, SEN, SETSU, SHA, SHAKU, SHI, SHICHI, SHII, SHIKI, SHIN, SHITSU, SHO, SHÔ, SHOKU, SHU, SHÛ, SHUKU, SHUN, SHUTSU, SO, SÔ, SOKU, SON, SOTSU, SU, SÛ, SUI (35 on-yomi) KA, KAI, KAKU, KAN, KATSU, KE, KECHI, KEI, KEKI, KEN, KETSU, KI, KICHI, KIKU, KIN, KITSU, KO, KÔ, KOKU, KON, KOTSU, KU, KÛ, KUN, KUTSU, KYA, KYAKU, KYO, KYÔ, KYOKU, KYÛ (31)

# 46 thematic explorations RA, RACHI, RAI, RAKU, RAN, RATSU, REI, REKI, REN, RETSU, RI,

KAKU, SAKU, RAKU, GAKU

RICHI, RIKI, RIKU, RIN, RITSU, RO, RÔ, ROKU, RON, RU, RUI, RYAKU,

KAN, SAN, RAN, GAN

RYO, RYÔ, RYOKU, RYÛ (27)

KATSU, SATSU, RATSU, GATSU

GA, GAI, GAKU, GAN, GATSU, GE, GEKI, GEN, GETSU, GI, GIN, GO, GÔ, GOKU, GON, GOTSU, GU, GÛ, GUN, GYAKU, GYO, GYÔ, GYOKU, GYÛ (24)

Again, the same patterns jumped out, including the four common add-ons, plus two more: ki and chi. It also became apparent that on-yomi consist of the following: 1 consonant + 1 vowel or contracted vowel (+ one of 6 common endings) This simple recipe accounts for yomi as disparate as SAI, KYAKU, and RETSU. The similarity in patterns becomes especially obvious when you consider rhymes that cut across the four lists: KA, SA, RA, GA KAI, SAI, RAI, GAI

KEKI, SEKI, REKI, GEKI KEN, SEN, REN, GEN KETSU, SETSU, RETSU, GETSU KI, SHI, RI, GI KIN, SHIN, RIN, GIN KO, KÔ, SHO, SHÔ, SO, SÔ, RO, RÔ, GO, GÔ KOKU, SHOKU, ROKU, GOKU KON, SON, RON, GON KU, SHU, SU, RU, GU KYAKU, SHAKU, RYAKU, GYAKU

It’s no wonder so many compounds sound alike. And Japanese vocabulary stands a chance of going further in that direction. As Kindaichi pointed out about 50 years ago, on-yomi building blocks offer the possibility of creating innumerable new words, ones that native speakers understand just from seeing the kanji.

If syllables in Japan can seem similar, so can banners at the temple Sugimoto-dera in Kamakura. The kanji on the left-hand side are the mirror image of those on the right-hand side, because we’re most likely seeing the left-hand banners from behind; they’re facing the correct direction for those descending the steps after visiting the shrine. The vertical kanji refer to the name of the temple (Sugimoto) and to 十一面観音 (Jūichimen Kannon), the elevenfaced Goddess of Mercy: • 十一面 (eleven faces) • 杉本 (Sugimoto) • 観音 (Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy) The topmost kanji, 納奉 (hōnō), mean “to dedicate, oﬀer.” On the margins, other kanji give dates and donors’ names.

Syllabic Similarity

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# 47 thematic explorations Look-Alikes in Compounds Words composed of look-alike characters can make you do a double-take. Check these out: 大丈夫大木大夫本体未来本来失笑肺肝矢先賃貸し臣民画面命令存在

daijôbu: all right taiboku: large tree taifu: high steward hontai: main body of machine, console mirai: future honrai: naturally shisshô: sarcastic laughter haikan: lungs and liver yasaki: arrowhead chingashi: lease, rent shinmin: royal subject gamen: screen meirei: decree, order sonzai: existence, being

In the following compound, the ﬁrst character seems to have been ﬂipped upside down to form the second one: 豊富

hôfu: plentiful

If look-alike compounds make you do a double-take, how many times would you need to look at a sign like this to ﬁgure out what it says? The sign is at Hiyoshi Shrine in Yamaguchi City, which is in Yamaguchi Prefecture on the western tip of Honshu. The text on the sign explains the history of the shrine. “Hiyoshi” is 日吉, and “shrine” is 神社 (jinja). You can see 日吉神社 a little left of center, near the bottom.

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The next group prompts a different sort of doubletake, because components repeat within each compound: 車庫車輪囚人火炎労力協力身贔屓

shako: garage sharin: car wheel shûjin: prisoner kaen: ﬂame rôryoku: trouble, effort, labor kyôryoku: cooperation mibiiki: nepotism

And here are some look-alike compounds, whole words that look like each other: 本当 hontô: really 体当たり taiatari: body blow 認定設定

nintei: authorization, acknowledgment settei: establishment, creation

地図地区

chizu: map chiku: district

# 48 compound interest Wonderful Words One fantastic part about learning other languages is finding words for concepts that don’t exist in one’s native tongue. Japanese is full of such surprises. Take, for example, these great words: 冷静 (reisei: one who is calm and thus makes good decisions) = cool + calm 花恥ずかしい (hanahazukashii: so beautiful as to put a flower to shame) = flower + shame

置き薬 (okigusuri: household medicines left behind by door-to-door salesmen who later collect money for the used portion) = to leave behind + medicine 置き傘 (okigasa: spare umbrella kept at one’s workplace) = to leave behind + umbrella 若年寄 (wakadoshiyori: young person who looks or acts old) = young + age + to draw near

首っ引き (kubippiki: constantly referring to a dictionary) = neck + to pull

Looking at Clouds (and Flowers) from Both Sides Now

虻蜂取らず (abuhachi torazu: trying to catch both a ﬂy and a bee in one swoop of the hand and failing to catch either; attempting two tasks simultaneously and accomplishing neither) = horseﬂy + bee + to take

One can easily lose oneself in the cloud and ﬂower sections of a kanji dictionary, looking at all the wonderful compounds:

昼行灯 (hiru andon: [as useless as] a lantern in broad daylight; slow-witted person; daydreamer) = daytime + to carry with + lamp 祭り込む (matsurikomu: to place an obnoxious person in an out-of-the-way post to be rid of him or her) = to enshrine + to put in 魚道 (gyodô: path regularly taken by a school of fish; fishway) = fish + path 蛍雪 (keisetsu: diligent study, implicitly by the light of fireflies and the reflection from snow) = firefly + snow 竹の子 (take no ko: bamboo shoot) = bamboo + child A bamboo shoot is the child of bamboo! 畑水練 (hatake suiren: like learning swimming on dry land—useless book learning as opposed to life experience) = field + water + practice 畳水練 (tatami suiren: like practicing swimming on a tatami) = tatami mat + water + practice 点検商法 (tenkenshôhô: unscrupulously making sales by posing as an inspector and declaring the need to replace items) = spot + inspection + merchant + system

雲海 (unkai: sea of clouds) = cloud + sea 紫雲 (shiun: auspicious purple clouds) = purple + cloud 戦雲 (sen’un: clouds of war) = war + cloud 片雲 (katagumo: clouds on only one side of the sky) = one-sided + cloud 行雲流水 (kôun ryûsui: floating clouds and flowing water, which is to say taking life easy) = to travel + cloud + to flow + water 花盗人 (hananusubito: one who steals flowers or cherry-blossom branches) = flower + to steal + person 花守 (hanamori: one who guards flowers or cherry blossoms against theft) = flower + keeper 花便り (hanadayori: news of how the flowers are blooming) = flower + news Kashin (花信) means the same thing, so the Japanese must be serious about getting this news! 花明かり (hanaakari: soft brightness at evening due to an abundance of white cherry blossoms) = flower + bright 両手に花 (ryôte ni hana: flowers in both hands— having a double advantage or sitting between pretty women) = both + hand + flower

Wonderful Words

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# 48 compound interest 祝福消防署生き字引

Funny-Sounding Words These expressions are a joy to hear and say because of internal rhymes or near rhymes: 秋学期 akigakki: fall semester 自棄酒 yakezake: drowning one’s cares in sake 記憶力 kiokuryoku: ability to remember 自殺説 jisatsusetsu: rumor about a suicide 主我主義 shuga shugi: egoism, love of self 歩道橋 hodôkyô: footbridge 働かなきゃ hatarakanakya: you must work 進む susumu: to advance, make progress 包む tsutsumu: to wrap 続く tsuzuku: to continue 移る utsuru: to change, move 映す utsusu: to reﬂect

If you want to record wonderful words, this notebook with washi (和紙, Japanese paper) glued to the front is the ideal place for that. The kanji are in seal style. (For more on that, see Exhibit 57, “Just the Facts: Typefaces.”)

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shukufuku: blessing shôbôsho: ﬁre station ikijibiki: walking dictionary

Try saying this last one ten times fast! A few more words sound funny for different reasons: •

Alternating rhymes: 掛けさせられる

•

kakesaserareru: to be made to sit down

These words practically travel down lines in the syllabary: 機械工主唱者

kikaikô: mechanic shushôsha: advocate

What kanji say about japan

4 一

Language is a cultural mirror, one that reflects how its native speakers view the world. What concepts have they represented linguistically? Do they speak directly or indirectly? With what imagery do they create analogies? Bringing these questions down to the scale of this book, what do kanji reflect about Japan? Exhibit 49, “Spectacular Shapes: Gates, Birds, and Thread,” puts kanji under the microscope, scrutinizing three frequently used components. This, by the way, is a most un-Japanese way of viewing kanji. Native speakers look at kanji holistically and quickly, gleaning whatever they need and moving on with their business. But as newcomers with boundless curiosity, we can take time to stop and analyze the roses—or the metals, as in Exhibit 50, “Thematic Explorations: Metals.” The gold or metal component 金 appears so often in characters that it’s worth peeking into the realm of Japanese metallurgy. And now that you have a handle on how kanji don’t always seem what they mean to, have a go at Exhibit 51, “Game: What’s the Meaning of This?!” Another set of characters prompts wonderment, as well as occasional confusion. If 日 stands for Japan, the land of the rising sun, does that make America (米) the land of rising rice? What about Egypt (埃) as mere dust, France (仏) as a Buddhist stronghold, Germany (独) as a bunch of lonely hearts, and Malaysia (馬) as home to the horsey set? Exhibit 52, “Just the Facts: Country Kanji,” enters the wonderful world of kanji abbreviations for country names. The first part provides • 109

information that you’ll use in the next part, “Game: International Intrigue.” Playfulness permeates the Japanese language. Take, for example, words such as baibai (売買: buying and selling), tsurutsuru (slippery), zukazuka (making a rude entrance), and wazawaza (purposely). Exhibit 53, “Thematic Explorations: You Can Say That Again!” presents other words with internal repetition. Japanese playfulness extends to compounds with double meanings. Take, for instance, 蛍火 (hotarubi: firefly + fire). On a literal level, this means “light of a firefly.” But it also refers metaphorically to the glowing embers of a fire. The Japanese love fireflies, so this metaphor seems affectionate, poetic, and clever all at once. For more such wordplay, see Exhibit 54, “Thematic Explorations: Double Meanings.” As you read it, consider whether the Japanese still hear the metaphors as metaphors or whether they’ve become so much a part of the language as to have lost that sense. For example, when people speak of “surfing” the Web, I sometimes picture a surfboard on waves. But when I hear references to cruising the streets (for late-night entertainment) or cruising furniture (as babies do), water rarely comes to mind. “Cruise” in these senses has split off from its nautical roots; its metaphorical status has withered. Similarly, proverbs often drift from their original contexts. When people use such language nowadays, they don't really hear what they're saying. The expression “I'm in the same boat” doesn't make us visualize a boat at all, much less the original one. And what was the original vessel? The Titanic? Noah’s Ark? Hard to know. Many Japanese people have the same disconnect when they refer to, say, goetsu dōshū, 呉越同舟, which means “bitter enemies stuck in the same boat by chance” or “antagonists joining together for a common purpose.” Again, what boat? Is this proverb simply a reappropriation of a Western one? (That sometimes happens, though Japanese people don’t always recognize the import for what it is.) Fortunately, the kanji in 呉越同舟 give us an inkling of its origin. The last two characters are “same” + “boat.” And the first two kanji, Wu and Yue, refer to two rival states in ancient China (called Go and Etsu in Japanese). So the proverb must be an Asian product after all. Maybe the English version is, too! If both English and Japanese speakers tend to miss the references in proverbs, they’re also deaf to the original tone much of the time. It would be more than bizarre if Valley Girls were truly beseeching the Lord whenever they said, “Oh my God!” The tone and in110 •

What Kanji Say About Japan

tent of this phrase have evolved over the centuries, even though the wording hasn’t. The current mismatch between the wording and the meaning renders it an idiomatic expression, an ateji of sorts. Like an archaeological relic, this phrase points to an ardent religious feeling from the past. In the same vein, Exhibit 55, “Thematic Explorations: Hyperbolic Humility,” presents Japanese idioms whose anachronistic content and tone allow us to see the culture as it once was. This issue of what people say versus what they hear is of particular interest when it comes to kanji, because certain characters communicate concepts more efficiently than spoken words can. When someone says moto, another person can understand it as something like “base,” “root,” or “origin.” That general sense suffices for conversational purposes. But the written version of moto conveys much more, because five characters, all pronounced moto, represent various aspects of this one idea: 下元本素基

below, down, low beginning, origin root, bottom elementary, principle fundamentals

Exhibit 56, “Thematic Explorations: Shades of Meaning,” explores shades of meaning as represented by homophonous kanji. The exhibit also looks at the idea that when a language splits hairs in this way, it shows what people in that culture care deeply about and feel a need to specify. For most languages this assumption holds true. But in Japanese it’s trickier to draw this conclusion, because Chinese has left a great imprint on the language, primarily through kanji. So there you have it: Kanji components, wordplay, metaphors, and differentiated characters, all reflecting the Japan of yesterday and today. And what have we learned from this reflection? Well, we know about the industries, religions, and aspects of the natural world that have shaped the Japanese mind. We also know that the Japanese have a great sense of humor, twisting the language to clever effect. But they’re just as likely to be serious, producing a moralistic phrase about hard work, loyalty, or humility. We can see, above all, that because the culture has blended so many influences, it can be difficult to pinpoint the origins of words or ideas. So if kanji sometimes proves to be a cloudy mirror, that’s because it’s reflecting something murky and impure—but always fascinating.

# 49

spectacular shapes

Gates, Birds, and Thread Certain components appear again and again inside kanji, especially gates, birds, and thread. What does this say about Japanese culture or about the ancient Chinese culture in which these components emerged? Let’s take them one by one and explore the question.

Gates: 門 (MON, kado: gate) The profusion of gates in kanji makes sense. Gateways catch the eye in Asia, especially the torii outside Shinto shrines. (Incidentally, the kanji for torii, 鳥居, breaks down as “bird” + “to exist.” A torii is meant to be a resting place for birds, the messengers of Shinto gods.) In the 2003 South Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring, a gate serves as a prominent symbol, separating the busy, modern world from a tranquil, isolated Buddhist monastery. As the gate doors swing open, connecting the two realms, there’s a sense of possibility, of freedom and spaciousness. When they close, one feels locked into the circumscribed world of the monastery. Fortunately, the kanji gates below tend to be fairly harmless. Some of them are also quite logical. In the ﬁrst, 間, one can easily imagine the sun (日) as it peeps through the doors of a gate. In the next character, 問, a mouth (口) appears at the gate to ask a question. In the third, 聞, someone presses her ear (耳) to the gate, awaiting an answer to the question she has just asked. After those three examples, logic deteriorates a bit. In 闇, for instance, a sound (音) inside a gate somehow leads to darkness. 間問聞開閉関闇闘

KAN, aida: between MON, to•u: to ask MON, ki•ku: to listen, ask KAI, a•keru: to open HEI, shi•maru: to close KAN, seki: barrier, connection AN, yami: darkness TÔ, tataka•u: to ﬁght, struggle

Strange Things to Find Inside Your Gate a horse life a tree

闖 (CHIN: to inquire about, sudden entry) 闊 (KATSU: wide, broad-minded) 閑 (KAN: leisure)

a mountain 閊 (tsuka•eru: to be obstructed or clogged, get stuck) 悶 (MON, moda•eru: to be in agony) a heart Compounds with Multiple Gates 閘門関門開門開閉欄間間間閨閥門閥開闢闇闇

kômon: locking a gate kanmon: gateway, barrier kaimon: opening a gate kaihei: opening and closing ranma: transom mama: often, occasionally keibatsu: family groupings through marriage monbatsu: lineage, pedigree kaibyaku: (since) the creation yamiyami: without one’s knowledge, suddenly, easily

Birds: 隹 (SUI : short-tailed bird)

The kanji for “bird,” 鳥 (CHÔ, tori), serves as a radical in many bird-related characters. These include 鶴 (KAKU, tsuru: crane), 鳩 (KYÛ, hato: “dove” or “pigeon,” the bird that replaces the cuckoo in Japanese clocks, which are called 鳩時計, hatodokei), and 鶏 (KEI, niwatori: “chicken,” “hen,” or “rooster,” whose kun-yomi translates as “garden bird”). I’m sure 鳥 makes the Japanese think of a bird, but they might not see anything avian in 隹, which can stand alone or serve as a component. You'll ﬁnd 隹 in these kanji with unbirdlike meanings: 曜離集雑難

YÔ: day of week RI, hana•reru: to separate, leave SHÛ, atsu•meru: to gather, collect ZATSU, ZÔ, ma•zeru: miscellaneous NAN, muzuka•shii: difﬁcult

Why are there so many birds in characters, particularly ones as common as weekday names? Perhaps the Japanese (and originally the Chinese) have had a special attachment to birds. Haruhiko Kindaichi argues that the nature-loving Japanese are so familiar with various birds that wago (the native Japanese lexicon) is rich in bird names. He notes, too, that “Japanese differentiates between the cries of birds: saezuru for small birds, tsugeru (to inform) for chickens, nanoru Gates, Birds, and Thread

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# 49

spectacular shapes

(to call oneself) for cuckoos and skylarks, tataku (to tap) for water rails, and kyô o yomu (to read a sutra) for nightingales” (p. 168). Be that as it may, it’s awfully hard to see the bird connection in the following compounds: 隻手雀斑雄弁焦点雌熊雑婚難破離婚

sekishu: one-armed = one of a pair + hand sobakasu: freckles = sparrow + spots yûben: eloquence = male, brave, great + speech shôten: focal point = to scorch + point meguma: female bear = female + bear zakkon: intermarriage = mixed + marriage nanpa: shipwreck = difﬁcult + to break rikon: divorce = to separate from + marriage

Thread: 糸 (SHI, ito: thread) I once watched a Japanese kanji expert struggle to write 綺麗 (kirei: beautiful). Although he normally would have drawn the characters from left to right, he wasn’t sure how they should look, so he started with what he knew—the complicated second kanji. To my amazement, he zipped through it perfectly. Then he returned to 綺. Blanking out on its left-hand side, he again went with what he knew, rendering the righthand side just fine. Finally, it came time to draw the left-hand side. After hesitating, he placed a mountain (山) where there should have been thread (糸). He had confused 綺 with a different character: 崎 (saki, misaki: cape, promontory). “Wow,” I thought, “it’s hard for him, too! Even experts forget the thread.” Whenever I blank out about the left-hand side of a character, it’s bound to be the thread component. (And thread around the finger is supposed to help you remember things!) Somehow, one never thinks of thread as part of a character. Trees, yes. Hands, sure. Water, definitely. But not thread. It rarely “ties” in to the meaning. Few of the kanji below have anything to do with thread. Nevertheless, thread is a common kanji component because of its significance in Chinese history. The Chinese were the first to produce raw silk from silkworms. This practice had definitely started by 3000

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BCE, possibly even three thousand years earlier! In other countries, demand for Chinese silk reached such heights that the famed Silk Road opened in the second century BCE, enabling silk-based trade with distant locales. The kanji 糸 is a pictograph of two silkworm cocoons (幺) with a little (小) thread unwinding below.

Kanji Featuring the Thread Component 紙線終練約純細組結経絡絵続緒縮縞系係機幾

SHI, kami: paper SEN: line SHÛ, o•waru: to ﬁnish REN, ne•ru: to knead, to train YAKU: to promise JUN: pure SAI, hoso•i: thin, narrow SO, kumi: group, set KETSU, musu•bu: to tie, bind KEI, he•ru: to pass RAKU, kara•mu: to get entangled KAI, E: picture ZOKU, tsuzu•ku: to continue SHO, itoguchi: beginning SHUKU, chiji•maru: to shrink KÔ, shima: stripe KEI: system, lineage KEI, kakari: person in charge KI, hata: device KI, iku-: how many

Thread Kanji Representing Colors Several kanji with thread components represent colors. Originally, these meant “green thread,” “purple thread,” and so on. The ﬁrst ﬁve are much more common than the last two. 緑紫紅緋紺縹緇

RYOKU, midori: green SHI, murasaki: purple KÔ, kurenai: red HI: scarlet KON: dark blue HYÔ, hanada: light blue SHI: black

Compounds with Multiple Pieces of Thread 紡糸細糸紡織

bôshi: spinning, yarn hosoito: ﬁne thread bôshoku: spinning and weaving

# 49 紛糾纏綿系統純系終結締約続編絶縁縁結び緯線経線

spectacular shapes

funkyû: complication, entanglement tenmen: entanglement keitô: system, lineage junkei: (genetically) pure line shûketsu: conclusion teiyaku: to sign a treaty zokuhen: sequel zetsuen: breaking off a relationship enmusubi: marriage isen: latitude keisen: longitude

Compounds with Three Threaded Kanji

A Bird Inside a Gate Secured with Thread Now for the ultimate challenge—identifying compounds combining gates, birds, and thread! So far, I’ve found words including just two of the three: 離間離縁集約結集緑門権門総門

rikan: estrangement rien: divorce, disowning shûyaku: intensive kesshû: to concentrate, marshal together ryokumon: arch of greenery kenmon: powerful person sômon: main gate

結合組織 ketsugô soshiki: connective tissue 紡績糸 bôsekiito: yarn 線維素 sen’iso: roughage, ﬁber, cellulose

The English word “gate” suggests something impassable, something that says “Keep Out!” A torii couldn’t be more diﬀerent. It has no doors and instead seems to have an ethereal openness, as one can see even in 門 , the “gate” kanji. Whereas most gates create a sense of rigid separation between”inside” and “outside,” the torii creates the feeling of a passage, of a smooth, gentle transition between the two. In fact, people are required to pass under certain torii gates. Historically, that was true of the one in the photo; commoners were permitted to come to the holy island of Itsukushima (popularly called Miyajima) only if they approached by boat, passing through this gate in the water. This torii is part of Itsukushima Shrine, a Shinto shrine dating back to the 6th century CE. The current gate dates back to 1875, but the original one went up in 1168. Constructed on piers, the gate is about 16 meters (52 feet) high.

Gates, Birds, and Thread

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# 50

thematic explorations

Metals Before I supply any information about metals, here's a quiz! Match items on the left with those on the right. The right-hand descriptions reﬂect how the Japanese (and perhaps originally the Chinese) have seen these metals (according to the kanji, anyway) and may differ from your view. In some cases, more than one metal matches a description. 1. Copper ___ 2. Platinum ___ 3. Gold ___ 4. Iron ___ 5. Lead ___ 6. Silver ___

a. White metal b. Red metal c. Black metal d. Yellow metal

The results in the Answer Key might surprise you! You'll ﬁnd explanations below. After encountering words such as kurogane, shirogane, and akagane, which respectively mean “black metal,” “white metal,” and “red metal,” I became intrigued by these colorful terms. As kun-kun combinations, they must be quite old. And yet I’ve never associated Old Japan with mining or metals but rather with softer materials, such as bamboo and wood. I wondered whether Japan's mountains contained pay dirt. I discovered that around 300 BCE, Kyushu residents began using iron tools, having borrowed knowledge from China. These tools increased farming productivity and helped the Japanese establish an agricultural economy that replaced hunter-gatherer ways. The problem lay in procuring metal, given the few mining resources in Japan. Coal deposits exist in inland Hokkaido and Kyushu. Iron comes from Hokkaido and northern Honshu. Modest amounts of gold and copper exist in Hokkaido, Honshu, and Karafuto. Other mineral resources include lead, zinc, and silver. Mining in Japan continues today but rapidly declined in the 1980s. By contrast, imports of natural resources have grown signiﬁcantly. In particular, Japan imports considerable amounts of coal (to produce electricity) and metals. In 2001, Japan spent $102.9 billion on minerals, accounting for almost 30 percent of all imports. One source called Japan the world’s lead-

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ing consumer of nickel (especially from Indonesia). It makes sense that any industrial nation requires metals, particularly one producing as many vehicles and electronic goods as Japan does. Unfortunately, none of this information sheds much light on the development of words such as kurogane. But here’s what we do know about the kanji:

Yellow Metal: Gold

金 (KIN, kane: gold, metal, money) The character 金 emphasizes gold as a mineral. This kanji also means “money” and appears in compounds such as 料金 (ryôkin: fare, fee). 黄金 (kogane or ôgon: gold) = yellow + metal As the breakdown shows, this compound literally means “yellow metal.” Kogane is a less common way of saying “gold” and indicates the preciousness of this metal.

White Metal: Silver, Platinum, and . . . Lead?!

銀 (GIN, shirogane: silver) Shiro means “white,” so the kun-yomi, shirogane, means “white metal.” It makes some sense that ancient people saw silver as a white metal. But why did they attach this word to 銀? According to Kenneth Henshall in A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, the right-hand side, 艮, means “to stop“ and expresses “white“ phonetically but also suggests “to take a second look” or “to scrutinize.” Because silver resembles less precious metals, it warrants careful examination. 白金 (hakkin: platinum) = white + metal This compound contains two kanji that I would have read collectively as shirogane. Instead, we use two onyomi to read this compound. 鉛 (EN, namari: lead) Of all the “white metals,” this singleton presents the greatest surprise. How can lead be white?! Henshall says the right-hand side of 鉛 phonetically expresses “white” but also means “hollowed out,” combining

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口 (source, opening) with 八 (out of) to convey “extraction.” Speaking of extractions, Henshall squeezes one more interpretation out of the phonetic in 鉛. He notes that some scholars see this “white” as referring to cosmetics, because facial powder is white and because shiro is the Japanese word for both “whiteness” and “cosmetics.” He adds that many ancient cosmetics were lead-based.

Black Metal: Iron

鉄 (TETSU, kurogane: iron) As I mentioned, kuroi means “black,” so the kun-yomi of 鉄, kurogane, means “black metal.” That’s a good ﬁt for “iron.” In 鉄, according to Henshall, the right-hand side acts phonetically to express “black,” perhaps also lending the sense of “big.” This phonetic refers to iron and by extension to steel, he says.

Red Metal: Copper

銅 (DÔ, akagane: copper) When I hear akagane, I think “red metal.” Copper is indeed a red metal; so far so good. Then I would expect to see 赤 (aka•i: red) somewhere in the kanji for “copper.” Instead, the kanji is 銅! I ﬁgure that when it came time to represent this wago word, the Japanese couldn’t ﬁnd a kanji combining 金 and 赤. Instead, they chose 銅. Although 同 means “same,” phonetically it expresses “red,” says Henshall.

Steel: 鋼 (hagane) The right-hand side is oka, meaning “hill,” in this case a towering and formidable hill, says Henshall. This phonetic also expresses “strong,” he says, giving a composite meaning of a “strong” or “formidable metal.” Zinc: 亜鉛 (aen) = subordinate + lead The ﬁrst kanji means “next,” “sub,” or “Asia,” followed by the character for “lead.” Zinc is the next lead? Zinc is inferior to lead? Zinc is Asian lead? Beats me. But in the Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary, Jack Halpern indicates that 亜 functions here to mean “subordinate.” The next compounds seem self-explanatory: Bronze: 唐金 (karakane) = China, foreign + metal Ore: 粗金 (aragane) = coarse, rough + metal Mercury: 水銀 (suigin) = water + silver Coal: 石炭 (sekitan) = stone + charcoal, coal Mine: 鉱山 (kôzan) = ore + mountain Some terms are in katakana, reinforcing the sense that Japan imports these metals: Nickel: ニッケル (nikkeru) Aluminum: アルミニウム (aruminiumu), abbreviated as アルミ (arumi)

Other Metals and Minerals Several related terms don’t correlate to the “color + metal” schematic: Tin: 錫 (SEKI, SHAKU, suzu) The right-hand side is yasashii, “easy,” because tin is very malleable.

We’ve seen that “black metal” means iron in 鉄 (kurogane), but here’s a whole new take on black metal. In Hannō City in Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a liquor store owner has used two oil drums as containers for sorted broken glass. He labeled one drum 黒 (kuro: black) for dark glass and the other one 白 (shiro: white) for clear glass . The white paint with which he drew the kanji oxidized to a bright orange when the metal drum rusted.

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game! game! game! game! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 1

What’s the Meaning of This?! Choosing from the options, pick the correct deﬁnition. Two answers may be right. (Note: Just for fun, I’ve presented the characters in Part I as simple sums of meanings. But don’t take this too seriously. These kanji may not be kaiimoji at all. That is, a component may give a character its sound, contributing nothing to its meaning. For now, put these scholarly concerns aside and enjoy the game!) More than one answer may be right. Answers appear in the Answer Key.

Part 1 1. 軟 (car + lack) a. Environmentally friendly b. Underprivileged c. Soft 2. 湖 (water + old + moon, ﬂesh) a. Lake b. Swamp c. Sewage 3. 患 (to pierce + heart) a. Broken heart b. To be sick c. Grilled beef heart 4. 煙 (ﬁre + west + earth) a. Smoke b. Jet engine c. Hell 5. 袖 (clothing + reason) a. Shame b. Goosebumps c. Sleeve 6. 妙 (woman + few, a little) a. Scarce b. Odd c. Exquisite 7. 裕 (clothing + valley) a. Surplus b. Shopping center c. Closet

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Part 2 1. 非常口 (not + normal + opening) a. Malocclusion b. Emergency exit c. Mick Jagger's mouth 2. 回復 (to turn + to return to) a. Doing something repeatedly b. Getting lost c. Recovering from an illness 3. 口座 (opening + place) a. Face b. Dentist c. Bank account 4. 改札口 (to reform + paper money + opening) a. Turnstile b. Change in interest rates c. Stock market 5. 木羽 (wood + wings) a. Angel b. Shingles on building c. Statue 6. 牛歩 (cow + to walk) a. Herding cattle b. Pasture c. Snail's pace 7. 化生 (to change + life) a. Menopause b. Metamorphosis c. Midlife crisis 8. 出所 (to leave + place) a. Departure in a vehicle b. Release from prison c. Nostalgia 9. お見舞い (honoriﬁc o + to see + dance) a. To attend a ballet b. To commit a crime c. To visit a sick person

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Country Kanji Japanese is wordy, and its words tend to be long. According to linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi in The Japanese Language, performing plays translated into Japanese takes twice as long as in the original language. Kindaichi’s book fills one volume in English, two in Japanese. Perhaps for this reason Japanese newspapers and magazines often use abbreviations, particularly for country names. The first kanji in a country’s name usually stands for the whole. Hence, 日, NICHI or NI, represents 日本, Nihon (Japan). Country-name kanji can be tricky. Many are compounds of obsolete kanji originally chosen for their phonetic value. If they no longer have that pronunciation, the thread is hard to trace. For instance, 白耳義 stands for Berugī (Belgium). Using current on-yomi, you would read this as hakujigi. As we saw in Exhibit 36, “Just the Facts: Doesn’t Sound the Way It’s Spelled,” this mismatch is ateji; the sounds of the individual kanji don’t correspond to the sounds of the whole word. (The meanings of the characters don’t match the meaning of the whole word, either. If these meanings did match, the individual kanji would make you think that 白耳義 referred to the “significance of white ears.”) Although 白耳義 does not sound the way it’s spelled, 白 does have the usual on-yomi (HAKU) when functioning as an abbreviation of the full country name. That is, 日白 is read as Nichihaku and refers to Japan-Belgium relations. In pairings of country kanji, the more “important” country usually appears first. Hence, 日 precedes in 日中, Nitchû (Japan-China); 日米, Nichibei (JapanUnited States); and 日韓, Nikkan (Japan–South Korea). Similarly, 米 (the United States) would come first in an article about United States–Mexico relations. In the table on page 119, the second column displays kanji for the full names of countries and conti-

nents, as well as regions that were once independent entities, such as Manchuria, Mongolia, and Prussia. The third column shows kanji abbreviations for places, as well as pronunciations of those single kanji. The last column supplies other meanings and readings for the kanji singletons. The alternate meanings and readings are irrelevant here, but I’ve presented them just to satisfy curiosity. Nowadays, it’s common to represent country names and their abbreviations with katakana, especially newer names (e.g., イスラエル, Isuraeru: Israel). If a place name has no kanji, only katakana, it doesn’t appear below. When both kanji and katakana abbreviations exist for a place, the third column presents those (e.g., 阿 and ア for Africa, in the ﬁrst row). A few more items of note: •

Certain kanji appear repeatedly in the full names of countries (e.g., 利 for the sound ri). • Holland goes by the second kanji in its name, maybe because the ﬁrst kanji represents “Africa.” • Sweden and Switzerland have the same abbreviation. • The United States is formally called アメリカ合衆国, Amerika Gasshûkoku, but embassies usually refer to the United States as 米国, Beikoku, which means “rice country”! The 米 comes from 亜米利加, Amerika. Although 米 now has the on-yomi of BEI, it was also read as ME in the past. • Vietnam’s full name means “far south,” the reference point being China. As a mnemonic, you could remember the compound for Vietnam as “Southern Cross” (the small, cross-shaped constellation over the South Pole to which Crosby, Stills, & Nash referred in their eponymous song), because 越南 breaks down as “cross” + “south.”

Country Kanji

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Game: International Intrigue You’ve traveled back in time to an era of worldwide war. (Actually, you’ve arrived in a time warp, as Prussia and Manchuria somehow coexist with Myanmar.) And you’ve discovered a box of notes about the warring countries. Japanese spies wrote these notes. To conceal their meaning, they used a code, substituting homonyms for country kanji. For instance, when they meant 墨 (BOKU: Mexico), they instead wrote 僕 (boku: I, used by males). But in no time flat, you decipher their vocabulary and record your findings. Now you're ready to interpret the spies' text. In each sentence below, the spies discuss four or five countries. List the countries under discussion. (Hint: Look at the kanji in the sentences and figure out which ones appear in the Abbreviation column on the facing page. Whenever you find one that does, you’ve found an answer.) Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai! 1. 馬から葡萄と白い蘭がかかっています。 Uma kara budô to shiroi ran ga kakatte imasu. Grapes and white orchids hang from the horse.

2. 仏教では蒙昧は瑞気じゃありません。 Bukkyô de wa mômai wa zuiki ja arimasen. In Buddhism, ignorance is not a good omen.

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Kana Needed: Y / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 2

3. 伯父さんは英才ですが、独りぼっちのときは、馬を希います。 Ojisan wa eisai desu ga, hitoribotchi no toki wa, uma o koinegaimasu. My uncle is talented, but when he's all alone, he desires horses.

4. 115丁目の西側には、土と言っては埃しかありません。 115-chôme no nishigawa ni wa, tsuchi to itte wa hokori shika arimasen. On the west side of that city block, the soil is nothing but dust.

5. 豪を買うことを承諾したとき、印と墨汁をつかいました。 Hori o kau koto o shôdaku shita toki, in to bokujû o tsukaimashita. When (he) agreed to buy the moat, (he) used (his) seal and India ink.

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Country

Country-Name Kanji

Abbreviation

Yomi, Reading, and Meaning

Africa Asia Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada China Denmark Egypt Europe France Germany Great Britain Greece Holland Hungary India Italy Japan Korea, North Korea, South Malaysia Manchuria Mexico Mongolia Myanmar Norway Philippines Poland Portugal Prussia Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Turkey United States Vatican Vietnam

阿弗利加: Afurika 亜細亜: Ajia 豪州: Gōshū; 濠太剌利: Ōsutoraria 墺太利: Ōsutoria 白耳義: Berugī 伯剌西爾: Burajiru 加奈陀: Kanada 中国: Chūgoku 丁抹: Denmāku 埃及: Ejiputo 欧州: Ōshū; 欧羅巴: Yōroppa 仏蘭西: Furansu 独逸: Doitsu 英国: Eikoku; 英吉利: Igirisu 希臘: Girishia 阿蘭陀: Oranda 洪牙利: Hangarī 印度: Indo 伊太利: Itaria 日本: Nihon 北朝鮮: Kita Chōsen en is Chôs r 韓国: Kankoku e anoth say o t 馬來西亜: Marēshia way .” a e r 満州: Manshū “Ko 墨西哥: Mekishiko 蒙古: Mōko 緬甸: Myanmā 諾威: Noruuei 比島: Hitō, Firipin 波蘭: Pōrando 葡萄牙: Porutogaru 普魯西: Purosha 露西亜: Roshia 西班牙: Supein 瑞典: Suēden 瑞西: Suisu 台湾: Taiwan 泰: Tai 土耳古: Toruko 米国: Beikoku; 亜米利加: Amerika 教皇庁: Kyōkōchō 越南: Etsunan, Betonamu

阿 (A); ア亜 (A) 豪 (GŌ) 墺 (Ō) 白 (HAKU); ベ伯 (HAKU); ブ加 (KA) 中 (CHŪ) 丁(TEI); デ埃 (AI); エジプト欧 (Ō) 仏 (FUTSU) 独 (DOKU) 英 (EI) 希 (GI) 蘭 (RAN) 洪 (KŌ); ハンガリー印 (IN) 伊 (I) 日 (NICHI, NI) 朝 (CHŌ) 韓 (KAN) 馬 (MA); マ満 (MAN) 墨 (BOKU) 蒙 (MŌ) 緬 (BEN); ミャ諾 (DAKU) 比 (HI) 波 (HA); ポ葡 (PO) 普 (FU) 露 (RO) 西 (SEI) 瑞 (ZUI) 瑞 (ZUI) 台 (TAI) 泰 (TAI); タイ土 (TO); ト米 (BEI) 教 (KYŌ); バチカン越 (ETSU)

A, O, omone•ru: to be obsequious A: to rank next, come after GŌ, hori: moat Ō: land, shore HAKU, shiro•i: white HAKU: eldest brother, uncle KA, kuwa•eru: to add CHŪ, naka: middle CHŌ: city block; TEI: 4th in a series AI, hokori: dust Ō: Europe BUTSU, hotoke: Buddhism DOKU, hito•ri: alone EI: brilliant, talented KI, koinega•u: to desire RAN: orchid KŌ: ﬂood, vast IN, shirushi: seal, sign I: that one NICHI, NI, hi: sun, day CHŌ, asa: morning KAN, kara: well hedge BA, uma: horse MAN, mi•chiru: to be full BOKU, MOKU, sumi: India ink MŌ: Spanish moss, ignorance MEN: ﬁne thread DAKU, ubena•u: to agree to HI, kura•beru: to compare HA, nami: wave BU, HO: grape FU, amane•ku: general, wide RO, RŌ, ara•wa: in the open SEI, SAI, nishi: west ZUI, mizu: good omen ZUI, mizu: good omen DAI, TAI: platform TAI: calm, large DO, TO, tsuchi: earth, soil BEI, kome, yone: rice KYŌ, oshi•eru: to teach, religion ETSU, ko•su: to cross, exceed

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You Can Say That Again! A young woman calls a friend from a hospital, using words with a curious rhythm: “Moshimoshi, Kan-san desu ka? Suzuki Mizuki desu. Ima, byôin kara desu. Kyô no gogo wa mô mechakucha de, watashi wa otaota shite imasu. Sakki, kyû ni, chichi no mimi kara byôbyô to chi ga dete kite, botabota to nagare ochite kitandesu. Chichi wa ‘zukizuki piripiri shite, kurakura suru’ to iimashita. Sono chi ga totemo kimochi warukatta node, watashi mo sukoshi mune ga mukamuka shite kimashita. Chichi no kao ga nakanaka itsumono ikiiki to shita kao ni modoranai node, watashitachi wa chichi o kono byôin ni tsurete kimashita. Koko no machiaishitsu ni wa takusan no hitobito ga imasu. Watashitachi wa tada daradara to matte iru dake desu. Haha wa shinpai de, hoho ga shôshô aoi desu. Haha wa piripiri mo shite ite, shinpai de mô yoreyore ni natte imasu. Watashi wa onaka ga pekopeko desu. Chichi no yôtai ga kono mama zuruzuru to susumu yori, chikajika gen’in ga wakaru to ii to omoimasu.” Here's what she said: “Hi, Kan? It's Mizuki Suzuki. This afternoon has been horrible. I'm at the hospital right now, and I don't know what to do. Earlier, endless amounts of blood suddenly started ﬂowing from my father's ear. My dad said he felt a throbbing pain, stinging, and dizziness. It was so disgusting that I felt nauseated. My father wasn't looking well at all, so we brought him to the hospital. There are lots of people in the waiting room. The wait is incredibly boring. My mother is so anxious that her cheeks are pale. And she's worn out from being on edge. I'm starving. This unbearable experience drags on and on. I hope we ﬁnd the cause of the illness soon.” Did you notice that, in the English version, the only rhyme (Mizuki Suzuki) came from Japanese? Aside from “so-so,” “boogie-woogie,” words from other languages (e.g., “couscous” and “mahimahi”), and baby talk, English offers few expressions with internal repetition. By contrast, Japanese offers thousands of repeating words, particularly giseigo (擬声語: to mimic + voice + word), which are onomatopoetic, and gitaigo

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(擬態語: to mimic + appearance + word), which describe psychological states and other non-auditory phenomena. Beyond these, scads of ordinary Japanese words such as kôkô (高校: high school) contain internal repetition. The Japanese adore this kind of repetition. It amuses them to no end to roll such rhymes off their tongues. For some native speakers, this quirk of the language even inspires national pride. In Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker, Andrew Horvat quotes illustrator Gomi Tarô as saying that when it comes to gitaigo, “I suddenly become very proud and boastful and have a burning desire to introduce them and get people to understand them” (p. 154). Gomi illustrated many gitaigo in An Illustrated Dictionary of Japanese Onomatopoeic Expressions. Perhaps it's no surprise that the Japanese have devised a repetition kanji, 々. Known as both odoriji (踊り字: literally, a character that jumps, dances, leaps, or skips!) and kurikaeshi kigô (繰り返し符号: repetition sign), this symbol pretty much says, “Once more, same as before.” Not all repetitive words have kanji; the Japanese write many in hiragana or katakana. Here’s how they might choose to represent the ones from the above passage:

Kanji

gogo 午後 (afternoon) mechakucha 滅茶苦茶 (ruined) chichi 父 (my father) mimi 耳 (ear) byôbyô 眇々 (boundless) nakanaka 中々 (by no means) ikiiki 生き生き (lively) hitobito 人々 (people) haha 母 (my mother) hoho 頬 (cheek) shôshô 少々 (a little) chikajika 近々 (the near future)

Kana moshimoshi hello otaota shocked, not knowing what to do

# 53 botabota zukizuki piripiri kurakura mukamuka koko daradara piripiri yoreyore pekopeko mama zuruzuru

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large amount of liquid throbbing pain stinging dizziness nausea here boring, going on and on on edge worn out starving as is untenable situation that drags on inconclusively

When a word repeats, it might simply become plural, as when 人 (hito: person, people) turns into 人々 (hitobito: people). But oftentimes the meaning changes, as in the following examples. Note the voicing in kuniguni and tokidoki: 国国々

kuni: country kuniguni: various countries

時時々

toki: hour tokidoki: sometimes

色色々

iro: color iroiro: various

昔昔々

mukashi: old times mukashi mukashi: once upon a time

Here are other common words with repetitive forms: 元元々

moto: origin motomoto: originally, from the outset

赤赤々

aka•i: red akaaka: brightly

若若々

waka•i: young wakawaka•shii: youthful

久久々

hisa: long time hisabisa: for the ﬁrst time in a long time

上上々女女々

JÔ: up

jôjô: the very best me: woman meme•shii: effeminate, unmanly

山山々区区々直直々怏怏々

yama: mountain yamayama: mountains, very much KU: division

kuku: various, diverse, mixed, petty JIKI: direct

jikijiki: direct Ô: dissatisfaction

ôô: despondent, in low spirits

伸 no•biru: to stretch 伸び伸び nobinobi: to feel at ease, refreshed A few kanji repeat in AABB patterns. Take, for example, 三々五々 (sansan-gogo: in small groups, by twos and threes). Oddly, the compound involves threes (三) and ﬁves (五), not twos and threes! Here are other AABB words: 侃々諤々侃諤

kankan-gakugaku: outspoken KAN: moral strength or integrity GAKU: speaking the truth

明々白々

meimei-hakuhaku: perfectly evident MEI: clear HAKU: white

明白

伸び伸び延々 nobinobi-en’en: repeatedly postponed 伸 no•biru: to stretch 延 EN: to prolong, stretch 平々凡々平凡

heihei-bonbon: ordinary to an extreme, very ordinary HEI: even, ﬂat BON: mediocre

Sometimes the yomi changes from kun to on when the word acquires a repetition: 続続々

tsuzu•ku: to continue zokuzoku: one after another

年年々

toshi: year nennen: year by year

近近々

chika•i: near kinkin: in the near future (though this is more commonly read as chikajika)

You Can Say That Again!

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Double Meanings To gain insight into the mind-set of a certain culture, examine its metaphors, its framework for comparisons. Do the people often draw analogies to nature? To war? Perhaps they give equal weight to both, as American anthropologist Ruth Benedict discovered about the Japanese, therefore naming her 1944 study of Japan The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Figurative language hints at a country’s history, its values, and its fears. Jokes and euphemisms point to particular areas of discomfort (concerning death, sex, moral transgressions, and the like). We can scrutinize Japanese this way and learn a lot, but kanji provides a special prism with which to view the issue. Certain characters and compounds have double meanings, often revealing a great deal about Japanese beliefs and priorities. For instance, kirei, 綺麗, means both “beautiful” and “clean,” indicating that the two traits are closely related in the Japanese mind. When characters and compounds have double meanings, it’s either because the Japanese see conceptual connections between them or because they treat one term as a metaphorical spinoff of the other. The word aoi, 青い, provides examples of both phenomena. Literally, it means both “blue” and “green”; the Japanese view these as interchangeable. Figuratively, aoi means “fresh,” “young,” and “immature.” English has the same metaphor, as when we deem an inexperienced person “green.” This exhibit doesn’t include examples such as aoi, because that double meaning doesn’t tell us much about Japan and its culture. We’ll only concern ourselves with the terms that reveal most about Japan—and in some cases about China, where these characters originated. There’s much that we don’t know about the etymology of these singletons and compounds, so my explanations often include fanciful speculation.

Imperial Majesty One can surmise from the next two compounds that the Japanese viewed the imperial family and court in a godlike way, as though they lived in the heavens.

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雲上 (unjô) = cloud + above 1. above the clouds 2. the imperial court 雲井 (kumoi) = cloud + well (for water) 1. the sky 2. palace 3. the imperial court 竹の園生 (take no sonô) = bamboo + garden (combining “garden” and “life”) 1. bamboo garden 2. imperial family The bamboo garden provides a more down-to-earth image than the heavens, but given the importance accorded to bamboo in Japan (as an integral part of religious ceremonies, art, music, buildings, and everyday objects), the analogy still implies great reverence.

Livelihoods and Money 釣り (tsuri) 1. fish 2. change or coins (returned after a large bill payment) One could define the components of 釣 in multiple ways, most logically as “metal” + “hook” (that is, a metal fishhook). But 金 also means “gold” and “money,” so I wonder whether there's a monetary association here, too. In ancient times, perhaps fishermen equated fish with money. Later on, it must have been no great stretch to associate the character with change or coins, referred to now with the honorific o, making the word otsuri. 績 (SEKI) 1. silk spinning (as in 紡績, bôseki: spinning) 2. achievement (as in 成績, seiseki: performance) One can imagine that spinning was once a measure of achievement, especially in China, where this character originated and where sericulture (silkworm production) was a huge industry. 米櫃 (komebitsu) = rice + chest, coffer, tub 1. rice bin

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2. breadwinner 3. means of livelihood Here we have a triple, all pointing to rice production as a major means of subsistence. 雲水 (unsui) = cloud + water 1. itinerant priest 2. beggar These meanings have a conceptual link, rather than a metaphorical one. Buddha required his followers to detach from the material life. Instead of holding down jobs, they were expected to wander and beg. It’s hard to ﬁgure out how clouds and water combined to create a wandering priest, except for the formlessness of these on-the-move entities.

The Natural World 離山 (rizan) = to separate + mountain 1. isolated mountain 2. departure from a temple I initially thought the temple in question stood on an isolated mountain. But now I wonder whether the mountain symbolizes a temple cut off from the bustling world. Leaving the temple would mean heading down the mountain and joining society. 優曇華 (udonge) = to excel + cloudy weather + flower 1. the mythical udumbara plant of India, also known as “plantain flower” 2. something very rare (from the legend that the udumbara plant flowers once in three thousand years) 3. insect eggs laid by a lacewing in a flowerlike pattern whose shape portends good or ill fortune Perhaps to prevent this rarely used compound from growing musty, the Japanese gave it the third meaning—insect eggs. 咲 1. wara•u: to laugh 2. sa•ku: to bloom In China, this character originally meant “to laugh” and “to smile.” So did 笑. When these kanji arrived in Japan, the Japanese assigned both characters the kunyomi wara•u, as this meant “to smile” and “to laugh.” At some point the two characters began evolving in different directions, and 咲 received an added mean-

ing, “to bloom.” This change meant taking a metaphorical leap; the Japanese viewed a blooming ﬂower as if it were laughing happily. In Japan, 咲 has now all but lost its association with laughter.

Sex (in Both Senses of the Word) Japanese has so many metaphors pertaining to sexuality and gender that I've divided them into subcategories. Again, this wealth of figurative language shows the Japanese need to speak of such matters indirectly, because they're simply too charged to mention by name. Women as Flowers Because of Japan’s long agricultural tradition, plants often serve as the basis for metaphors, especially flowers, which can represent female sexuality. That explains the following two expressions: 花柳 (karyû) = flower + willow 1. blossoms and willows 2. red-light district 両手に花 (ryôte ni hana) = both + hand + flower 1. to have a double advantage 2. to sit between two pretty women Menstruation The vast numbers of euphemisms for menstruation— for which the formal word is gekkei, 月経 (month + passage of time)—indicate that many Japanese feel deep embarrassment about this topic, as well as disgust. In Womansword, Cherry Kittredge writes, “There is no question that menstruation came to be viewed as pollution. Menstruation is said to be kegarawashii, or filthy, disgusting, obscene” (p. 19). All the terms below refer figuratively to menstruation and literally to something else. 旗日 (hatabi) = flag + day: flag day With a red circle on a white background, the Japanese flag could be said to resemble menstrual staining. According to Kittredge, the same thinking produced the now-outdated bit of slang 日の丸, hinomaru. Breaking down as “sun” + “full,” this alludes to the “rising sun.” Kittredge writes of both terms, “It took a satirical wit to link menstruation with the patriotic symbol; prior

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to World War II, nationalism was almost synonymous with state Shinto, a religion that included the concept of menstruation as contamination” (p. 19). 月の障り (tsuki no sawari) = moon + hindrance: cloud over the moon When you translate this term as “monthly obstacle,” you can see the link to menstruation. 生理 (seiri) = life + basic principles: physiology The breakdown here is more matter-of-fact, and “physiology” and “menstruation” both have anatomical bases, so it's easier to make the leap from this vague euphemism to the implied meaning. Female Genitalia English speakers certainly have euphemisms for female genitalia. The vague reference to “down there” equates to the Japanese are (that far-away thing). But the Japanese also represent vaginas with shellfish! Kanji students learn that 貝 has monetary connotations (e.g., 買, ka•u: to buy), but teachers give short shrift to its sexual aspect! 貝 (kai) 1. shellfish 2. women's genitalia Kittredge says that abalone, spraying surf clam, corbicula, sea anemone, and herring roe have all been used to represent vaginas. She mentions a springtime fertility festival in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, in which “a huge model clamshell is carried through the streets, opening and closing gently in the breeze. . . . The sexy shellfish is supposed to grant marital bliss, babies, cures for sexual diseases, and bounteous crops” (p. 111). As for other key parts of female genitalia, Donald Richie (a longtime observer of Japanese culture) imparts some fascinating information in his Japan Journals while describing a party he attended. The centerpiece of the table, a “structure of chestnuts,” prompted a discussion of the word kuri (栗: chestnut). The conversation drifted to risu (栗鼠: squirrel). Richie doesn't say how that happened, but I note that the two terms share a kanji. The guests then fit the words together: kuri to risu, “chestnut and squirrel.” As he points out, this is Japanese for “clitoris”: クリトリス,

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kuritorisu. “Wordplay is always popular at parties, and this was an enormous hit” (p. 225), says Richie. He doesn't analyze the signiﬁcance of the imagery, but if you imagine a chestnut and a squirrel's tail, the wordplay becomes clearer. Gender Roles, Marriage, and Divorce Countless words point to the exalted status of the male and the diminished role of the female in traditional Japanese society. For this reason, many women chafe at two common words that mean “wife.” Both depict women as inhabiting the interior of the house: 奥さん, okusan, “wife” (奥 means “interior” but truly refers to the depths of a building), and 家内, kanai, “my wife” (house + inside). The double meanings of several words similarly illuminate gender roles in Japan: 雄 (YÛ, osu) 1. male 2. brave, great This character isn’t for humans but rather for other creatures. Still, the double meaning makes it quite clear how males stack up in the Japanese mind! 傷物 (kizumono) = defect + things 1. damaged goods (unsold, substandard goods) 2. an unmarried woman who has lost her virginity 売れ残り (urenokori) = to sell + remainder 1. unsold merchandise 2. older unmarried woman 山の神 (yamanokami) = mountain + god 1. god of a mountain 2. one’s wife Now, this one I like! 行き戻り (yukimodori) = to go + to return 1. round trip 2. divorced woman Traditionally, when a woman married, she moved from her parents’ home to her husband’s home. And if the marriage ended, she had no choice but to move back in with her parents. Having ﬁguratively made a round trip, this divorced woman acquired the label yukimodori or the similar disparaging term demodori, 出戻り (to leave + to return), a “returnee.”

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三行半 = three + lines of text + half 1. mikudarihan: letter of divorce 2. sangyôhan: three-and-a-half lines of text The compound prompts two possible yomi, but they’re closer in meaning than you might think. As Kittredge tells us, a woman couldn’t request a divorce until the nineteenth century. But during the Edo era, a man could do so by leaving his wife a note saying that he wanted to separate. Kittredge observes, “The divorce letters were so short that they came to be called ‘three-and-a-half lines’ (mikudarihan). Women who saw the ominous notes understood instantly, even if they were illiterate” (p. 57).

War and Aggression 戦 1. SEN, ikusa: war; tataka•u: to wage war, fight 2. onono•ku: to shudder, tremble This pairing implies that war can inspire a “fight” or “flight” response. 征 (SEI, iku) 1. to subjugate 2. to attack the rebellious 3. to collect taxes This kanji has the sense of going afar to fight the good fight. But the third meaning makes it clear that some of the most difficult battles are internal (as in Internal Revenue Service).

Feelings 自戒 (jikai) = self + to admonish 1. self-discipline 2. admonishing oneself To English speakers, these meanings seem fairly far apart. After all, hard work, exercise, and healthy eating fall under the rubric of self-discipline. We admonish ourselves if we fail to meet those standards. But self-discipline needn’t involve self-laceration, and discipline isn’t the primary agenda anyway; results are. By contrast, self-discipline is a crucial part of Japanese culture and of character building, spawning such sayings as “Self-discipline polishes away the rust of the body.” Devoting a whole chapter to self-discipline,

Benedict wrote of the “Japanese assumption” that all people need self-training. In his 1978 work The Japanese, Robert Ozaki emphasized the masochistic aspects of this approach. “The Japanese always talk about the importance of suppressing and controlling ‘self’” (p. 240), he said. “Historically, Japanese books on moral improvement and how-to-live methods . . . went so far as to expound an aesthetics of unhappiness that borders on masochism. It was held that hardship tempers one’s heart. Unhappiness strengthens the psyche. . . . One should be grateful for . . . any hardship encountered in life” (p. 246). Given this mentality, the two readings of 自戒 seem a bit closer. 自慰 (jii) = self + consolation, amusement, seduction 1. self-consolation 2. masturbation No explanation needed here! 会心 (kaishin) = to meet + heart 1. congeniality 2. satisfaction If you have an open heart when you meet someone, you will be congenial. And if your heart feels full after you’ve met someone, you can consider yourself satisfied. 腹の虫 (haranomushi) = intestines + worm 1. intestinal worms 2. one's heart, anger In English, we speak of being so angry that it “eats you up inside.” The Japanese appear to have imagined this more graphically! 憤死 (funshi) = to be indignant + to die 1. to die in a fit of anger 2. to get an “out” in baseball (with men on base) The first meaning includes suicides caused by indignation. The second applies this idea to baseball!

Unnatural Death 生還 (seikan) = life + to return 1. to come back alive 2. to cross home plate If you equate an “out” in baseball with death, it makes sense that the converse is true; if you come back

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“alive” from your trip around the bases, you’re eligible to cross home plate. 首実検 (kubi jikken) = neck + truth + examination 1. identiﬁcation of a severed head 2. identiﬁcation of a suspect I can’t explain this pair but included them for fun. 生害 (shôgai) = life + harm 1. to be killed 2. to commit suicide The end result is the same, but the means are very different! Perhaps the Japanese imagine that those who commit suicide were killed by depression and such.

Insults 鴨 (Ô, kamo) 1. duck 2. easily deceived person In English, a “sitting duck” is an easy target for attacks, criticism, or unscrupulous dealings. In Japanese, it seems that any duck is at risk for deception!

大根 (daikon) = big + root 1. type of radish 2. a woman's fat legs Oh, dear. This makes many of us sitting ducks! (And if we weren't sitting, perhaps we'd have thinner thighs!) 毛唐人 (ketôjin) = hair + China + person 1. hairy barbarian 2. foreigner, abbreviated as ketô The middle kanji refers to Tang-dynasty China. The perception of the Chinese as hairy seems more than a little distorted! But most likely the Japanese ﬁrst used 唐人 to mean “Chinese people” and then “foreigner.” After meeting Westerners (such as the Portuguese), the Japanese probably tacked 毛 onto the front of the word, creating the greatest of insults: “hairy foreigner.” 蛸入道 (takonyûdô) = octopus + to enter + way 1. octopus 2. bald man A similar term, 大入道 (tônyûdô), means “large baldshaven monster.”

In the bathroom of a business hotel in Kobe, the thoughtful hosts have spared nothing when it comes to anticipating guests’ needs and questions about how to use the facilities. The kanji break down as follows: LEFT SIDE

• 男子 (danshi: male) • 小用 (shōyō: urination) • 便座をあげて陶器面を出して使用して下さい。 Benza o agete tōkimen o dashite shiyō shite kudasai. Please use by lifting the seat and exposing the rim of the toilet bowl. RIGHT SIDE

大便 (daiben: feces) 及び (oyobi: and) 女子 (joshi: female) 小用 (shōyō: urination) (that is, Defecation and Female Urination) • 陶器面に便座をのせて後向きになり、腰かけて使用して下さい。 Tōkimen ni benza o nosete ushiro muki ni nari, koshikakete shiyō shite kudasai. Put the seat down on the rim of the toilet bowl and turn around, then sit to use. • • • •

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Hyperbolic Humility Driving along one day, I mused about how extreme the Japanese can be with hyperbole. To me, the best example is 一生懸命, isshôkenmei, which means “to do one’s best” but literally says “to do it as if your life depended on it.” Another hyperbolic word is 首切り, kubikiri, “dismissal from a job,” or literally “decapitation”! Then I switched on the radio and heard lyrics in one song after another as if for the ﬁrst time: “I would die for you. I would bleed myself dry for you. I can’t go on living without you.” Perhaps native English speakers are extreme, too—but apparently love brings out the hyperbole in us, not work. Americans also tend to exaggerate when giving compliments. So says Sanae Tsuda of Tokaigakuen Women’s College in her 1992 paper, “Contrasting Attitudes in Compliments: Humility in Japanese and Hyperbole in English.” Compliments such as “You make the best soup in the world, Lisa!” strike Tsuda as borderline “tall tales.” She argues that English speakers enlarge facts hyperbolically to create a “friendly feeling.” By contrast, the Japanese make others feel good by diminishing themselves and those closely associated with them. In Japan, Tsuda received such compliments as “Your daughter is really good at school. Compared to her, my daughter is no good at all.” Tsuda points out that the allegedly no-good daughter had far better grades than Tsuda’s kid did. The Japanese don’t accept such compliments but swiftly respond with claims of inferiority. One shouldn’t take this self-deprecation at face value, Tsuda asserts, any more than one would look to Lisa for the world’s best soup. Japanese humility serves an important function, says Tsuda—it reinforces the hierarchical social structure. This sense that hierarchies hold a society together comes straight out of Confucianism, the ideals of a Chinese thinker who lived in the ﬁfth century BCE. According to Confucian values, if people know their place, acting with loyalty to family, employers, and the state, then society can function harmoniously. These values bring to mind the samurai belief system, as a samurai was required to die for his lord at a moment’s notice. It may seem strange to spot Confu-

cian influences on the samurai belief system, given that Zen Buddhist thinking shaped the samurai world. But Japanese religion is one big salad, as someone put it, tossing together Shinto, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Many Japanese cheerfully blur the distinctions. Intrigued by notions of Japanese hyperbole and humility, I looked at Japanese proverbs (kotowaza, 諺) on a website created by Kanji Haitani (who has a fortuitous given name!). His site, http://home.earthlink.net/~4jword/index3.htm, offers 3,400 proverbs! I figured that timeworn sayings represent the collective beliefs of a culture, especially since the Japanese tend to cite proverbs frequently and enthusiastically. In fact, the sayings listed below reflect several influences. Many compounds originated in classical Chinese literature. Others derive from Buddhist scriptures. And some were made in Japan. Most of the proverbs contain four characters, a requirement for so-called yojijukugo, 四字熟語 (fourcharacter compounds). Old Chinese poems told stories in four lines or four stanzas. The first served as an introduction, the second developed the premise, the third produced a climax or an unexpected change, and the fourth brought the story to a conclusion. The four characters in yojijukugo now represent those tales in a pithy way. These compounds are considered idiomatic because the whole says something different from the sum of its parts. (I would say the whole is “greater” than the sum, but that doesn't sound appropriate when speaking of Japanese humility.) Therefore, a breakdown of the compound may not capture the meaning of any given saying. It's more satisfying to focus on the hyperbolic humility within, as well as the staggering number of ways in which the Japanese (and in some cases the Chinese) have admonished themselves to be humble, loyal, disciplined workers.

Hard Work and Achievement 切磋琢磨 (sessa takuma: having a rival is a great motivator) = to cut + to polish + to polish + to polish 臥薪嘗胆 (gashin shôtan: going through unspeakable Hyperbolic Humility

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hardships and privations to attain one’s objective) = to lie prostrate + ﬁrewood + to burn up + courage 捨万求一 (shaban kyûitsu: pursuing one overriding objective while forsaking all the others, or literally, “to forsake ten thousand and seek one”) = to discard + ten thousand + to pursue + one 刻苦精進 (kokku shôjin: to be arduous, work diligently enduring hardships, make a strenuous effort) = to carve + hardship + meticulous + to advance 刻苦精励 (kokku seirei: to be arduous, work diligently enduring hardships, make a strenuous effort) = to carve + hardship + meticulous + to be diligent 刻苦勉励 (kokku benrei: to be arduous, work diligently enduring hardships, make a strenuous effort) = to carve + hardship + efforts + to be diligent 勤倹力行 (kinken rikkô: to work hard and practice frugality) = diligence + frugal + efforts + journey

横行闊歩 (ôkô kappo: swaggering walk, stalking about with a haughty air, roaming at will, walking around as if one owned the place) = sideways + to go + wide + to walk 大風呂敷 (ôburoshiki: big talk, vain boasting, blowing one’s own trumpet, though this literally means “large furoshiki,” which is a cloth used for wrapping things) = big + wind + backbone + to spread (although this is ateji, so the breakdown means little) 紙屑同然 (kamikuzu dôzen: arrogantly seeing others as no better than a scrap of paper) = paper + trash + same + sort of thing 驕兵必敗 (kyôhei hippai: defeat is inevitable for an arrogant army) = pride + army + inevitable + defeat 傲岸不遜 (gôgan fuson: arrogant and presumptuous, intolerable insolence) = to be proud + beach + not + modest

Discipline and Abstinence

傲岸無礼 (gôgan burei: arrogant and rude) = to be proud + beach + not + propriety

鯨飲馬食 (geiin bashoku: drinking like a ﬁsh and eating like a horse, drinking oceans of liquor and eating mountains of food) = whale + to drink + horse + to eat

傲慢不遜 (gôman fuson: haughty, arrogant, overbearing, intolerable insolence) = to be proud + ridicule + not + modest

禁欲生活 (kin’yoku seikatsu: an ascetic existence, abstinence) = prohibition + desire + life + living 克己精進 (kokki shôjin: self-control and close application, self-denial and diligent devotion) = to overcome + self + excellence + to advance 克己復礼 (kokki fukurei: exercising self-restraint and conforming to the rules of etiquette and formality) = to overcome + self + to restore + propriety 自己抑制 (jiko yokusei: self-restraint, self-control, selfrepression, abstinence, self-inhibition) = self + self + to repress + rule

Arrogance 自画自賛 (jigajisan: singing one's own praises, blowing one's own horn, self-admiration, though this literally means “a painting with an inscription or poem written by the artist”) = self + painting + self + praise, inscription 128 •

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傲慢無礼 (gôman burei: arrogant and insolent, haughty and contemptuous) = to be proud + ridicule + not + propriety 自己顕示 (jiko kenji: making oneself conspicuous, an ego trip, exhibitionism) = self + self + to appear + display 自己肥大 (jiko hidai: self-aggrandizement, selfgloriﬁcation, something becoming large by feeding upon itself) = self + self + to get fat + big 自己満悦 (jiko man’etsu: self-congratulation) = self + self + pride + ecstasy 自己満足 (jiko manzoku: self-satisfaction, complacency) = self + self + pride + sufﬁcient

Loyalty and Obedience 赤烏帽子 (aka eboshi: a piece of headgear, ordinarily black but red in this case, worn by Japanese men before and during the Edo period; metaphorically, aka

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eboshi means that family members should fall in line with the head of the family, despite odd behavior on his part, such as wearing a red eboshi) = red + crow, raven + hat + object 一死報国 (isshi hôkoku: dying for one’s country) = one + to die + to reward + country 自決 (jiketsu: self-determination, resignation [from a post], suicide) = self + to decide 御役御免 (oyaku gomen: dismissal, firing, retirement, being relieved of one’s post) = honorable + office + honorable + dismissal 殉死 (junshi: to kill oneself upon the death of one's lord, a term now used when someone devoted to a job dies in the line of duty [e.g., firefighters]) = martyrdom + death 御目見得 (omemie: the privilege of having an audience [with one’s lord, a dignitary, a superior, etc.], a term that also refers to one’s debut appearance or the debut of a product, a work of art, etc.) = honorable + eye + to be seen + to get

Honor and Name 顔負け (kaomake: to be put to shame, be outdone, or literally, “to lose face”) = face + to lose 顔汚し (kaoyogoshi: disgrace, discredit) = face + to dishonor

汚名 (omei: blot on one's name, stigma, dishonor) = to dishonor + name 汚名返上 (omei henjô: to clear one’s name, redeem oneself, save one’s reputation) = to dishonor + name + to return + up 玉砕主義 (gyokusai shugi: the principle of honorable death and no surrender) = gem + to be crushed + main thing + honor. The “gem” here is a metaphor for one’s life. So the idiom says, “Even if they crush the life out of me, I’d rather die than surrender.”

Life-and-Death Situations 活殺自在 (kassatsu jizai: having absolute power over a person; power of life or death) = life + to kill + self + to exist 起死回生 (kishi kaisei: revival of the dead, recovering from a hopeless situation, pulling something back from the brink of defeat) = to wake up + death + times + life 九死一生 (kyûshi isshô: narrow escape from the jaws of death) = nine + deaths + one + life 再起不能 (saiki funô: to have no hope of recovery) = second time + to wake up + no + capacity 死活問題 (shikatsu mondai: matter of life or death, vital question) = death + living + question + topic

On this Tokyo tombstone, the two characters on the left, 施主 (seshu), mean “the one who built the tomb.” The other two columns are the posthumous names of the two people, probably a couple, who are “sleeping” there for eternity. When Japanese people die, they acquire names diﬀerent from the ones they had while living. People like to represent these names with older forms of kanji.

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Shades of Meaning When you translate words from one language into another, there’s rarely a 1:1 fit. If too many words from the first language meet too few from the other, the first language appears to split hairs, and the second seems woefully inarticulate. When you ask a Spanish speaker for a lemon in either English or Spanish, you might receive a lime, as these concepts are interchangeable in Spanish. If you feel there are times when a lime simply won’t do, this can be frustrating. But having too many choices is also problematic. In Japanese, I can barely utter two words without hearing something like, “No, no, no. We don’t pour mizu over tea leaves. Mizu means ‘cold water.’ Oyu is the water used in tea and in baths.” This kind of differentiation is endemic in Japanese, partly because of cultural priorities. As the Japanese value rice, they distinguish between many rice terms. They plant momi (籾: unhulled rice) in a seed bed, where it becomes sanae, a young plant (早苗) and then nae (苗) when it's ever so slightly older. By the time it becomes ine (稲: a rice plant), it's ready to be replanted in a muddy field, where it turns into inaho (稲穂: ear of rice). You buy it as kome (米: uncooked rice), and when you serve it, you call it meshi (飯, also read as han, as in gohan), which refers literally to cooked rice but figuratively to the whole meal. The Japanese similarly differentiate terms relating to sea creatures. There are separate words for “herring roe” (kazunoko) and “salmon roe” (sujiko or ikura). One type of fish, the gray mullet, acquires new names as it progresses through the life cycle: oboko, then subashiri, then ina, then bora, and finally todo. These subtleties disappear in translation. Our word “sincerity” lacks the distinctions that one can make with three Japanese words: 真 (SHIN, makoto) 信 (SHIN, makoto) 実 (JITSU, makoto)

truth and sincerity in the most general sense honesty learned over a lifetime as one chooses not to lie natural honesty, reﬂecting Confucian beliefs that people are innately good

I’m impressed that the Japanese can express such

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shades of meaning. And I empathize with any aggravation they must feel when trying to make “sincerity” meet their needs. But obviously the problem doesn’t occur only when Japanese people speak English. They struggle to make these distinctions in their own spoken language, too. All three words are pronounced makoto, and two even share the on-yomi of SHIN. Ironically, this problem developed because Japanese is even less differentiated than Chinese in some ways! When the Japanese brought kanji into their language, it was as if male parts on a Chinese plug met with too few female Japanese receptors. For all the ways in which the Chinese differentiated concepts of honesty and sincerity, the Japanese could offer just one sound, makoto. However, they let the shades of meaning show through in the written language. In such cases, the kanji says more than spoken words. This creates confusion, as when a teacher instructs children to work in a sôzôryoku way on an essay. Confusion ensues. Did she mean 想像力, “imaginative” in the sense of something unrealistic? Or did she mean just the opposite—創造力, “creative” in the sense of something achievable? To clarify her intent, she may write the word on the board in kanji. But writing presents further difﬁculties with words such as moto (base), which, as we’ve seen, has ﬁve possible kanji. In three of the cases, the meanings are quite close. Native speakers don’t always know which kanji to use, so they disguise their confusion by using hiragana. They may not even realize that various kanji exist for a single spoken word, as with these extremely individuated compounds: obasan ojisan

伯母 (aunt older than one’s parent) 叔母 (aunt younger than one’s parent) 伯父 (uncle older than one’s parent) 叔父 (uncle younger than one’s parent)

Again, most Japanese use hiragana for these words. On the next page, I present a smattering of words that sound alike and mean almost exactly the same thing but have different kanji. Mostly I don’t explain the differences, as that’s beyond the scope of this exhibit. I simply want to give you a heads-up about this potential challenge.

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SAME SOUNDS, SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT MEANINGS

Noun

Meaning

Possible Kanji

guai haji•me kata kawa machi michi nakami sore

conditions beginning type, model, shape skin, leather town way, road contents that one

具始形皮町路中其

Verb

Meaning

Possible Kanji

arawa•su a•u haka•ru ita•mu kakawaru kawa•ru ki•ku kota•eru mawa•su mi•ru na•ku ne•ru nobo•ru o•kuru omo•u sato•ru to•maru to•ru tsuto•meru u•keru

to express to meet to measure to ache to be connected with to change, exchange to be effective to answer to turn around to see to cry to reﬁne to rise, climb to send to think to realize to stop, stay to take to work to receive

表会測痛関わる変効答回見鳴練上送思悟止取勤受

Adjective

Meaning

Possible Kanji

atata•kai atsu•i kata•i kuwa•shii maru•i yawa•rakai

warm hot hard, inﬂexible detailed, full round soft

暖固委円

合初型革街道身夫現遭量傷係る代利応廻視泣錬昇贈想覚泊撮努請温暑堅詳丸柔

工

合

途中

迪味

廸

著計

図

替

換

観登

留捕

盗

熱硬精軟

Shades of Meaning

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Before entering a shrine, visitors should wash their hands and even their mouths according to a set procedure. Using few kanji, several furigana, and spaces between words, this sign at a Tokyo shrine makes the instructions for ritual cleansing very clear for Japanese children: • 手水のつかいかた Temizu no tsukaikata How to do a ritual cleansing • まず左手を洗います。 Mazu hidarite o araimasu. First, wash your left hand. • つぎに右手を洗います。 Tsugini, migite o araimasu. Next, wash your right hand. • おわりに左手に水をうけて口をそそぎます。 Owarini hidarite ni mizu o ukete kuchi o sosogimasu. Last, take water in your left hand and rinse your mouth.

Japanese Feelings about kanji

5 一

Here’s a quick quiz. Match the following fonts with the places you’d be most likely to see them in Japan: 1. Road sign __

2. Shop sign __

3. Sumo poster __

4. Chinese restaurant sign __

5. Newspaper text __

The Answer Key has the solution. In all cases, the kanji says shodō (calligraphy), but most of these characters are a far cry from the traditional brushstrokes expected in a shodō class. Typefaces, which can dramatically change the look of kanji, serve a variety of functions in Japan and tend to appear in specific places. For more information about typefaces and their purposes, see Exhibit 57, “Just the Facts: Typefaces.” For Japanese people, fonts can evoke particular associations and feelings. In A Lateral View, Donald Richie says that when signs display gyōsho (the semicursive style in which most Japanese write) or sōsho (a loosely flowing cursive that’s hard even for natives to read), they bring to mind “the old capital, Kyoto, and its softer, mellower moods. A shop sign in gyosho indicates a degree of refinement, a kind of delicacy that could be • 133

directions, including upward, as neon pulses from the feminine. Sosho . . . can also indicate self-conscious uppermost stories of tall buildings. A typical Tokyo elegance—perhaps something with an artistic flavor” (p. 90). resident browses the morning paper, passes billboards and storefront signs, hurries past the copious signage Of course, our fonts also create certain feelings. We have multiple typefaces for that reason. This makes a in subway tunnels, spaces out in front of the ubiquibold, contemporary statement, and this reminds you tous ads plastered inside trains, and reads documents of a newspaper, whereas that sets a businesslike tone, at work, all without once noticing the shapes of kanji and that feels warm and cheerful, as a friend’s hand- or observing any strong responses to them. And yet, at writing does. some level, reactions clearly occur. That’s the strange But there’s a double effect for the Japanese. While thing about nuances and associations; they happen una font tugs on them in a certain way, each character consciously. So we have a paradox; Japanese people can also elicits strong responses. The Japanese may feel ex- be at once utterly unaware of kanji and yet keenly recited to see the kanji 酒 (sake: alcohol) with its implied sponsive to the fonts and strokes of characters. This paradox plays nicely into the hands of adverconviviality but sobered by 院 (IN: institution) with its links to hospitals and graduate schools. tisers, who exploit the way people take in information This isn’t impossible for Westerners to relate to; we subliminally. To stimulate desires for products, savvy cringe at hearing words we despise—so much so that marketers toy with images. And what is a kanji charon the TV show Inside the Actors Studio, host James acter but another image to manipulate in a fashionLipton asks actor-guests for their least favorite words. conscious society awash in carefully crafted images? “Smegma” was one memorable answer—a word that This needn’t be a sinister, paracertainly assaults the ears. But if we see “smegma” in noid idea. Advertising efforts might written form, I think it loses some punch. The alpha- simply involve signs with typefaces that make people want to enter a bet is ordinary to us, with the same simple shapes used again and again. In and of themselves, the circles and store. Yosemoji (寄席文字: to gather lines don’t prompt visceral reactions. people + characters), a typeface with thick strokes, actually means By contrast, the shapes of kanji can cause written Japanese to prompt viscer“letters to draw in customers.” ne ow o h s i al responses. An economics profesEntrepreneurs also capture people’s attention by This “rose,” s e t i using kanji in unorthodox ways. A difficult character sor from Japan (a longtime resident wr ra: as ba read wonder of the United States) told me that might appear in a store’s sign just to make people stop .I 薔薇 ima drew h kanji stir up a lifetime of associations and puzzle it out. Or kanji may have been altered, if Mis hing else, y t nl e i a m t r o and subtle feelings, whereas kana do as in this ad for a course to help people pass exams: e s g se I c ecau e anythin b nothing for him. Rōmaji do even less 験. This would ordinarily say 受験 (juken: takse ese don’t ed” in th d n and are harder to read than English. ing an exam), combining 受 (JU, uke•ru: to take “rou ters. c a r a In Robert Trumbull’s 1965 New York [an exam]) and 験 (KEN: test). But someone clevch Times article, “How to Write in Japaerly removed the 又 (mata: again) from the 受, nese,” famed novelist Yukio Mishima implying that after taking the preparatory course, you made similar comments: “‘Romaji is awful,’ Mr. Mishi- won’t have to take exams “again.” (Matt Treyvaud was ma said flatly. ‘The visual effect of a Chinese character smart enough to notice and explain this pun, as well as is very important.’ He slashed out the rounded, multithe next one, in his blog No-sword at http://no-sword. stemmed character for ‘rose,’ and looked at it admir- jp/blog.) ingly. ‘See how the rose appears physically in the shape Another poster for the same course presents a madeof the Kanji,’ he said. ‘A writer loves to give such an up character, 身力, combining 身 (mi: body, person) and effect to his readers.’” 力 (chikara: power, ability). A sentence on the poster In Japan, where one encounters thousands of kanji explains the pun: 力が身につく, Chikara ga mi ni tsuku, each day, it’s hard to imagine that people take in many which means, “Power will stick to you.” This common characters in a highly conscious way. When walk- Japanese expression has to do with mastering skills or ing through the forest, one can’t observe every tree or learning things comprehensively. The people who creleaf. The same is true of kanji, particularly in Tokyo, ated the poster mimicked this concept by showing how a sign-saturated environment with visual stimuli in all the 力 sticks to the 身 component in 身力. 134 •

Japanese Feelings About Kanji

The prevalence of Japanese homonyms creates further opportunities for attention-getting plays on words, including using the wrong kanji on purpose. For instance, one contest challenges participants to think of the most creative ad possible, and the contest logo contains the made-up compound 考告, rather than 広告, “advertisement.” The reading of both compounds is kōkoku, making readers’ minds flit to advertising. But with the use of 考 (kanga•eru: to think), the first compound implicitly encourages people to think creatively. If these instances appeal to the intellect, other displays of kanji simply please the eye, such as hanamoji (花文字), flowers planted in the shape of kanji. At times, people also use characters with a celebratory spirit, giving them starring roles in bonfires and in fireworks shows. To learn about this, see Exhibit 58, “Just the Facts: Kanji Ablaze.” And for more fun with kanji, try your hand at a kanji version of sūdoku in Exhibit 59, “Game: Weekday Sūdoku.”

Longtime Associations with Beauty and Art

Kanji have long been important visual stimuli in Japan. For centuries, calligraphy and Japanese paintings have gone hand in hand. When poetry wraps around painted images, it provides a visual and verbal counterpoint. This occurred to striking effect when renowned calligrapher Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) teamed up with famed painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. 1643?) on a series of scrolls. First Sōtatsu would paint an image (of, say, lotus blossoms). Kōetsu would then fill the empty spaces with famous waka (和歌) poems (thirty-one syllables in five lines) from the Heian (794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) periods. Writing of this fruitful collaboration in How to Look at Japanese Art, Stephen Addiss observes, “Chinese poets had often added poems over paintings, but the two were not visually intertwined. The full artistic connections of calligraphy and painting were particularly enjoyed and developed by the Japanese, and these scrolls are among the masterworks of the genre” (p. 85). Japanese calligraphy isn’t merely pretty handwriting but rather is an art form unto itself. In the dramatic, free-form works of Shiryū Morita, a leading avant-garde calligrapher in the twentieth century, kanji ceased to be recognizable after he transformed them “almost to the point of abstraction” (p. 91), as Addiss puts it. In “Dragon Knows Dragon,” Morita made the character for “dragon” (龍, ryū) resemble that mythical

creature (or so says Addiss, who also believes that this kanji retains its pictographic shape, though I can’t see that at all). Japanese calligraphy can also have a spiritual component. Some people ritually copy Buddhist sutras to clear their minds. For more on this, see Exhibit 60, “Just the Facts: Kanji Meditation.” In both religious and secular realms, many Japanese believe that, as Addiss writes, “Any kind of brushwork reveals the personality of the artist, and that calligraphy in particular shows each person’s individual character clearly. . . . People can hold back or disguise their nature in person, but not in their calligraphy” (p. 83). Exhibit 61, “Thematic Explorations: Calligraphy and Clarity of Mind,” explores this idea from the perspective of H. E. Davey, an expert on shodō (the way of the brush). He maintains that learning the “way” of the brush instills a certain mind-set, thereby giving you a leg up with other Japanese “ways,” such as aikidō, kendō, and kadō. To see the kanji for these and other cultural arts, check out Exhibit 62, “Thematic Explorations: The Way of Culture and the Arts.” And to learn about the role of kanji in another art form, see Exhibit 63, “Just the Facts: Kanji Sound Eﬀects in Manga.”

The Younger Generation and Kanji

As kanji has ties to Old Japan and its traditions, one might conclude that trendsetting young people in Japan would want little to do with it. There’s a lot of truth in this notion. Many young people ﬁnd kanji to be torture. (For a light look at kanji and torture, see Exhibit 64, “Spectacular Shapes: Kanji Sandwiches.” And for a reminder of how much fun kanji can be, try your hand at Exhibit 65, “Game: Kanji Word Find.”) For Japanese children, mastering kanji can feel like climbing Mount Fuji day after day, year after year. Because of the complexity of kanji, students undergo constant, repetitive drills. Perhaps because there’s so much material to cover, schools insist on a strict adherence to rules, often at the expense of creative, original thought. Two exhibits look at rules taught in schools. Exhibit 66, “Just the Facts: Genkōyōshi,” discusses the gridlike paper on which students must write essays. And Exhibit 67, “Just the Facts: Don’t Use These Kanji!” presents characters that students should know not to write. Partly because kanji study takes so much time, daytime schooling isn’t enough for Japanese youngsters. Roughly half the students from grades 1 through 12 The Younger Generation and Kanji

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attend nighttime cram schools (juku, 塾), where they have a whole new curriculum and a separate set of friends. At juku, students prepare for entrance exams that will allow them to attend almost all high schools and universities. High suicide rates for Japanese students are legendary, in large part because of enormous performance pressure in a society that leaves little room for failure. Despite all this hard work, the inherent diﬃculty of kanji means that students continue to make writing mistakes and will only ever master a fraction of the characters that exist. Many Japanese associate kanji with chronic frustration and resent it as a nuisance. Most of my younger Japanese-language teachers (native speakers in their twenties and thirties) have seemed afraid of kanji, an unpredictable behemoth that could expose gaps in their knowledge. Drawing blanks about the shapes of certain characters, they often laughed with embarrassment while consulting dictionaries. One instructor always implored us not to rat on her to the director of the school, and she wasn’t entirely joking. Despite the blitz of kanji instruction in schools, young people have a shaky knowledge of the characters, and the problem is only increasing. One reason is that young Japanese people are reading fewer books than ever, reaching far more eagerly for manga. Younger Japanese people also use computers extensively, which involves lots of reading, as well as writing, in the case of email. But sending email means typing Japanese, rather than writing it by hand. Many people see typing as the major reason that youngsters have such a weak grasp of characters. For more on old and new ways of typing kanji, see Exhibit 68, “Just the Facts: Typing Kanji.” Furthermore, according to a 2005 Japan Times column by kanji specialist Mary Sisk Noguchi, “Some observers trace the decline of the Japanese language to recent government education reforms. In 2002, the Japanese government revamped the school system. Its pet name for the project? ‘Relaxed education.’ Ever since, many parents have been shocked to note that their kids have trouble writing kanji at grade level. A number of these same moms and dads, increasingly reliant on Japanese word processing software, admit they are hardpressed to handwrite the same kanji they expect their children to master.” Noguchi notes a ﬂood of new TV programs on major networks, all the shows aiming to remediate native speakers’ use of the language, both spoken and written. She says that in one episode of Quiz! Nihongo-O!, only seventeen of thirty contestants could write the kanji for 136 •

Japanese Feelings About Kanji

“nose” (鼻, hana), which third graders learn. Moreover, only four of the thirty could write 相撲 (sumō), the characters for the national sport. Another 2005 article, a Japan Today piece about writing Japanese captions for foreign ﬁlms, mentioned that these captions now include more easy-to-read kanji, as well as copious katakana, because the younger set has such weak reading skills. This crisis even prompted the Lower House of the Diet to pass a bill in July 2005 to shore up gengoryoku (言語力: language ability). The new law enabled local governments all over Japan to spend more money on improving school instruction and upgrading libraries.

Kanji Now and Forever

Some Western scholars of Asian languages argue vehemently for script reform, by which they mean ditching kanji altogether in favor of romanization, thus relieving native speakers of a heavy burden. In The Fifth Generation Fallacy, linguist J. Marshall Unger makes a provocative point to this effect. He quotes the well-known philosopher and educator Inazō Nitobe as saying that because blind Japanese children read Braille via kana, rather than kanji, they gain a broad knowledge of all subjects, such as history, geography, literature. By contrast, sighted students spend equivalent amounts of time simply slaving over kanji acquisition. Arguing that “some of Japan’s best minds” agreed with him on the need for script reform before World War II but have now mostly lost interest in the topic, Unger lists people’s usual justifications for retaining kanji: “The language contains too many homonyms to be written phonetically. The native vocabulary, after centuries of erosion by Chinese, is too impoverished to meet the needs of a modern society. Japanese ways of thinking depend on schooling in kanji.” He cites further timeworn defenses of kanji, including, “the ways in which they save space on paper,” their “semantic transparency,” and the “wholesome effects of practicing calligraphy.” Unger responds with a forceful blast: “All such statements . . . are simply false. Why do the Japanese keep repeating them?” He then answers his own question—it’s merely to “sanctify the status quo.” That is, retaining kanji fortifies a sense of group identity by excluding most foreigners. William C. Hannas, a Georgetown University professor of Chinese and Korean who is also an expert in Japanese and Vietnamese, expresses similar thoughts. In his 1997 book Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, he pro-

claims, “Instead of using language to learn, East Asians are wasting their youth and resources learning about language” (p. 125). A forceful indictment indeed! Fortunately, he becomes sunnier when he says, “It is clear that Chinese characters are on their last legs” (p. 299). In fact, Hannas notes, “Change is already happening, and in the long run it makes no difference how much traditionalists whine about it” (p. 298). If these gleeful pronouncements make you think you’ve missed a sea change in the use of kanji, consider another argument of his that points to the opposite conclusion. Hannas observes that in East Asia in general, and Japan in particular, people “tolerate the inefficiency of character-based writing until a foreign threat causes them to take stock . . . ” (p. 46). For instance, when the Meiji era spurred on a Japanese panic to catch up to Westerners, calls for writing reform abounded. But the militarism of the early twentieth century brought a “false confidence,” causing concerns about writing re-

form to disappear. Then, he says, they blossomed again “when Japan lost faith in its institutions through defeat in war” (p. 47). According to this logic, then, kanji will endure in Japan as long as Toyota, Sony, Nintendo, and other companies maintain their hold on Western consumers. Hannas and Unger do make some good points, but these are complicated issues involving highly charged matters of literacy (and how you measure it) and the comparative educational systems of various countries, among other things. These matters fall way outside the scope of the discussion here. Thank goodness for that. I’m happy to steer far away from proposals that exude such cold rationality. They plunge a knife into the heart of all those who love kanji. Script reform may be sensible, but it’s blind and deaf to kanji sensibilities, the deep, soulful associations that enable a mere font or the strokes in a kanji rose to set people aquiver.

Baseball also sets people aquiver in Japan. This Tokyo Dome scoreboard shows the names of the players (listed in one column as Tigers and in another as Giants). To the right of the time, in the middle of the scoreboard, there are three compounds containing 打 (u•tsu: to hit): • 打率, daritsu: batting average, which is .249 • 本塁打, honruida: number of homeruns, which is 9 • 打点, daten: runs batted in (RBI), which is 34 All these numbers apply to Andy Sheets (シーツ in the Tigers column of the scoreboard), who is the next to bat. “PL” refers to “home plate,” and “1B, “ “2B, “ and “3B” refer to the bases. The characters to the right of that column are the names of the umpires monitoring each position. An ad on the left is for the newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun (読売新聞). The Sapporo Beer ad across the bottom features the kanji 生 (nama), which means “draft (beer)” in this context.

Kanji Now and Forever

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# 57 just the facts e of th his Much ation in t m m infor t came fro i b / i .org exh .sljfaq l. www hotai.htm s / q a f a

Typefaces

If you ﬁnd it hard to read characters that you actually know, someone has likely presented them in an unfamiliar script or typeface. The three main calligraphic scripts are kaisho (楷書), the semi-cursive gyôsho (行書), and the ultra-cursive sôsho (草書). Look how the character becomes less legible as you read from left to right:

Kaisho

Gyôsho

Sôsho

Sôsho is one case in which messiness and imprecision are ound omp considered beautiful! ColThe c hotai) (s 書体 down as lectively called kaigyôsôshos k a ”+ bre raphy eans tai (楷行草書体), these three g i l l a m “c d ” an le” brush styles were created in “style aphic sty r g i l l e.” “ca China during the Age of the pefac or “ty styles are Three Kingdoms (220 CE–280 e Thes eferred to r x e t CE). Here’s some information of n t the sufﬁ u o h t i w about all three styles, as well as -tai. less common ones. The character 書 (SHO, ka•ku: to write) appears in each style. kaishotai (楷書体) = square-style + calligraphy + style The most traditional square style. Horizontal lines slant up from left to right. People mostly use this style for handwriting. gyôshotai (行書体) = line + calligraphy + style Semicursive style that requires considerable practice to master. Variation: shingyôshotai (新行書体) = new + line + calligraphy + style More modern version of gyôshotai.

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Japanese Feelings About Kanji

sôshotai (草書体) = grass + calligraphy + style Fully cursive style. The quickly drawn lines become nearly vertical. Primarily used for artistic expression and considered the most “abstract” form of the characters, sôsho is hard to read without special training. As we saw in Exhibit 22, “Just the Facts: Kana from Kanji,” this style served as the basis for hiragana. tenshotai (篆書体) = seal-style characters + calligraphy + style Used for making personal seals (hanko, 判子, or inkan, 印鑑) with which the Japanese “sign” documents to make them legally binding. reishotai (隷書体) = servant, clerk + calligraphy + style Square clerical script. This is a simpliﬁed and more practical version of tenshotai.

Printed Styles Whereas the preceding list presented handwritten styles, the next list names typefaces. minchôtai (明朝体) = Ming + dynasty + style Style most commonly used in printed text. Minchô was originally used in woodblock carvings. This is the style used in the main chapter text of this book. goshikkutai (ゴシック体) = Gothic + style Sans-serif typeface. In English, “Gothic typeface” once meant this, too, but no longer. This style appears throughout the exhibits in this book. Variation: marugoshikkutai (丸ゴシック体) = “round” goshikkutai Used in road signs, this features the goshikku typeface with rounded corners.

# 57 just the facts kyôkashotai (教科書体) = textbook + style Often used in textbooks, particularly in elementary school. This variant of the kaisho style resembles handwritten characters. sôchôtai (宋朝体) = Sung + dynasty + style Closely resembling the kaisho style, this was originally used in woodblock carvings. kointai (古印体) = old + seal + style Still used in seals, this style was invented in Japan.

Edomoji Edomoji (江戸文字) refers to various lettering styles invented during the Edo period (1603–1867), mainly for advertising purposes.

Movie Caption Fonts To provide captions for movies, “title writers” use a special style of kanji. Because of space restrictions, the characters must be less than one millimeter tall! These are the various styles of captions: eishotai (映書体) = projection + typeface sukurīnmoji (スクリーン文字) = screen + characters shinemashotai (シネマ書体) = cinema + typeface eigamoji (映画文字) = movie + characters Here is an example of shinemashotai:

シネマ書体

kanteiryû (勘亭流) = kantei + style Typeface associated with arts such as kabuki and rakugo (落語: storytelling). The word kantei derives from the nickname of Yakanroku Okazaki, who invented this typeface. yosemoji (寄席文字) = to gather people + characters Thick letters on posters and ﬂyers intended to draw in customers. Yosemoji derives partly from kanteiryû. kagomoji (篭文字) = cage + characters Font with thick, square characters, often used in outline form. higemoji (髭文字) = whiskers + characters Characters with small “whiskers.” That is, you can see individual bristle strokes, all created in speciﬁed patterns. sumômoji (相撲文字) = sumo + characters Font used for sumo-wrestling posters and programs.

People in Japan usually sign documents with a hanko (判子), a stamp or seal bearing their name kanji. Most seal carvers develop distinctive styles. Here, a man is carving a hanko, and you can see just how small it is! How can anyone be that coordinated?!

Typefaces

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# 58 just the facts Kanji Ablaze Sometimes the copious strokes of kanji are too small and crammed together to distinguish. Well, perhaps it would be easier if the characters were enormous, distant, and ablaze! Every August 16 (Ancestral Remembrance Day) in Kyoto, massive kanji burn on the sides of mountains. This event is known as 大文字五山送り火, Daimonji Gozan Okuribi. The kanji translate as follows: 大文字 (daimonji): 大 (DAI) means “big,” and 文字 (MONJI) means “character.” 五山 (gozan): 五 (go) is “five,” and 山 (yama or SAN but voiced here to become ZAN) means “mountain.” The bonfires burn on five mountainsides. 送り火 (okuribi): 送 (oku•ru) means “to see someone off,” and 火 (KA, hi) means “fire,” voiced here to become bi. These bonfires are built to see someone off, the “someone” being ancestral spirits. This Buddhist tradition from the seventh century occurs at the end of Obon (お盆), an annual summer festival in which the Japanese honor ancestral spirits. It is believed that these spirits return to their family homes on Earth during the festival. On the final night, the spirits head back to heaven, assisted by people who light the way for them with bonfires. Two bonfires take the shape of 大 (DAI: big). A third bonfire says 妙法 (myôhô) or “Marvelous Law of Buddha.” A fourth depicts a ship. And the fifth is a torii (鳥居), the gate to a Shinto shrine. The bonfires last about a half hour, though they’re massive. The larger 大 is about as wide as a football field, connecting seventy-five piles of pine kindling. According to a blog on http://japundit.com, it makes sense culturally to put enormous amounts of work into building something that will flame out in thirty minutes: “This is another example of the Japanese appreciation for fleeting beauty—the peak time for cherry blossom viewing in the spring is also very short, for example. They consider this combination of beauty and brevity to be a metaphor for human life itself.” The theme of temporality also underlies the July fireworks show that has been held over Tokyo’s Sumida River for hundreds of years. Some fireworks take 140 •

Japanese Feelings About Kanji

the shape of kanji. In 1997, Architronic: The Electronic Journal of Architecture ran an essay by Jilly Traganou, who argued that life in Edo (江戸, the name of Tokyo from 1603 to 1867) centered around ephemeral pleasures, including “praying-paying-and-playing.” Traganou writes, “The urban activities of Edo are strongly associated with temporal events (festivals, fireworks, etc.) and natural phenomena (views of cherry blossom, full moon, etc.).” Edo architecture reflected this transience, with small, informal, impermanent structures spontaneously arising along the river and in alleys, including tent theaters, teahouses, and whatever buildings one would need in a red-light district. Accidental fires (known as 江戸の花, Edo no hana: literally, flowers of Edo) were common, adding to the impermanence of structures. Hard as it is to believe, Edo residents took pride in their accidental fires, extending that pride to fireworks shows, which “celebrated the temporal pleasures of Edo,” Traganou says. Fireworks came to Japan in the late sixteenth century. Initially, only the ruling class enjoyed these displays, but by the eighteenth century they had become popular throughout Japan. From 1773 through the 1940s, an annual fireworks show occurred at Ryôgokubashi, the largest bridge spanning the Sumida. Known as 川開き (kawabiraki: literally, the opening of the river), this festival and the cooling river breezes attracted so many people that boats almost entirely covered the surface of the river. Clara Whitney was an American who arrived in Japan in 1875 at age fifteen and stayed for twenty-four years, chronicling significant events. In writing of the fireworks show, she described the river as “alive with lanterns of every color and shape, and musical with the notes of the shamisen.” She mentioned fireworks that depicted “Fuji, a lady, umbrellas, dogs, men, some (kanji) characters, and other things, which I could not make out.” Imagine making fireworks in the shape of kanji! And imagine reading them! If it’s tricky to suss them out when they’re tiny but stable on the page, how skillful do you have to be to make them out when they’re shooting through the air, soon to vanish?!

# 59 game! game! game! game! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 0 / Difﬁculty Level: 1

Weekday Sûdoku weekday kanji, not numbers. All the weekday kanji represent important natural elements. Below, each kanji should appear once in every row and once in every column. Use logic to ﬁll in the missing kanji. Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai!

Sûdoku (数独), an addictive number-placement game, has amused the Japanese for twenty years but only recently became popular elsewhere. The kanji for sûdoku breaks down as follows: 数独 (SÛ: number) + (DOKU: alone), or “single number.” The modiﬁed sûdoku presented here contains Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

日月火水木金土 1

4 6

3 5

NICHI

GETSU

SUI

MOKU

KIN

sun

moon

ﬁre

water

tree

gold

earth

土

月木日

木金月土月土金日火土水土火月

水

火金

日

火

Weekday Sūdoku

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# 60 just the facts Kanji Meditation Absurdly easy to forget, dynamic to a fault, and far too similar looking, kanji can drive people over the edge. But the characters are also legendary for their calming properties. In fact, a meditation method known as shakyô (写経: to copy + sutra) involves repeatedly copying Buddhist sutras written in kanji. One proponent of this method, Rev. Kanto Tsukamoto, maintains (in a document at http://www.nichiren-shu.org) that when you focus on copying the Lotus Sutra, banishing any other thoughts from your mind and releasing yourself from all attachments, “Time stops and you can reach a deep, peaceful state of mind.” Other adherents observe that sutra copying has achieved what no amount of meditative sitting, chanting, or walking has done for them. A sutra is a teaching of Buddha. The kanji for “sutra,” 経, combines “thread” and another part derived from thread on a loom. For that reason, I’m determined to see the English word “sutra” as the root of “suture,” even though dictionaries say otherwise! It doesn’t seem to matter which sutra you choose to copy. Some people write the Heart Sutra (Hannya Shingyô, 般若心経). With its teachings on emptiness, this constitutes “the essence of the Buddhist Dharma,” says Nadja Van Ghelue, an artist who sells her Heart Sutra calligraphy on the Internet. She says the sutra contains 276 kanji, depending on which version you select. It takes her thirty to sixty minutes to pass through it once. Each time she does, she gains new insights into the meanings of the words. Moreover, she feels at one with Buddha as his ideas flow through her. Meanwhile, the Nichiren branch of Buddhism focuses on the Lotus Sutra (Odaimoku, お題目). Adherents copy just the seven characters in the title, 南無妙法蓮華経, Namu Myôhô Renge Kyô, and because it’s so short, they can write them again and again in one sitting. The sutra expounds on the merits of copying sutras, its title translating as “Glory to the Sutra” or “Hail, Lotus Sutra” and breaking down as follows: 南無南無

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namu: amen NA: south MU: not, no

Japanese Feelings About Kanji

妙法妙法蓮華経蓮華経

myôhô: excellent methods, Marvelous Law of Buddha MYÔ: mystery, excellent HÔ: law rengekyô: lotus ﬂower sutra REN: lotus KE (GE): variant of 花 (ﬂower) KYÔ: sutra, Buddhist scripture

Tsukamoto says that copying these seven characters is equivalent to copying the entire sutra. He notes, too, that these characters “possess wonderful power to save people.” Copying them allows you to “experience this wonderful power” and affords the “opportunity to be awakened to your Buddha nature.” In fact, the founder of the Nichiren sect posited long ago that this one sutra reveals all of Buddha’s achievements, good deeds, and virtues. Copying sutras is a ritual, so you have to go about it in a certain way each time, first washing your hands and even rinsing your mouth. Some recommend a sitting meditation of seven to ten minutes before the shakyô. You might chant the sutra with your hands pressed together. Then, if you’re not using a pen, you need to grind an ink stick on an inkstone. Far from being just the “daily grind,” this aspect also proves meditative, at least for Van Ghelue, who says, “It calms your thoughts before writing, it warms up your arm and hand and the room fills with the wonderful smell of the resins in the ink stick.” People draw the characters on washi (Japanese paper), rice paper, or onionskin. Afterward, they often dedicate their work to the hope that all sentient beings will achieve Enlightenment through the way of Buddha. There are also prescriptions for what to do with the calligraphy after that point: Store it carefully, burn it, or, if you’re in Japan, present the finished sutra to the temple, where the pieces will be offered before an image of Buddha. Partaking in this ritual may make you feel connected to people who lived as long ago as the first century BCE, when those in central Asia and elsewhere copied sutras onto bark, leaves, and cloth. Back in the days before photocopiers, copying served a practical purpose, allowing people to disseminate sutras.

# 61 thematic explorations Calligraphy and Clarity of Mind If you thought you simply needed neat handwriting to draw attractive kanji, you’re missing a key ingredient. So says H. E. Davey, who has devoted a whole book (and the majority of his life) to contemplating this issue. All ideas and quotations below come from Davey’s Brush Meditation: A Japanese Way to Mind & Body Harmony. The Japanese classical arts and “ways” all require complete harmony between mind and body. In shodô (書道: calligraphy or “the way of the brush”), the mind and body must work in unison to move the brush. Otherwise, the calligraphy becomes rough and unbalanced. A wavering brush reﬂects a wavering mind. But just as shodô can reveal a lack of mind-body unity, regular calligraphy practice can help cultivate that state. Ideally, when drawing kanji calligraphy, you concentrate completely, existing only in the moment, rather than drifting to the past or future. Decisiveness is also essential; “in Japanese calligraphic art, as in living your life, you cannot go back . . .” (p. 45). The shodô expert combines precision and calmness: “Every stroke must be delivered like the slice of a razor-sharp

samurai sword, yet the brush must be handled in a serene manner” (p. 45). If all goes well, your kanji will reﬂect not only calmness but also movement. The characters “must seem as though they are in motion. This is dochu no sei (stillness in motion), which is frequently alluded to in esoteric manuals of Japanese philosophy and religion” (p. 84). You also need to show “motion in stillness,” because shodô is “moving meditation, and as such it acknowledges that we are repeatedly in motion in daily activities” (p. 84). The more you practice shodô, the more you’ll learn the rhythms with which to paint each character, and this will align you with nature’s rhythms. As you can see, the goal of shodô extends far beyond the product on the page or the development of skills. Instead, the process teaches you the “way.” If you practice drawing kanji without attention to the “way,” however, you’re only engaging in shûji, 習字. As the kanji (to learn + character) reveal, this term refers to handwriting practice without the attendant spiritual mind-set.

To practice her calligraphy, a Japanese woman has copied characters from a book of kanji drawn in the popular style known as 楷書 (kaisho). Typically, Japanese calligraphy teachers require students to imitate the teacher’s work exactly. From top to bottom, and right to left, the characters appear to be as follows: 覩 (TO, mi•ru: to see) 在 (ZAI, a•ru: to exist) 智 (CHI: wisdom) 猶 (YŪ, nao: to delay, furthermore) • 迷 (mayo•u: to be perplexed, get lost) • 況 (KYŌ: conditions) • • • •

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# 62 thematic explorations The Way of Culture and the Arts When read as michi, 道 means “road” or “way,” in the mundane sense of asphalt and directions. By contrast, when you read this character as DÔ, it may retain that ordinary sense of “road,” or it may refer to a spiritual path, the “way” of the universe. Japanese culture abounds in 道 compounds that translate as “the way of ﬂowers,” “the way of tea,” “the way of empty hands,” and so forth. The on-yomi DÔ is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Tao, a philosophy that encourages going with the ﬂow of nature. In Japan, the Taoist concept morphed long ago into ideas about performing native arts, crafts, and sports with a certain mind-set. That is, to excel in 道-related pursuits, one must unite

body and mind, focusing both on the task at hand. As H. E. Davey writes in Living the Japanese Arts & Ways: 45 Paths to Meditation & Beauty, “The body reﬂects the mind, and so any art can function as a visible representation of our spiritual condition” (p. 93). Davey says much more about “the way” in his four books on Japanese classical arts, so I recommend those for information about Japanese “ways.” Lacking space here, I won’t attempt detailed deﬁnitions of any of these philosophies or cultural products. Instead, I’ll simply present the kanji for many cultural pursuits and related terms (some with 道, some without), as well as the breakdowns of the kanji.

Religion Taoism Confucianism Shinto Buddhism Zen koan (paradox on which monks meditate)

道教儒道神道仏道禅公案

dôkyô: way + sufﬁx for name of religion judô: “the way of Confucius” shintô: “the way of the gods” butsudô: “the way of Buddha” zen kôan: public + proposition

Samurai, Martial Arts, and Other Sports 侍武道武士道柔道柔術合気道空手道剣道弓道道場相撲

samurai budô: military + way bushidô: military + samurai + way jûdô: “the gentle way” jûjutsu: gentleness + skill aikidô: “the way of the harmony of the spirit” karatedô: “the way of empty hands” kendô: “the way of the sword” kyûdô: “the way of the bow” dôjô: the way + place sumô: each other + to bump

ikebana (ﬂower arranging)

生け花

bonsai (dwarf trees in pots)

盆栽

ikebana: ﬂower arranging, or 花道 (kadô: “the way of ﬂower arranging”) bonsai: basin + planting

samurai military or martial arts samurai code of chivalry judo jujitsu aikido karate kendo (Japanese fencing) kyudo (Japanese archery) dojo (school for martial arts) sumo (Japanese wrestling) Decorative Arts and Crafts

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# 62 thematic explorations calligraphy woodblock prints origami Japanese paper lacquerware Japanese pottery making Japanese pottery raku pottery

書道浮世絵折り紙和紙漆器陶芸焼き物楽焼き

shodô: “the way of writing” ukiyoe: ﬂoating + world + painting origami: to fold + paper washi: Japan + paper shikki: lacquer + container, apparatus tôgei: pottery + art yakimono: to bake + thing rakuyaki: enjoyment, ease + to bake

指圧霊気心身統一

shiatsu: ﬁnger + pressure reiki: spirit, universal + life energy shinshin tôitsu: mind + body + relationship + one, or “mind body uniﬁcation”

Massage and Healing Arts shiatsu (a type of massage) reiki (a healing modality) Japanese yoga

Stylish Objects and Design Terms folding fan paper lantern tatami (straw ﬂoor mat) shoji (paper sliding door) tansu (chest of drawers) wabi-sabi

扇提灯畳障子箪笥詫び寂び

mono no aware

物の哀れ

shibumi (n.) shibui (adj.)

渋み渋い

ôgi chôchin: to carry in hand + lamp tatami shôji: to hinder + thing tansu: bamboo rice basket + clothes chest wabi-sabi: simplicity + rusticity, combining to mean “humble simplicity” or “rustic beauty” mono no aware: “sensitivity to things,” especially to the sad beauty of impermanence shibumi: restrained elegance shibui: elegant

能文楽歌舞伎俳句

nô bunraku: ﬁgures + music, enjoyment kabuki: song + dance + skill haiku: haiku + haiku

太鼓三味線

taiko: big + drum shamisen: three + ﬂavor + line

尺八

shakuhachi: Japanese foot + eight, or the length of the ﬂute in old Japanese measurements koto: harp

Theater and Literature Noh (old-style theater) Bunraku (puppet theater) Kabuki (traditional drama) haiku Music and Instruments taiko (drum) shamisen (three-stringed guitarlike instrument) shakuhachi (ﬂute) koto (stringed instrument that one plucks) karaoke

琴空オケ

karaoke: empty + orchestra (from English); usually written カラオケ

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# 62 thematic explorations Visual Arts manga ﬁlm

漫画映画

manga: cartoon + picture eiga: reﬂection + picture

お茶茶道急須茶碗湯飲み

ocha: any kind of tea chadô or sadô: “the way of tea” kyûsu: to hurry + necessarily chawan: tea + bowl yunomi: hot water + drink

玄米茶抹茶焙じ茶煎茶番茶紅茶

genmaicha: black, mysterious + rice + tea matcha: to grind into powder + tea hôjicha: to roast + tea sencha: to roast, boil + tea bancha: number in a series + tea kôcha: red + tea, because the Japanese see “black” tea as red

Tea tea tea ceremony teapot tea bowl (ceremonial) teacup (regular)

anga and m ins. e m i An ous lose c s not c e r a i nime But a s it has no a here, t’s written .I kanji short for , メニン, アーショメニ .” ア ation “anim

Types of Tea genmaicha matcha hojicha sencha bancha English tea or black tea

If you love Kit Kats, and if you love green tea, how about combining the two?! Green tea Kit Kats contain white chocolate subtly ﬂavored with Uji matcha (宇治抹茶), as we see in the rightmost column. Uji is a city near Kyoto known for high-quality green tea. The second column from the right says 香り豊かな深い味わい (Kaori yutakana fukai ajiwai: Deep taste with abundant fragrance). The arc of gold on the lower left corner says 期間限定 (kikan gentei: restricted period), which is to say, “Available for a limited time only.”

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# 63 just the facts Kanji Sound Effects in Manga Manga (Japanese cartoons) are rich in sound effects. The Japanese have taken the art of onomatopoeia to such lengths that their manga represent the sounds of remorse (acha), a tongue hanging out (biron), and internal or external warmth (hoka hoka). This puts manga light-years ahead of American comics with their rudimentary sounds of Pow! Boom! Zap! Japanese sound effects are usually rendered in katakana. But what happens when you represent them in kanji, as Katsuya Terada has done in his graphic novel The Monkey King? Take Don! (ドン!), the sound of punching someone hard. In katakana, a bold font and a large point size

turn up the perceived volume. But if you replace ドン with 鈍 (also pronounced DON), it could create even more of an impact. Readers skilled at reading both kanji and manga will absorb the yomi DON, disregard the meaning (dull, slow, stupid), and take the twelve, intricate strokes as a sign of something big. And good readers will absorb all this information without consciously noticing the kanji. Whereas the character would send most kanji students scurrying to the dictionary, ﬂuent readers won’t be in the least confused by the irrelevant meaning of this subliminal symbol.

！鈍

This bean-jam-ﬁlled wafer is called a monaka (最中: extreme + middle, which somehow means “the shape of the moon ﬂoating on a pond during the harvest festival”). The monaka in the picture is supposed to resemble a hanko, or personal name stamp. (See page 139 for a picture of a hanko.) The kanji in the left-hand column are 福富, Fukutomi, which must be the name of the manufacturer. The characters in the right-hand column are less clear. They appear to be 菓匠, which could break down as “cake” + “craftsman.” If so, then one could interpret all the kanji as “Fukutomi Cakeworks.” Or one could just enjoy the cookie along with some tea, accepting that it’s probably not all that essential to know what the cookie says!

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# 64 spectacular shapes Kanji Sandwiches It doesn’t happen often, but twin components can sandwich another one. Let’s see if the three kanji below have anything in common. 1. The ﬁrst one, 嬲 (JÔ, nabu•ru) means “to ridicule.” This kaiimoji, which originated in China, depicts two men who are bullying a woman. In the variant (i.e., the older) form, the inverse image appeared, with the two “women” sandwiching the “man.” How seriously should we take this teasing or bullying? The only two 嬲 compounds Spahn provides are 嬲り物 (naburimono: laughingstock) and 嬲り殺し (naburigoroshi: to torture to death). That sounds serious indeed, even gruesome! 2. The second kanji, 辮, has just one yomi, BEN, and means “braid” or “pigtail.” The character contains “thread” surrounded by two components that mean “sharp.” Although 辛 (kara•i) now translates as “bitter,” it originally represented a tattooist’s needle. Back in China, where this kanji came into existence, the initial shape of 辮 contained just two instances of 辛, read as HEN and meaning “to knit.” These components still lend sound and meaning to 辮, making it a keiseimoji. Spahn shows only one compound involving 辮—namely, 辮髪 (benpatsu: pigtail). 3. The third kanji, 斑, is the most frequently used, showing a king on either side of writing (although 文 also means “pattern,” which is more relevant

here). As HAN, 斑 means “spots.” As buchi, madara, hadara, or fu, it means “spots,” “patches,” “streaks,” and “speckled.” By the time you reach the last reading, mura, the meaning has deteriorated to “unevenness,” “blemishes,” and “capriciousness.” Oddly, this kanji originally looked much like 辮, which we just examined. Wherever we now see 王 in 斑, the Chinese initially had 辛, which again lent the sound HEN to this kanji. The sound has now evolved into HAN. The character remains a keiseimoji. Compounds with 斑 tend to be charming descriptions of nature: 斑犬 (madara inu: spotted dog), 斑馬 (madara uma: piebald horse or zebra), 斑猫 (buchi neko: tabby cat), and 斑雪 (madara yuki: snow remaining in spots), as well as two descriptions of phenomena related to human bodies: 雀斑 (sobakasu: freckle) and 母斑 (bohan: birthmark). Perhaps the two kings’ text decrees that certain creatures should receive spots and marks! What do these kanji sandwiches have in common? All are from China. The ﬁrst depicts adult torture (the battle of the sexes), whereas the second situates that torture in classrooms, back when boys dipped girls’ braids in inkwells. And if the kings’ text is about taxing the people, that, too, indicates a type of torture. On the brighter side, all these kanji combine things with neat yin-yang relationships: men with women, needles with thread, and governing ofﬁcials with paperwork.

嬲辮斑

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# 65 game! game! game! game! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 3 / Difﬁculty Level: 3

Kanji Word Find Reading from left to right or from top to bottom (but not diagonally), circle all the viable two-kanji compound words. Each circle will overlap with another, as shown below, where the top pair forms igai, “except,” and the bottom pair says gaishutsu, “going out.” Work through the grid in this way, forming multiple chains of kanji. Each linear chain represents part

of one large kanji. The shape of that big kanji should emerge when you ﬁnd all the words. If the image isn’t clear, lightly shade in boxes containing kanji chains. Now, what kanji do you see? How do you read it? What does it mean? Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai!

短

縮

小

説

明

白

鳥

肉

屋

目

森

間

名

日

町

雪

通

同

以

寝

南

北

光

速

力

山

和

外

前

米

形

年

面

点

由

風

出

痛

国

連

中

分

数

仕

船

発

味

内

涼

古

返

学

月

便

音

女

部

首

都

人

生

六

利

読

酒

流

十

門

決

牛

若

用

書

道

具

眼

科

長

所

得

意

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# 66 just the facts Genkôyôshi In Japanese schools, students write essays on grid paper called genkôyôshi (原稿用紙: original + manuscript + use + paper). This resembles graph paper, but it stops looking that way as soon as the squares (typically four hundred per page) ﬁll with vertical writing. You read the text from top to bottom and right to left. A sample is below, with a detailed view at right.

• • •

•

The dash representing a long vowel in katakana gets its own box. The title goes in the ﬁrst column, three boxes down. Your name goes in the second column, lower than the title. Count backward so there’s room for a blank box at the end of your name. Indent paragraphs by skipping a box at the top of a column.

So far, so good (if a bit ﬁnicky). But there’s one catch. What if you’re six hundred characters into an essay and you spot a mistake at the beginning? You wrote a word in kana with a short vowel, and it should have been a long vowel. Making space for that one character will push the end of the paragraph into the next column. That means you’ll have to erase back to that point (assuming you’ve written in pencil) and rewrite everything that follows! Essentially, you’re The Japanese follow strict guidelines when using genkôyôshi: • •

One character goes in each box. That’s also true for small kana such as っ and ょ. Punctuation marks (periods, commas, quotation marks) all go in individual boxes. But rather than being centered within those boxes, they lie to the right, possibly in a corner. However, you never want to isolate a punctuation mark at the top of a column; either squeeze it into the bottom box or let it hang below that box.

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S C R E W E D !

# 66 just the facts

Here is the text at left in rômaji: Genkôyôshi no Tsukaikata Aoki Midori Genkôyôshi no tsukaikata wa muzukashikunai desu. Demo iroiro kisoku ga arimasu. Korera no kisoku ni shitagawanai to, kazoku wa ikkagetsu no tôgoku ni narimasu. Kurikaesu to, kubi o hanemasuyo. Kisoku wa taisetsu desu kara ne. Here is the translation: How to Use Genkôyôshi By Midori Aoki Genkôyôshi are not difﬁcult to use. But there are some rules. If you don’t follow these rules, your family will be imprisoned for a month. Repeat offenders will have their heads chopped off. Rules are important, right?

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# 67 just the facts Don’t Use These Kanji! After going to all the trouble of learning kanji, the Japanese must learn which ones not to use. Even though the words in the following chart have kanji, the Japanese tend not to write them that way, opting instead for hiragana. It’s unclear why they do this, but I have a few ideas. People use these words so often that perhaps ordinary hiragana seems more ﬁtting. And maybe there’s been resistance to writing such old and quintessentially Japanese expressions with Chinese characters. More-

over, the Japanese tend to say, rather than write, the words in the Gratitude and Greetings columns below, so perhaps that factors into the hiragana usage; kanji is meant, after all, for the written word. Finally, hiragana must come as a relief to someone facing the stroke-intensive 御座居ます, gozaimasu (a polite form of “to be” or “to have”). You can use kanji for the words categorized below as Possible to Write, but it’s best not to use kanji for the expressions under Almost Never Written.

GRATITUDE

GREETINGS

MISCELLANEOUS

Possible to Write

有り難う arigatô Thank you (casual)

お早う ohayô Good morning! (casual)

出来る dekiru to be capable of

今日は konnichiwa Good afternoon! (casual or formal)

居る iru to be, exist

今晩は konbanwa Good evening! (casual or formal)

有る aru to be, have

Almost Never Written

有り難う御座居ます arigatô gozaimasu Thank you very much (polite)

お早う御座居ます ohayô gozaimasu Good morning! (formal)

沢山 takusan many

頂きます itadakimasu expression of gratitude before meals

左様なら, 然様なら sayônara Goodbye

何方 1. donata who 2. dochira where, what place, which

御馳走様でした gochisôsama deshita expression of gratitude after meals

如何 ikaga how 只 tada free, merely

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# 68 just the facts Typing Kanji People often lament that with the increasing use of computers in Japan, the younger generation is forgetting how to read kanji and especially how to write it. I believe that’s only half the story. The other half involves the history of the technology used to type Japanese. Before computers came into widespread use in Japan, people drew kanji all the time, because ordinary folks had no access to typewriters. This inaccessibility must have been quite frustrating, but it did keep people’s kanji in tip-top form. If the Japanese typewriter had ever taken off, people would have forgotten how to write kanji long ago. In the United States, the prototype for the first typewriter appeared in 1867. But Japan didn’t ride the same technological wave for nearly fifty years, as it faced much greater technological challenges, thanks to multiple scripts and nearly 50,000 characters. Kyôta Sugimoto saved the day by isolating the most frequently used kanji and then, in 1915, creating a keyboard featuring these 2,400 characters. The keyboard covered one square meter! Five thousand more characters stayed in a box until a typist needed them. In 1917 the Nippon Typewriter Company began producing typewriters based on Sugimoto’s model. Over the next seventy years, Japanese typewriters had anywhere from 2,400 to 3,000 keys and as many as seven “shift states.” (Hitting the Shift key on an Englishlanguage keyboard allows you to toggle between lowercase and uppercase letters, or between two “states.” Japanese typewriters had seven such states.) These machines barely caught on in Japan, because they were exceedingly difficult to use. They required specially trained typists, who still couldn’t go very fast. In Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, William C. Hannas notes that these machines took 160 to 200 times longer to master than Western typewriters. At most, a person could type ten pages a day, because it took forever to locate each key. This technology gave “hunt and peck” a new meaning! Hannas says that because typing required full concentration, an individual couldn’t possibly write original, creative text on such a machine. Rather than making extensive use of these unwieldy, expensive typewriters, most companies relied

on clerks to handwrite a multitude of documents. If something needed to be typed, the company could send out for that service. Authors wrote books by hand—on genkôyôshi! In a 1965 article, New York Times writer Robert Trumbull noted, “Japanese authors write on large sheets of paper ruled into 400 small squares, each square for one character, which they buy at stationery shops. The writer is paid by the page, and many have been known to stretch out their prose for this reason.” Referring to writer Yukio Mishima, Trumbull said, “Mr. Mishima often uses a Kanji that his publisher’s printer happens not to have in stock, in which case a type foundry has to cast it specially.” In 1978, Japan arrived at a partial solution when Toshiba produced the first Japanese-language word processor. Like the typewriter, though, this new machine was still enormous and expensive, so it didn’t come into common use. In the mid-1980s, smaller models finally appeared and found an enthusiastic market. As one writer has observed, the Japanese jumped from longhand to the word processor, skipping an evolutionary phase. Character recognition has made it easy for a computer to produce upward of 6,700 kanji. Keyboards either display fifty kana keys or twenty-six of the QWERTY variety. With both set-ups, you type a word phonetically. For ageru, you hit three kana keys (a-geru) or five alphabetic ones. The computer then produces a list of kanji and ateji that say ageru: 上げる, 挙げる, 揚げる, and 擧げる, prompting you to choose the one you desire. When you type with a romanized keyboard, the computer goes through two steps to arrive at this point, first converting rômaji into kana. You can therefore skip a step by using a kana keyboard. However, kana keyboards are twice as big, so that slows things in terms of locating what you want. And if you’ve used a QWERTY keyboard for years, you’ll probably never be as quick with a kana layout. To type kanji on your computer, you need to activate the Japanese part of your word-processing software by following its instructions. Those directions will also explain how you can toggle back and forth between Japanese and English. For instance, on a Mac you do this by holding down the Command key (with

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# 68 just the facts a cloverleaf symbol) and tapping the space bar. Once you’ve figured this out, you’re set to go, but it helps to know a few inputting tricks. When a Japanese friend used to send me email in rômaji, her spelling often mystified me. “Hennji wo matte imasu,” she would say. “I’m waiting for your reply.” (This sounds kind of pushy in English, but it goes over fine in Japanese.) Ordinarily one would write this as “Henji o matte imasu.” Now I realize that even though the email was in rômaji, she typed it as though the letters would turn into kanji. To produce ん, you need to hit n twice. Otherwise, the computer thinks you want something like ni or a contraction such as nya. For onna (woman), you need to hit n three times. Whenever I forget this and type o-n-n-a, the computer gives me おんあ. Typing it correctly yields おんな, which is the only way to convert the word to 女. Similarly, you need to type wo for an object o (を) or else the computer will give you お. Other such oddities include the following (the last five of which are small vowels): To get this: Type this: du づぢ di xtu っ xka ヵヶ xke ぁ xa ぃ xi ぅ xu ぇ xe ぉ xo Furthermore, whenever you want は (ha) to represent a subject marker pronounced wa, you need to type ha. It can be difficult to reprogram the brain to do this, especially

This old typewriter gives new meaning to the “hunt” of “hunt and peck.” It also gives new meaning to the word “tedious.”

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Japanese Feelings About Kanji

with words such as konbanwa (Good evening!), which should be typed konbanha. But typing does prove helpful in revealing spelling misconceptions. I often get strange results by typing おお (oo) instead of おう (ou) to lengthen the o in words. To produce katakana, hold down the Shift key. Once, when typing a Japanese person’s name, I instinctively capitalized it, which gave me katakana for the ﬁrst character. Bewildered, I deleted the mistake and repeated it, going through this process perhaps ten times before concluding that the guy’s name had something weird about it that made my computer misbehave! If you ever need to type part of a kanji compound (say, in a discussion about that particular kanji), you may run into a problem. Most likely you will input an on-yomi shared by dozens of other characters. The computer might offer scads of choices before arriving at the one you want. To save time, think of a compound containing the desired kanji. Type the whole compound, then erase the part you don’t need. It’s a weird way to type, but then, in typing Japanese, you’ve entered a whole other realm. And erasing half your work is nothing compared with what Japanese typists endured before word processors came along.

double happiness

6 一

“Where you been? Haven’t seen you for long time!” May said, smiling warmly. It had been ﬁfteen days since my last visit to the dry cleaners. Is that such a long time? Maybe not for most people, but May seems to enjoy seeing me. I feel the same way about her, though our communication is hit-or-miss. “I’ve been busy working on my kanji book,” I said. “Oh, I love to read! Love it!” she said. “But now with three kids, no time!” She said she used to read romance novels, then laughed hard at the follies of her youth . . . or the unbridled passion she used to feel . . . or . . . Actually, I rarely know why she’s laughing. “Now I like to read . . . ” She stopped, unable to produce the right word. She patted her chest. “It’s about things deep in the heart.” “Beliefs?” I suggested, but she didn’t understand my English. “Write it in Chinese,” I said. So she did: 心理, the same shapes as in Japanese. I still wanted to see “beliefs,” so initially that’s what I saw. But a moment later, I puzzled out the on-yomi: SHIN RI. Of course! Shinri—“psyche,” or “state of mind,” as in shinrigaku, “psychology.” To be sure we were talking about the same thing, I added 学 (GAKU: study) and said, “Like that?” “Yes!” she said, and we were all smiles, both of us stunned that we had actually communicated. Moreover, she had hit on one of my favorite topics. I can’t convince half the Americans I know about the merits of therapy, but my Chinese dry cleaner seems inclined to agree! She explained • 155

CCCII code: 213D78 how, now that she has kids, she wants to understand Radical: 2C61 why they do what they do. She particularly likes reading the advice of one doctor. Stroke Count (without Radical): 00 “Not Dr. Phil?!” I said in horror. Total Stroke Count: 04 She smiled. “Not Dr. Phil.” Oh, thank goodness. Three Corner Input Code (Huang): 930000 Another point of agreement. Four Corner code: 3300 I was buoyant for the rest of the day, finally having Lin’s frequency number: 0098 had the kind of experience I’ve dreamed of having with Dar-Zen Liu’s phonetic code: 1216 kanji. I’ve long wanted my knowledge of Japanese to Taiwan Telephone and Telegraph Telex code: serve as a bridge to China. 001800 But the bridge is usually quite a bit creakier. Take, Very Old CNS code: 35A9 for instance, the first time I told May I was writing Old CNS code: 4540 about kanji. CNS code (around 1988): 004540 “What?” she said, grasping nothing. Big5: A4DF “Chinese characters,” I said. Dragon Code (TsangJie 2nd gen. input code): .N> “Calendars?” Dragon Input (TsangJie 4/5th gen. input code): P , t u o “No,” I said, flipping over my dryinternal code used by CDC: BCrns l s it tu fficia cleaning receipt and drawing 漢字. ABig5 is an oset internal code used by Syscom: 90B9 . er t n c a a w r i “Kanji,” I said as clearly as possible. First/Last Stroke Input Code: MCC cha in Ta to dard rs She looked at me askance. “That’s stane name refe anies Huang Card Number: 567 Th mp o c e v d hanzi,” she said, affronted that I had “misGlyph Pattern (needs Big5 fonts): み the fi llaborate t. n o c e t m a p h JuYin Phonetic: VUP pronounced” the word. She knows I study t velo its de des n i Japanese, not Chinese, so I couldn’t think Radical number: 61 rs, inclu Big5 characte 3 4 5 9 how else to explain the discrepancy. I simply 13,4 ing 13,0 Do I need to study Chinese or programming d nodded. “inclu and 441 i z to make sense of this? I don’t even underWith a strange expression on her face, she Haonn-Hanzi,” o stand the name of the database—Big5. Is n t ding said, “But that’s hard!” accor bsite. A it half a football conference? At such moi And that was as much agreement as we could one wetion of hanznc o ments, Chinese seems impenetrable, as if e l n l es co muster up that day. nclud you, i t a h someone has hung a Keep Out sign. t ll i? I te hanz search can But more than a billion people speak e this r u into a ! o s l y Chinese. If it’s not incomprehensible to unne suck Searching for a Point of Entry n of t warre them, maybe kanji students can suss out I don’t think it’s unusual for students of Japanese to at least a little. All we need is some background feel curious about Chinese. The more you research information. And then, even if kanji doesn’t provide Japan, the more you find signs pointing to China, the the hoped-for bridge, maybe we’ll understand why the source of so much in Japanese culture. This is partic- bridge collapses so often! ularly true with kanji research; when you investigate If you want a reality check about how far apart the etymology of a character or compound, you often Chinese and Japanese tend to be, see Exhibit 69, “Just touch on its history in ancient China. But if you don’t the Facts: Mind the Gap.” For definitions of terms know Chinese, you may not find satisfying answers. such as “Mandarin,” “Cantonese,” and “pinyin,” see Say I want to know how 心 came to mean “heart” in Exhibit 70, “Just the Facts: A Crash Course in ChiChina. Using Jim Breen’s online Japanese dictionary, I nese Terminology.” To ease your way into Chinese, see stare at a bewildering assortment of codes. I gather that Exhibit 71, “Thematic Explorations: Chinese Words “Yxin1 Wsim” are related to hanzi. But what on earth You’ve Heard.” One noticeable difference between do these notations mean? Hoping to find out, I follow Chinese and Japanese has to do with tones. To learn links to Chinese dictionaries, and . . . they’re largely in about tones, see Exhibit 72, “Just the Facts: The Tones Chinese! I can’t grasp much at all. I also confront a pot- of Hanzi.” That discussion might bring on-yomi to pourri of codes. Here’s the listing for 心 on Timothy mind, so it’s a good time to try your hand at Exhibit Huang’s Big5 database: 73, “Game: On-Yomi Tongue Twister.” 156 •

Double Happiness

Communication Breakdowns

In addition to Mandarin and Cantonese, major Chinese languages include Min, Wu, Xiang, Gan, and Hakka. And each has several dialects! According to William C. Hannas in Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, there may be hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages in China. Of course, these statements hold true only if you subscribe to the many-separate-languages theory of Chinese, which is complicated, political, and way beyond our purposes here. But whatever ideology people embrace about these issues, everyone agrees on the lack of uniformity in spoken Chinese. Owing to differences in accents, vocabulary, and syntax, speech varies so much across China that people who travel outside a native region are lucky if they can communicate at all, as far as I can tell. It’s as if they become strangers in a strange land. Tian Tang, the blogger introduced in Exhibit 69, explains some of the ensuing problems: “One of my parents’ friends from Wuxi didn’t speak Mandarin very well. When he was in Beijing on a business trip, he couldn’t find a public restroom because he forgot the Mandarin term for that.” Tang also offers this word of caution: “If you’re in Shanghai, and you don’t speak the local dialect, expect to pay more. No one will give you a good price when you haggle.” Mandarin speakers face the same difficulties in Canton, he says. Even traveling minuscule distances can create communication difficulties; May told me that she can’t talk to her in-laws, who come from a Canton village as close to her own village as San Francisco is to Oakland. So . . . hanzi to the rescue? Well, yes and no. Hanzi certainly allows for more common ground than spoken words. It largely bridges the Mandarin-Cantonese divide. And for fifty years the Chinese government has worked to make all Chinese citizens use hanzi (rather than native scripts, such as the ones Mongolians, Manchurians, and Tibetans have used for their distinct, non-Mandarin languages). But the various languages and dialects of China create vocabulary differences, so people sometimes express identical concepts with different characters. Then, too, because Taiwan has stuck with the traditional shapes of characters, “Materials published on one side of the Taiwan Strait are largely unintelligible on the other,” says Hannas (p. 22). Finally, about 91 percent of Chinese people are considered literate (by UNICEF’s count in 2004), but that means as many as 9 percent aren’t. (According to a 2005 region-by-region study cited on Wikipedia, the province of Jilin boasts the lowest il-

literacy rate at 3.85 percent, and apart from Tibet with its 44 percent rate, the province of Qinghai is the most illiterate area at 22 percent. Taiwan, incidentally, has 3.9 percent illiteracy, which is particularly impressive when one considers the more complex characters used there.) Well, then, perhaps romanization can help with communication. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Many people don’t know pinyin, especially those with poor educations and the elderly. (China officially adopted this romanization system in 1958.) Unlike rōmaji, pinyin has diacritical marks (as in the word pǔ tōng huà), which reflect tones. Changing a tone alters the meaning of a word. So when people from different regions use different tones, their pinyin follows suit, becoming equally unintelligible to Chinese “foreigners.” And although certain words may come across in pinyin, syntax varies with dialect, so the meaning of the sentence also comes into question.

Pinyin in Taiwan

In Taiwan, pinyin might not get you too far. This has to do with politics and history in China and Taiwan. Attempts to romanize Chinese date back to the sixteenth century. More recently, at the 1913 government-sponsored Conference on Uniﬁcation of Pronunciation, delegates voted to create a phonetic system for all the provinces. Zhù yīn zì mǔ, or “phonetic alphabet,” was later renamed gúo yīn zì mǔ, “national phonetic alphabet,” and in 1930 it acquired yet another name, zhù yīn fú hào, which still exists today. This system is not in fact a romanization; rather, it contains symbols derived from hanzi. To see samples and to learn more, check out Exhibit 74, “Just the Facts: Phonetic Markers Used in Taiwan.” Why do I refer to markers “used in Taiwan” when they’ve also been used in China? Well, that came to a halt when the Communists took power in China. Along with many other simpliﬁcations of the language, Mao Zedong ordered his subjects to stop using zhù yīn fú hào and to substitute pinyin instead. With the Communists in charge of mainland China, Taiwan went its separate way under the government of the Republic of China. People in Taiwan didn’t make the switch to pinyin, and today they are the only Chinese speakers to use zhù yīn fú hào. They tend not to know pinyin, but that’s changing. In a 2004 comment on the blog Language Hat (www.languagehat.com), “xiaolongnu” wrote, “Pinyin is catching on in Taiwan, quietly, piecePinyin in Taiwan

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meal, and without fanfare; I think purely for practical reasons, since people just weren’t lining up to use Wade-Giles or zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo), despite the political angle. Both systems are certainly still used, though, and each has its partisans.”

Making Hanzi Meet Chinese Needs

The Japanese and Koreans have molded Chinese to complement their indigenous languages. (To learn about the use of Chinese characters in Korea, see Exhibit 75, “Just the Facts: Hanja in Korea.”) But could this work in the opposite direction? In some ways, that has in fact happened. Check out Exhibit 76, “Just the Facts: Kanji Compounds That China Imported from Japan,” for a few examples of borrowed or even “repatriated” characters. But the phenomenon explored in this exhibit is small potatoes compared to a much larger one. The Chinese have adapted hanzi to represent foreign words. The Japanese use katakana for this purpose, and Koreans write loanwords in hangeul, English, or both. Phonetic representation isn’t an option for the Chinese, of course. But they have made use of another maneuver known well to the Japanese—ateji, which we explored in Exhibit 36, “Just the Facts: Doesn’t Sound the Way It’s Spelled.” To represent foreign words with hanzi, the Chinese disregard the meanings of certain characters and use them solely for their phonetic value. This comes in handy with personal names, country names, and foreign terms. For some reason, 達 (dá) seems particularly handy for representing loanwords. We see this in léi dá (radar), written as 雷達 in traditional hanzi and as 雷达 in simplified characters. Another example is Darfur, the Sudanese province. The pinyin is dá ěr fú ěr, and the characters are 達爾福爾 (traditional) and 达尔福尔 (simplified). Finally, here’s the way to write “Dalai Lama”: dá lài laˇ ma, represented as 達賴喇嘛 (traditional) and 达赖喇嘛 (simplified). Grafting foreign sounds onto Chinese characters is no small job. I already knew that from my exposure to Japanese ateji. But my understanding of this deepened when I read on Tian Tang’s blog that whereas 迈克尔 is the Chinese way of writing “Michael,” the characters change to 米盖尔 for “Miguel,” the same name in Spanish! Phonetic representations of foreign words are also inconsistent across the vast Chinese-speaking world. Different versions of the same word pop up in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. 158 •

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To avoid confusion, modern Chinese newspapers and oﬃcial documents often include a phrase from a foreign language, as well as a Chinese translation, rather than taking a stab at phoneticization. So much for representing foreign words. What about using hanzi to reﬂect grammar? To learn about that, see Exhibit 77, “Just the Facts: Representing Grammar with Hanzi.” And for yet another type of representation with Chinese characters, see Exhibit 78, “Thematic Explorations: Animal Signs in the Zodiac.”

How Many Hanzi Does It Take?

If you’ve been reading the exhibits in this chapter, you have Chinese grammar and characters all sewn up, tones and everything! The next question is how many hanzi you’ll need for complete literacy. In some ways, this question brings us right back to grammar. As the Chinese represent all their grammar with hanzi, it makes sense that they would use more characters than the Japanese. In fact, Chinese people use twice as many! And whereas high school graduates in Japan must know 1,945 characters, their Chinese peers need to know about 5,000! The word “about” in that sentence reveals one interesting difference between the two cultures. The Japanese obsessively count the number of kanji they know or need to know, and the Chinese speak of such issues much more loosely. Because of his blog, Tian Tang is deeply involved with hanzi, but when I asked how many characters he knows, he said, “I never really counted.” Compared with kanji, it’s much harder to calculate the number of hanzi one needs in China. Hannas spends ten pages citing reasons for this. He notes that a Chinese literature professor, a pharmacologist, and a mathematician will need different sets of characters. If you want to read texts predating the hanzi simplification of the 1950s, that adds characters to your mustlearn list. And if you aim to read classical Chinese texts, you’ll need old versions of characters. As we’ve seen, character usage varies according to regional vocabulary differences. Finally, there’s the issue of whether knowing 5,000 hanzi just means passively identifying them or also includes drawing them correctly from memory. Hannas figures that 6,900 characters are now commonly used in China versus 3,120 in Japan. However, he says, “Getting by in Japanese seems to require mastering a higher proportion of that inventory. I find 4,500, or two-thirds, of the characters in use in Chi-

nese adequate for most reading in that language but I need most of the 3,100 characters ‘in use’ for comparable reading in Japanese. . . . Proportionately more use is made of the characters that are used in Japanese” (p. 135). He explains this by surmising that the Japanese represent rare indigenous vocabulary with hiragana. He then makes a point that I’ve never heard elsewhere. If Japanese people need more than 3,000 kanji, he says, then their schools don’t prepare them well for daily life, sending them out into the world with only a minimum requirement of 1,945. Hannas neglects to say that most high school students take electives, which teach them far more kanji by the time they ﬁnish high school. But if there is indeed any kind of gap in graduates’ kanji knowledge, it’s hard for me to imagine how Japanese society could remedy the situation. Should kids head for cram school when kindergarten lets out for the day?

The Rigors of a Chinese Education

From what I hear, that’s pretty much what happens in China! But there the “cram school” is in the home and in the parents’ attempts to make the world seem like one big classroom. When Tang was quite young, his mother brought him on shopping trips and forced him to read every sign. From the butcher shop to the fish market, he needed to call off the names of the shops, the products for sale, and the costs, all while learning about money, weights, and calculations of price per gram. Even though both his parents worked full-time, more drilling occurred at home. “My mother taught me about five thousand characters before I entered first grade when I was five and half,” says Tang. Five thousand?!?! Was he a wunderkind? No, he says, “I did not think I was a special case. It wasn’t hard at all,” he says. His mom taught him radicals, components, and commonly used characters, exploring how they built on each other “like Lego.” He found it particularly helpful to study a grid resembling a multiplication table. In place of numbers, it displayed hanzi categorized by radicals and components. Although he grew up on the mainland in Jiangsu Province, his parents didn’t want him to settle for learning simplified forms. With his parents’ encouragement, he also learned the traditional, more complicated versions of many characters. Meanwhile, over in Jinan (the capital of Shangdong Province in northern China), Yaling Zhu mastered about fifteen hundred to two thousand characters

by age seven, when her formal schooling began. This was far more than most of her classmates knew. The pressure didn’t end there, though. Her parents insisted that she learn English in third grade, four years before schools would teach her this subject. She always had plenty of homework and excelled academically. But her parents wanted her to keep that competitive edge, so they loaded on more assignments, including essays, reading, and arithmetic problems. They also required her to play the violin. Like Tang, Zhu doesn’t consider her childhood unusual. She explains that because of stiﬀ academic competition in China, “Most parents teach their kids hanzi and math before they go to school. Chinese kids have a miserable life, forced to study, study all the time, with endless homework every day. On weekends, they are forced to learn drawing, play the piano, dance, study English, etc.,” all so they can cultivate a “special talent” and stand out from the crowd. Born in 1970, Zhu now lives in California but has heard about changes in Chinese education since her childhood. These days, she says, kids start preschool at age three. And it’s typical nowadays for kids to learn a thousand characters before ﬁrst grade, though two thousand will help them read children’s books more easily. In China, attending school is like holding down a job, one that goes from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, at least in Tang’s experience of elementary and middle school. Vacation wasn’t really a vacation; during winter and summer breaks, he had assignments in all subjects. While at school, kids face a barrage of quizzes and tests. Chinese youngsters also gear up for major entrance exams. These enable them to enter middle school, high school, college, and then graduate school. And there’s no “try, try again” mentality. As Tang puts it, the college entrance exam “determines a person’s fate.” If you fail, “You better pray that you can go to a trade school and learn a skill.”

Why So Much Pressure?

As Tang and Zhu told me about the rigors of Chinese schools, I ﬁgured that it had to be that way so kids could learn ﬁve thousand hanzi. But it turns out that the world doesn’t entirely revolve around Chinese characters, even in China! That is, there’s a strong cultural context for all this academic pressure. In a country four times as populous as the United Why So Much Pressure?

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States, hordes of people compete for very few slots. Tang notes that, “Starting at a very young age, all kids realize the meaning of competition. Uneducated people were made an example of. The teacher would ask the kids, ‘Do you want to grow up to be a successful (insert occupation), or would you rather be an uneducated peasant who hauls shit buckets everyday?’” Humiliation and punishment also serve as motivators. Tang observes that whereas smart kids are ridiculed in American schools (such as the high school he attended in Tempe, Arizona), the opposite happens in China. He recalls, “Whoever got the lowest grade on a test had to stand up for one period and be humiliated in front of everyone.” Chinese families cannot advance economically unless their children attend good schools, which later translates into good job opportunities. Public schools in China aren’t free, and the costs of tuition, textbooks, and supplies are beyond the poorest families. It’s considered a privilege and a luxury to attend school in China, says Tang. Therefore, everyone supports children in their scholastic pursuits. Parents may provide their kids with material incentives for success. Tang notes, “If one kid in a class got the highest score on an exam, and his parents bought him a Gameboy as a reward, other kids would want the same thing from their parents. If that means their children would get higher grades, parents would be willing to spend money to buy a Gameboy. The business of education is taught at a very early age.”

How to Learn Five Thousand Hanzi

In this juiced-up environment, do kids have a magical way of learning hanzi quickly? That doesn’t appear to be the case. As in Japan, Chinese schools teach a set number of characters every year. Working from textbooks, teachers instruct the students about certain strokes, showing how they appear in simple characters. From there the lesson progresses to more complex ones. The children learn about radicals and components. They also learn which hanzi represent particu-

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lar ideas and which ones serve as connective tissue in sentences. After studying singletons, kids learn how to combine them into compounds. In other words, although hanzi differ in several ways from kanji, both require an intensive learning process, day after day, year after year. And that’s how you get to five thousand! (Or if you master five thousand before school ever starts, you just dispense with the whole education thing!)

Double Happiness

So where does that leave those of us who limp along with far fewer than five thousand characters? How do we stop feeling inferior to first graders?! And how would we fare in a hanzi environment? Well, you can test this out by glancing at a hanzi newspaper or visiting a nearby Chinatown. And if you venture further afield, say to China, you can achieve functional communication by writing notes in kanji. From what I hear, people will be both confused and amused that you can write characters but can’t speak the language. When it comes to reading signs, you’ll definitely recognize similarities to Japanese displays of that sort, but you’ll want to be aware of where they differ. To see how kanji and hanzi signs compare, check out Exhibit 79, “Just the Facts: Signs for the Traveler.” For my part, whenever I understand hanzi, I feel excited and lucky. Knowing something about Chinese via Japanese is a bonus that I never expected when I took up Japanese. It’s a gift that I savor because it comes without any extra work. I felt that sense of good fortune while watching the Chinese movie Saving Face. When I glimpsed the character for “double happiness” behind a wedding altar, I knew what it meant! (See what this character looks like in Exhibit 80, “Spectacular Shapes: Double Happiness.”) Although the “double” refers to a marrying couple, I choose to interpret it another way. For me, it represents the thrill of recognizing Chinese characters in two languages.

# 69 just the facts Mind the Gap As a train in London’s Tube pulls to a stop, the operator tells disembarking passengers to “mind the gap” between the train and the platform. Those who study kanji and hanzi would similarly do well to mind the gap between the two, as meanings of singletons and compounds can differ signiﬁcantly. Sometimes the discrepancies are as simple as this: 走 means “to run” in Japanese but “to walk” or “to leave” in Chinese. At other times, one can make quite a gaffe, as people have found out through Hanzi Smatter (www.hanzismatter.com), a blog exposing unfortunate choices that Westerners have made with kanji/hanzi tattoos. Tian Tang, the blog’s creator, has displayed scads of tattoos by people (and by tattooists) who clearly don’t know Japanese or Chinese. The tattoos tend to contain ill-formed characters that amount to gibberish. Occasionally, the results are passable in Japanese but unwittingly funny in Chinese. Take a look at these: 我慢

Japanese

Chinese

patience

I’m slow

油断大敵 unpreparedness is one’s greatest enemy 妖 charming 恋痛い love hurts

oil crisis

female goblin loves the pain

To read this last concoction, Japanese people would need to overlook the unnatural syntax, and Chinese people would have to disregard the hiragana. In other cases, the tattoo works well enough in Chinese (even if it’s a puzzling choice) but is downright laughable in Japanese. Some cases in point: Chinese

Japanese

腕白

white wrist

naughtiness

魚精

ﬁshlike, ﬁsh essence

ﬁsh semen

巨根

giant root

large penis

Two of Tang’s favorites make no sense in either language. They’re strange in Japanese but uproarious in Chinese. NBA player Shawn Marion sports a tattoo saying 魔鳥樟. As near as anyone can ﬁgure out, this was intended to be read as マトリクサ (matorikusa), a phonetic rendering of The Matrix using the on-yomi (MA) of 魔 and the kun-yomi (tori and kusa) of 鳥樟. (Incidentally, most Japanese refer to that movie as マトリックス, matorikkusu.) But in Chinese, the compound means “demon bird mothballs.” As for a woman with 狂瀉 tattooed on her lower back, Japanese people might scratch their heads over “mania decanting,” but Chinese people would have a belly laugh upon reading it as “crazy diarrhea.”

This tattoo, on a woman’s lower back, says 野馬. The ﬁrst character means “wild,” and the second means “horse.” Although 野馬 isn’t a compound in Japanese, it is a real Chinese word, pronounced as yěmă and meaning “wild horse.”

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# 70 just the facts A Crash Course in Chinese Terminology If you want a crash course in Chinese terminology, see the table on the opposite page for different representations of basic terms. Just for the sake of comparison, it shows the same words in Japanese. Many of the terms in the table require further explanation, starting with the column heads! •

•

Pinyin: This is the most widely accepted and used romanization of Chinese. Actually, it’s the romanization of Mandarin speech; Cantonese has other romanization systems. But we’ll only concern ourselves with Mandarin in this chapter, so just think of pinyin as romanized Chinese. Pinyin appears in road signs, maps, brand names, computer input, Chinese Braille, telegrams, and books for Chinese children and foreign learners. Traditional and Simplified Chinese: Taiwan uses traditional shapes for hanzi. Mainland China uses simplified forms. Hong Kong and Macao mostly use traditional forms but have also adopted some simplified ones. Of course, the shapes of nearly all characters have evolved over the millennia, even the “traditional” Chinese characters used in Taiwan. But the Taiwanese government has never ordered people to eliminate great quantities of strokes, as happened in mainland China in the 1950s. Instead of writing the thirteen-stroke 漢, mainlanders and Singaporeans write the five-stroke 汉. Aren’t they lucky? Except for one thing. According to Tian Tang, who writes the blog Hanzi Smatter, traditional characters contain etymological history that disappears with simplification. Tang was born in 1977 and grew up in mainland China, but he prefers traditional forms, scoffing that simplified hanzi are the “poor man’s Chinese.” He explains that when the Communists came to power on the mainland, the majority of them were rumored to be illiterate peasants. “They had to be educated,” Tang says, as it would be “very embarrassing” for such powerful people to be exposed as illiterate. The idea behind simplified characters was to educate the masses,

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including government oﬃcials. So much for the column heads. Here’s a guide to the terms in the ﬁrst column of the table.

ugh Altho e has a s e Chin r “written fo m there ter age,” l u g n la ra gene n is no r “spoke o f m r te age.” langu

• Written Chinese: You may wonder how written Chinese (zhōng wén) differs from hanzi. Hanzi are the tools with which people produce zhōng wén, or Chinese text. But that’s not the real distinction to draw here. Instead, zhōng wén contrasts sharply with spoken Chinese. Natives recognize important differences between the two. • Mandarin: Some say that Chinese isn’t one language but many separate ones. To linguists who hold this position, Mandarin isn’t the main Chinese dialect but rather the main language. Many Chinese speakers in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam also use Mandarin. Around the world, about 870 million people speak it as a first language. Written Chinese is based on spoken Mandarin and is essentially a uniform script throughout China. Therefore, people who speak a non-Mandarin type of Chinese must learn Mandarin grammar and vocabulary if they want to read and write. The Chinese government uses Mandarin and wants all its citizens to do the same. • Cantonese: Fewer people speak Cantonese, but they still constitute a large crowd. I’ve seen estimates of the number of Cantonese speakers ranging from 66 million to 100 million. You’ll find these people in southeast China, especially in the province of Canton, as well as in Hong Kong. Cantonese is the primary language in Macao, though Mandarin is also an official language there. Cantonese speakers have modified Mandarin characters and have created their own characters. According to www.omniglot.com/writing/cantonese, Cantonese includes “over a thousand extra characters invented specifically for Cantonese”!

# 70 just the facts English Term

Pinyin

Chinese characters

hàn zì

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Japanese

漢字

汉字

漢字 (kanji)

中国

中国 (Chûgoku) middle + country

中文

中文 (chûbun) Chinese + writing

拼音

ピンイン, 併音 (pin’in) to combine + sound

普通话

北京語 (Pekingo) north + capital + language

广东语

広東語 (Kantongo) wide + east + language

Han people + letter China

zhông guó

中國

middle + country written Chinese

zhông wén

中文

Chinese + writing pinyin

pīnyīn

拼音

to combine + sound Mandarin

pu ˇ tông huà

普通話

common + language Cantonese

guǎng dông yu ˇ

廣東語

wide + east + language

China has produced coins since as far back as 770 BCE. The hole in the middle of such coins enabled people to carry them on strings, rather than in purses. To read such a coin, think of it as a clock and then read the characters in the 12:00 and 6:00 positions as one compound. This vertical pair represents the name of either a dynasty or an era, indicating when the coin was in use. Then read the other pair from right to left; that is, start with the 3:00 hanzi and then ﬁnish with the 9:00 character. This twosome indicates the type of currency. On the reverse side (not shown here), you would ﬁnd how much that particular coin was worth. The following characters appear on this coin, which now serves as an earring: • • • •

top: 光 (guāng: light) bottom: 緒 (xù: beginnings; clues; mental state; thread) right: 通 (tōng: to go through, connect, ﬂow freely) left: 寶 (băo: treasure)

The vertical pair gives us Guāngxù, the name of an emperor in the Qing dynasty who ruled from 1875 to 1908. The hanzi at 3:00, 通, tells us that the coin circulated universally. The 9:00 hanzi, 寶, is the traditional form of 宝, which mainlander Chinese and Japanese use for “treasure.”

A Crash Course in Chinese Terminology

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# 71 thematic explorations Chinese Words You’ve Heard I’ve been amazed to discover how many English words came from Chinese, including three dog names: shar-pei shih tzu chow chow chow (the food) chow mein chopstick chop suey chop chop (to hurry) gung ho wonton kumquat loquat wok pekoe ketchup Nowadays, these words don’t sound anything like their corollaries in Mandarin. That’s partly because some of the above words came from Cantonese (and therefore never sounded like Mandarin), including

“chow mein,” which was chaumin, and “chop suey,” which was tzapseui, meaning “mixed pieces.” Another reason is that if English speakers weren’t the ones to romanize these words, they may have acquired sounds that matched neither Chinese nor English. Also, methods of romanizing Chinese have changed since those words came into English; through pinyin, we now pronounce Mandarin words differently. At any rate, the Mandarin and the English still sound reasonably close when it comes to several other terms that appear in the table below. The kanji is often a carbon copy of the hanzi. In the cases of “typhoon,” “mah-jongg,” and “lychee,” the Japanese used ateji; they adopted the characters and their sounds, disregarding certain meanings. With “oolong tea,” the Japanese ignored the meaning of 烏 and the usual reading of 龍 so they could match the Chinese compound and its reading. In the table, when Chinese and Japanese compounds share a breakdown, only one breakdown appears. But when they differ, you’ll see separate analyses (as for “tai chi chuan”).

Familiar Word

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Pinyin

Japanese

yin

陰

阴

yīn

陰 (IN, kage: shade, yin, negative)

yang

陽

阳

yáng

陽 (YÔ, hi: sunshine, yang, positive)

feng shui

風水

风水

fēng shuı ̌

風水 (fûsui)

太极拳

tài jí quán

太極拳 (taikyokuken) plump + utmost + ﬁst

功夫

gông fu

カンフー, 功夫 (kanfû)

麻将

má jiàng

麻雀 (mājan) hemp + sparrow

wind + water tai chi chuan

太極拳

greatest + utmost + ﬁst kung fu

功夫

achievement + man, combining to mean “efforts” in Chinese mah-jongg

麻將

hemp + a general 164 •

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# 71 thematic explorations Familiar Word

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Pinyin

Japanese

ping-pong

乒乓球

pīng pāng qiú

ピンポン

桌球

zhuô qiú

卓球 (takkyû)

气功

qì gông

気功 (kikô) spirit + achievement

瘾

yı ̌n

憧れ (akogare)

叩头

kòu tóu

叩頭 (kôtô)

bing + bang + ball (the 1st two hanzi are onomatopoeia) ping-pong (alternate)

桌球

qigong

氣)功

table + ball vital breath + achievement

yen (craving)

癮

addiction, esp. to opium kowtow

叩頭

to knock + head gong

鑼

锣

luó

銅鑼 (dora) copper + gong

typhoon

颱風

台风

tái fēng

台風 (taifû) table + wind

点心

diǎn xīn

點心, 点心 (tenshin)

茘枝

lì zhī

茘枝 (reishi) scallion + branch

海鲜

hǎi xiān

—

白菜

bái cài

白菜 (hakusai)

乌龙茶

wû lóng chá

烏龍茶 (ûroncha) crow + dragon + tea

拉面

lā miàn

ラーメン, 拉麺 (rāmen) to kidnap + noodles

typhoon + wind dim sum

點心

dot + heart, maybe to mean a “touch of heart“ lychee

茘枝

lychee + branch hoisin

海鮮

sea + fresh, meaning “seafood” sauce bok choy

白菜

white + vegetables oolong tea

烏龍茶

black + dragon + tea ramen

拉面

to pull + noodles

Chinese Words You’ve Heard

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# 72 just the facts The Tones of Hanzi Each Chinese syllable can have ﬁve tones (or as many as nine, depending on the language, dialect, and method of counting tones). There are four basic tones: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th

high rising falling rising falling

These descriptions have nothing to do with the volume of speech. Instead, they refer to ways of modulating the voice, as in singing (Tone 1 comes closest to this), expressing surprise with “What?!” (Tone 2), or giving the curt command “Stop!” (Tone 4 approximates this). There’s also a ﬁfth tone, a neutral one. As tone changes, so does meaning. Let’s see how this works with the syllable da: Trad’l Hanzi

Pinyin

Alt. Pinyin

搭

dā

da1

答打大

dá dǎ dà

da2 da3 da4

2 3 4

Tone #

Meaning

to place upon, climb aboard to answer to beat, strike big

You see here the four basic Chinese tone markers: ā (Tone 1), á (Tone 2), ǎ (Tone 3), and à (Tone 4). It’s all neat and logical! Because it can be difﬁcult to type these diacritics, you can also represent them in pinyin by adding a tone number, as in the Alt. (Alternate) Pinyin column. (Or go to http://pinyin.info/unicode/ marks3.html, which converts entries such as da3 into dǎ for you!) mind The ﬁfth tone marker, the neuay re g in m s i h in T tral one, comes with no accent: f voic ay you o se, the w e n a a da. However, I can’t show you a p ve Ja y les ha syllab tic alchem meaning for any given da because e n o pho ito + hit a neutral tone never stands on its to, h (e.g., nto hitobi i s own. Rather, it exists only in connecturn e”). pl “peo tion with a preceding tone. When it comes to the meanings I did display above, these represent only a small selection of the characters and meanings associated with each syllable. For instance, dá also corresponds to the following hanzi and meanings:

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Trad’l Hanzi 打妲怛瘩笪達靼韃

Meaning

dozen concubine of last Shang emperor distressed, alarmed, shocked, grieved sore, boil, scab (surname), rough bamboo mat to attain, to pass through, to inform (phonetic), dressed leather Tartar

You may have noticed that 打 has appeared twice thus far, representing both dá (dozen) and dǎ (to beat). Just as with kanji singletons, a hanzi character can have multiple readings and meanings. However, whereas a kanji may have up to three distinct on-yomi (as discussed in Chapter 1 with the example of 行 as GYÔ, KÔ, and AN), hanzi tend to be more consistent; 打 has only the two da readings. You can imagine that, with so many readings and meanings for dá, there could be a big homonym problem in Chinese. When singleton hanzi serve as words, this does in fact create confusion. For example, zài translates in these various ways: 再在載

again in, at to carry, also, simultaneously

Fortunately, most hanzi tend to appear in compounds. In fact, this , e way By th unds can is such a strong tendency that o comp as fun in . Tian Tang ﬁnds it “meaningless” st u j Japan be as in 企鵝 a n to discuss characters as singlei h s C uin” i on “Peng “to stand ! tons. Compounds create a context : ) e” s é ̌ o ı (q go within which characters acquire e” + “ tipto new meanings. Consider three compounds containing the hanzi you’ve just seen: 再保證在車載重

zài bǎo zhèng: to reassure zài chē: aboard zài zhòng: load, carrying capacity

Compounds and tones largely solve the homonym problem in Chinese. It may be easier to understand this by looking at the converse situation in atonal Ja-

# 72 just the facts pan, where a plethora of words sound exactly alike. According to Hannas, the Japanese syllable kô corresponds to 180 characters! This, in turn, has led to twenty-four versions of kôkô, twenty-three types of kôshô, eighteen kinds of kôtô, and fourteen species of kôchô. If Japanese phonetics had been able to accommodate tones when Japan borrowed hanzi, then these words wouldn’t sound identical. But every four Chinese syllables funneled down into one Japanese sound, creating four times as many homophonous syllables in Japan (at least in theory, as this may not work out numerically). By contrast in Chinese, only 1 percent of commonly used words are homonyms, according to a study cited

by Hannas. For example, Mandarin doesn’t contain two words called er shi. Instead, there’s èr shí and ěr shı ̌, respectively “twenty” and “ear wax.” And of course hanzi makes the distinction even clearer. Just as in Japanese, “twenty” is 二十. And just as in Japanese, “earwax” is 耳屎, which breaks down as “ear” + “excrement”! In Japanese and Korean, the homonym problem creates a major rationale for continuing to use Chinese characters (despite the educational burden they impose). It seems to me that if these cultures really wanted to jettison the hanzi they borrowed, they could clarify homonyms by developing tones for their languages!

At first glance, it may be difficult to tell whether the characters on this calligraphy practice sheet are Japanese or Chinese. After all, one can spot quite a few characters here that have the following meanings in both Japanese and Chinese: 下 (under, below), 花 (flower), 前 (before), 上 (above), 三 (three), 加 (addition), 永 (eternity), and 字 (character). Closer examination may leave you scratching your head about two more characters. One is 竿 (at the bottom of the image). This character turns out to mean “pole” in both languages, but 竿 is not in general use in Japan. Mandarin speakers pronounce this character as gān. And then there’s the character to the left of 下. This puzzler seems to have 日 on the bottom, but the rest looks quite weird . . . until you realize that the page is upside-down! This character is 是, which hanzi readers know as shì, “to be,” and which Japanese people know as SHI or koko, “just so; justice; right; this.”

The Tones of Hanzi

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# 73 game! game! game! game! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 3 / Difﬁculty Level: 3

On-Yomi Tongue Twister This game has several steps:

汚

❑ HO ❑O ❑ SHÔ

少

❑ KO ❑ SU ❑ SHÔ

章

❑ KO ❑ SÔ ❑ SHÔ

商

❑ TEKI ❑ RITSU ❑ SHÔ

由

❑ YU ❑ SHIN ❑ SHÔ

相

❑ MOKU ❑ SHU ❑ SHÔ

焼

❑ KA ❑ YA ❑ SHÔ

1. Go down the list, checking oﬀ the one correct onyomi for each kanji. For example, consider this: 心

3. 4. 5.

❑ KO ❑ SHIN ❑ MEI

The on-yomi of 心 is SHIN, so you would check off the second choice. Read down the list through all the on-yomi you have marked. The correct on-yomi form a sentence, a tongue twister of sorts. Write the sentence in hiragana or rômaji. What does the sentence mean? Punctuate as needed to make sense of it. Write the English translation of the sentence. Extra credit: Rewrite the sentence with the correct kanji! They have little or no connection to the kanji displayed below.

Answers appear in the Answer Key. Ganbatte kudasai! 古

小

正

消

私

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❑ KO ❑ KU ❑ SHÔ ❑ KI ❑ CHI ❑ SHÔ ❑ JI ❑ SHI ❑ SHÔ ❑ JI ❑ KETSU ❑ SHÔ ❑ JI ❑ SHI ❑ SHÔ

Double Happiness

The sentence in hiragana or rômaji: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ The sentence in English: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ The sentence in kanji: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

# 74 just the facts Phonetic Markers Used in Taiwan When I heard Taiwan had a phonetic system for annotating hanzi, I poked around for information. I wanted to know if it was like Japanese furigana (small hiragana written under or above kanji to indicate their pronunciations). And what was the name of the system? I amassed a dizzying array of responses: 1. 注音符號 2. zhù yīn fú hào 3. zhùyīn 4. bopomofo 5. BPMF So many names for a simple mechanism?! Well, as it turns out, these terms aren’t so far apart. The ﬁrst line represents the idea in hanzi, the characters breaking down as “to annotate” (注) + “sound” (音) + “symbol” (符號). Line 3 is an abbreviation of line 2, which is the way to romanize this expression. So far so good. But what about bopomofo, which sounds like an obscene threat involving someone’s mother? This term is actually quite innocent; much as “ABCs” is shorthand for “alphabet,” bopomofo refers to the ﬁrst four symbols of the phonetic system. It’s a popular term—so popular that it has spawned its own abbreviation, BPMF. And just as we associate “ABCs” with children, Tai-

wanese kids primarily use bopomofo as an aid in reading hanzi. (The same is true of furigana in Japan. But one slight difference is that furigana also appears for the beneﬁt of Japanese adults in the case of unusual or complicated words.) In Taiwan, children’s books include bopomofo, as do dictionaries, textbooks for foreign students, and some magazines and newspapers. Adults use this system to type hanzi. Furthermore, the phonetic symbols enable people in Taiwan to represent words for which no hanzi exist. As angular as katakana, the symbols are simple and crude, resembling ancient cave etchings. The bopomofo below says 標準外國語 (biāo zhǔn wài guó yǔ: correct foreign pronunciation or language).

When written alongside vertical hanzi to indicate their pronunciations, the symbols go to the right of each character. Bopomofo contains thirty-seven symbols and reﬂects hanzi tones.

This image, from a Buddhist manuscript, shows columns of hanzi. To the right of each character, bopomofo provides a guide to pronunciation.

Phonetic Markers Used in Taiwan

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# 75 just the facts Hanja in Korea Imagine a country where the government has abolished the use of Chinese characters but requires students to learn them. Welcome to North Korea, where the characters known as hanja (漢字) pose any number of paradoxes. North and South Korea split in 1945. Four years later, North Korean president Kim Il-Sung decreed that his communist country would no longer use hanja, only the alphabetic script called hangeul. (Up till then, the two had been used together, much as Japanese texts interweave kanji and kana.) Considerably easier to learn than hanja, hangeul presented a way to stamp out illiteracy and bourgeois educational elitism in one fell swoop. Moreover, Kim associated hanja with the Japanese, who had occupied Korea from 1910 through 1945. In 1933, the Japanese forbade the use of hangeul, allowing only hanja. And in 1938, they even forbade Koreans to speak their native language. Not surprisingly, when the occupation ended, people in both Koreas wanted to reclaim their national identity and language. After 1949, hanja quickly disappeared from written materials in North Korea. But in 1966, Kim ordered schools to resume teaching Chinese characters as “foreign orthographic symbols.” As he explained, people needed hanja so they could translate classic Korean literature and understand the characters used in South Korea, China, and Japan. Nevertheless, it was still illegal to publish works containing hanja! Using data from 1994, William C. Hannas compared educational curricula in the Koreas and Japan. He noted that by the time they finished high school, South Koreans could have chosen to study 1,800 hanja, Japanese had no choice but to acquire 1,945 kanji, and North Koreans had had to learn the most of all—a whopping 2,000 characters! I’m not sure Hannas’s last figure is accurate anymore. A Wikipedia article places the number at 600. Scratching my head over this gross discrepancy, I consulted Professor Rodney Tyson, who taught in South Korea for fifteen years and who has published translations of Korean texts. He said, “I doubt if there’s any reliable source to find out for sure” about the accurate number required in North Korea.

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Hanja usage is just slightly less complicated in South Korea. However, the question of when to use hanja versus hangeul is clear-cut. People need to write all indigenous Korean vocabulary in hangeul; no Chinese characters represent those words. If they so desire, South Koreans can use hanja to write words of Chinese origin (referred to as kango in Japanese), but hangeul works equally well for that purpose. As neat as this system seems to be, hanja are fading fast in South Korea. Tyson told me, “The use of Chinese characters has decreased in South Korea much more quickly than I would have predicted. Although the basic characters are still taught in middle and high schools, and still used quite a bit in academic and technical publications, they’ve become relatively rare in more popular publications.” This vanishing act is undeniable and may be inevitable in light of historical, cultural, and linguistic forces.

Hanja over the Millennia It’s not as if Chinese characters are new to Korea. They arrived on the Korean peninsula even before China colonized it in 108 BCE, an occupation that lasted until 313 CE. As was true in Japan, the characters gave Koreans their ﬁrst script, allowed them to study Buddhism, and enabled Chinese vocabulary to ﬂow into the national language. In 1446, things changed when King Sejong the Great invented (or took credit for inventing) hangeul, which one might call “Korean for dummies.” The idea was that even stupid people could learn this very logical system in ten days. Sharper folks could master it in several hours. Nationalistic in intent, hangeul supposedly allowed people to express uniquely Korean meanings. However, the han in hangeul refers to the same thing as the han in hanja: China. Scholars continued to write solely in hanja, viewing hangeul as the realm of the uneducated and the lowly. Not much changed in this sense until the twentieth century. Then, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, thousands of hanja compounds streamed into Korean via Japanese. Therefore, many hanja and kanji compounds look the same (e.g., 高速道路, “expressway,” read as kôsokudôro in Japanese and gosokdoro in Ko-

# 75 just the facts rean). Aside from using hanzi and kanji compounds, Koreans have also coined their own, ones that Chinese people can’t begin to recognize. In current times, with an upswelling of nationalism, South Koreans use hanja only in limited contexts. Newspaper headlines might include hanja to highlight key words, even if the article is entirely in hangeul. In one mid-1990s headline about an impending inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities, the newspaper used hanja for “North Korea” and for “nuclear,” rendering all other words in hangeul. South Koreans also use hanja to emphasize important words in ads, product packaging, and street signs. As in Japanese, hanja serve to clarify words that look and sound exactly alike in hangeul. Hanja often appear parenthetically after such homonyms. Dictionaries also provide Chinese characters. As Wikipedia explains, these provide a “shorthand etymology, since the meaning of the Hanja and the fact that the word is composed of Hanja often help to illustrate the word’s origin.” Atlases, academic literature, technical works, and university textbooks also include hanja. Signs at railway stations appear simultaneously in hangeul, hanja, and romanized Korean. And, as noted in A Window on Korea by the Korean Overseas Information Service, “Koreans have a ﬂair for decorating things with Chinese ideographs, the most common being su, meaning long life, and pok, bliss.”

hanzi. But because the languages have radically different syntaxes, the order of characters in compounds often differs. Korean and Chinese pronunciations of the characters have also diverged over the millennia, particularly because Koreans altered sounds to fit their native phonetic system. Korean has many more syllables than Japanese does, so Koreans had a harder time mapping the spoken language onto hanja. This partly accounts for the current phasing out of hanja; linguistically speaking, it wasn’t as good a fit in Korea as in Japan. Much as Japanese has kun-yomi (訓) and on-yomi (音), Korean has hun (訓) and eum (音). But these serve a different function in Korean than in Japanese. Eum is the sound—the actual pronunciation—of an individual character. Hun is the meaning of the hanja, the definition. Some characters have multiple eum, and some have multiple hun. Personal names and place names mostly have hanja representations, though not the word for “Seoul.” According to Tyson in an unpublished paper, “The great majority of Korean words written in Chinese characters are nouns. These nouns can then be changed into other parts of speech by adding Korean inflections written in hangeul.” He provides this example:

Form and Function

South Koreans sometimes use hanja to represent grammatical particles, too. In that context, characters function in an ateji-like way, acknowledged for their sounds, not their meanings. However, South Koreans usually choose to write all words in hangeul. According to Hannas, South Koreans ﬁgure that if they can understand a term in hangeul, then they should render it that way. By contrast, he says, the Japanese expect people to use kanji for words consisting solely of Jôyô characters. Hannas notes great “performance differences” between Japanese and Koreans in drawing Chinese characters, as well as vastly different inclinations to do so: “A Japanese person, like a Chinese, will draw a character (not the kana) when asked to write a word, if he or she can remember it, or be embarrassed if he or she

South Koreans place hanja alongside hangeul in their horizontal texts, which are read from left to right. Hangeul contains many circles, but because each hangeul block combines at least two alphabetic symbols, hangeul and hanja have similar, rectangular proportions. Visually, the two scripts therefore combine well in sentences, though until the advent of word processing, it required much more effort to type them together. (Now typing hanja on a computer is much like typing kanji.) Notably, each word ﬁlls the same amount of space in hangeul and hanja. Unlike the Japanese (who save space with kanji, e.g., 大切 versus たいせつ for taisetsu, “important”), Korean printers have no economic incentive to use hanja. Many hanja closely resemble modern traditional

靜肅靜肅하다 靜肅한 靜肅히

jeongsuk: silence (noun) jeongsuk-hada: to be silent (verb) jeongsuk-han: silent (adjective) jeongsuk-hi: silently (adverb)

Hanja in Korea

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# 75 just the facts cannot. . . . Koreans usually find some way to parry people’s feelings about kana versus to rings chi’s b s i h the request or end up writing it mechanically, hangeul. Derived from kanji, hiragana i T nda nd Ki t about i m without the grace and style of long habit” (p. 53). and katakana can’t arouse much naen comm “foreign g tional pride. Hangeul, by contrast, are He attributes this contrast to differing “psychon i writ in stiff s f i d r s logical, elegant, home-grown phological dispositions toward the characters” (p. 53). In wo ..a ana . ts katak ere objec his view, most South Koreans “feel no attachment to netic symbols, inspiring so much .” w they enmity. . . r nationalistic fervor that South the characters and would just as soon be rid of them of ou ). 4 Korea has a holiday (October 9) to entirely” (p. 48). Strangely, even though the characters (p. 15 commemorate them. Until recently, entered both countries in similar ways, the Japanese see them as an integral part of their language, and Koworkers even had the day off on October 9! Koreans don’t. Representing only borrowed words, hanja rea stands apart as the only country to honor a script scream out “alien.” As Hannas notes, “Koreans have in this way. to be persuaded by linguists that Chinese characters Given this passion for a system that’s immeasurably easier to learn and write than Chinese characters, . . . are historically as much a part of Korean writing as hangul. Koreans just do not accept this on a gut level” and considering Korea’s anger about Japan’s repres(p. 53). sive occupation, it’s no wonder that hanja are fast disHannas pins this Japanese-Korean difference on appearing in South Korea.

This Korean banner is dedicated to the memory of Korean president Park Chung-hee, assassinated in 1979. At the top it says 追慕 (tsuibo: cherishing the memory of ). After that comes hangeul, roughly translating as “The more time passes, the more beloved you become.” The banner went up for Memorial Day, June 6, which is when Koreans picnic in cemeteries to commemorate those who have died in the service of their country. Seoul National Cemetery is visible in the background of the photograph. Reserved for Korean veterans, it is the equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery, just outside Washington, D.C. Park, a veteran, lies in this cemetery.

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# 76 just the facts Kanji Compounds That China Imported from Japan Although most kanji originated in China and were later disseminated to Japan, the tide has sometimes ﬂowed in the other direction. The Chinese have imported a few kanji compounds made in Japan, such as those in the table below. According to Victor Mair, author of “East-Asian Round-Trip Words” in the journal Sino-Platonic Papers, the Chinese have also borrowed back at least sixtyﬁve compounds that originated in ancient or archaic Chinese and that were then absorbed into Japanese. His list of “repatriated” or “round-trip” words includes many common Japanese terms, such as the following: 文学文化文明物理保険法律意味自由住所

bungaku: literature bunka: culture bunmei: civilization butsuri: physics hoken: insurance hôritsu: law imi: meaning jiyû: freedom jûsho: residence

計画経済機械規則社会

keikaku: plan keizai: economics kikai: machine kisoku: rule, regulation shakai: society

Informally speaking, the Chinese have adopted the repetition kanji 々, too. Whereas the Japanese typically indicate a plural with 々, as we saw in Exhibit 53, “Thematic Explorations: You Can Say That Again!” the Chinese use 々 to mean “etcetera” or to add emphasis, though this symbol never appears in printed materials. For instance, 謝 (simplified: 谢), xiè, suffices for “thank you,” but doubling the character by writing it again or by adding 々 heightens the sense of gratitude. Doubling the character also makes the Chinese more comfortable, because they prefer compounds. For “wait a little while,” the Chinese double 等 (děng: to wait), writing it as 等等 or 等々 (děng děng). Words containing 々are known as 疊音字 (simplified: 叠音字), dié yīn zì, which breaks down as “to repeat” + “sound” + “character.”

MADE IN JAPAN, IMPORTED BY CHINA

Meaning

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Pinyin

Japanese

loyalty, sincerity loyalty, devotion justice, righteousness science

忠誠忠義正義科學

忠诚忠义正义科学

zhông chéng zhông yì zhèng yì kē xué

忠誠 (chûsei) 忠義 (chûgi) 正義 (seigi) 科学 (kagaku)

Kanji Compounds That China Imported from Japan

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# 77 just the facts Representing Grammar with Hanzi Whenever I gaze at Chinese newspapers, trying to see what I can understand, the following question dominates my thoughts: If the Japanese use hiragana to inﬂect verbs and adjectives and to show how words relate to each other, what do the Chinese do? Let’s consider a sample sentence in each language. Here it is in Japanese: 机の上に花瓶があります。 The vase is on the desk. Tsukue no ue ni kabin ga arimasu. Desk + ’s + top + on/in + vase + (subject marker) + is. Without the hiragana particles, this Japanese sentence would be sorely lacking in meaning. Here’s the Chinese version of the same sentence:

Here’s a nice surprise—Chinese and English have similar word order, both being subject-verb-object (SVO) languages. That is, in English, we represent key concepts in this order: “vase-is-desk.” (In this sentence, “desk” serves as the object of the preposition “on,” which is why this equation sounds a bit odd.) In Chinese, the schematic turns out to be “vase-placeddesk.” By contrast, Japanese verbs go at the end of sentences. Speaking of verbs, the Chinese make some small additions to express verb tense: 花瓶放在桌上。

(I am) Placing the vase on the desk. vase + am doing + to place + desk + on 放 (fàng) means “the action of doing.”

花瓶在桌上。

花瓶已經放在桌上。

The vase is on the desk. huā píng zài zhuô shàng vase + placed + desk + on

The vase has been placed on the desk. vase + have done + to place + desk + on

What remarkable economy! The Chinese dispense entirely with the small directional words that abound in Japanese. And the meaning comes through clearly.

This sign welcomes travelers to Shanghai. The pinyin of 欢迎您 is huānyíng nín. The ﬁrst character means “happy, pleased.” The second means “to receive, welcome, greet.” Together, these mean “welcome.” The third hanzi is a respectful form of “you,” often used when addressing elders or anyone to whom you want to show respect.

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放 (fàng) again means “the action of doing,” and 已經

(yı ̌ jīng) expresses “already,” functioning as a kind of “-ed.”

# 78 Thematic explorations Animal Signs in the Zodiac In 2000 (the Year of the Dragon, or 龙年, lóng nián), I gave some Chinese-speaking friends a red clock as a wedding present. The twelve Chinese zodiac signs appear on its face in place of numbers. I love that clock, and whenever I visit the couple, I always hope to decipher more characters than before. Unfortunately, I never seem to progress. Next time, I think I’ll bring the cheat sheet shown below. The Japanese column appears here just for comparison purposes. This last column also introduces some confusion! In the context of the zodiac, characters for animals tend to be quite different from characters used in nonzodiacal contexts. That is, the Japanese usually represent “monkey,” “rooster,” “dog,” and “pig” this way: monkey rooster dog pig

猿 (saru) 雄鶏 (ondori) 犬 (inu) 豚 (buta)

But that’s not true in zodiacal contexts, as you can see below in the last four rows of the Japanese column. Meanwhile, in nonzodiacal contexts, the Japanese represent the other eight animals (i.e., “rat,” “ox,” “tiger,” “rabbit,” “dragon,” “snake,” “horse,” and “sheep”) with the corresponding characters in the Traditional

Chinese column. For instance, the nonzodiacal kanji for “rat” is 鼠, which you’ll also see in the Traditional Chinese column. Although eight Japanese zodiacal animals have atypical kanji, the yomi of all the zodiacal characters (e.g., ushi for “cow” and inu for “dog”) correspond to the usual Japanese vocabulary for animals. Here’s another surprise: In the Japanese column, some characters represent partial words. That is, 卯, u, stands for usagi, “rabbit,” and 亥, i, represents inoshishi, “wild boar.” Even further removed from yomi logic, 巳 is read as mi but represents hebi, “snake.” The rest of the kanji seem to function in an ateji-like way, too, in that they have readings or meanings other than the ones with which we usually associate the characters. For example, 子 usually means child. But in the context of the zodiac, with the yomi of ne, 子 ofﬁcially represents the rat and is not considered ateji. All the other kanji here have also ofﬁcially been assigned certain readings and meanings in this one context. Why are there so many irregularities in the Japanese column? I asked a native speaker, who said it’s quite complicated, having to do with several religions and an ancient Chinese system of clocks and compass directions. Well, what’s a zodiac without complication and mystery?!

Animal

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Pinyin

Japanese Zodiac Sign

rat ox tiger rabbit dragon snake horse sheep monkey rooster dog pig

鼠牛虎兔龍蛇馬羊猴雞狗豬

鼠牛虎兔龙蛇马羊猴鸡狗猪

shǔ niú hǔ tù lóng shé mǎ yáng hóu jī gǒu zhû

子 (ne: rat) 丑 (ushi: cow, ox) 寅 (tora: tiger) 卯 (u, representing usagi: rabbit) 辰 (tatsu: dragon) 巳 (mi, representing hebi: snake) 午 (uma: horse) 未 (hitsuji: sheep) 申 (saru: monkey) 酉 (tori: rooster) 戌 (inu: dog) 亥 (i, representing inoshishi: wild boar)

Animal Signs in the Zodiac

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# 79 just the facts Signs for the Traveler Japanese signs may stop Chinese speakers in their tracks when the characters have different meanings. In Japanese, 引 (hi•ku) means “to pull.” But in Chinese, it means “to lead, guide, divert water.” In light of that issue, you may wonder how far your knowledge of kanji will take you in Chinese-speaking

countries, particularly when it comes to reading signs and catching trains. To gauge the differences, I showed some Japanese signs to a Taiwanese man who has lived in Japan. He explained various discrepancies, then laughed and said that Taiwan doesn’t have nearly as many restrictive signs as Japan.

STRIKINGLY DIFFERENT CHARACTERS FOR TRANSPORTATION

Although both Chinese and Japanese represent “car” in the same way (with 車), that’s as much as they seem to share when it comes to characters for transportation. Meaning

Japanese

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

station

駅 eki

站 zhàn

站　

train

電車 densha electricity + car

火車 huǒ̌ chē ﬁre + car

火车

subway

地下鉄 chikatetsu ground + below + iron

地鐵 dì tiě ground + iron

地铁

bus

バス basu

公共汽車 gông gòng qì chē public (1st 2 chars.) + car (last 2 chars.)

公共汽车

taxi

タクシー takushī

出租車 chû zû chē to rent (1st 2 chars.) + car

出租车

IDENTICAL CHARACTERS

Fortunately, when it comes to signs alerting people to important items, the two writing systems agree in many ways. Only the pronunciations differ in the following signs: Characters Used

Meaning

Japanese

Chinese

入口出口注意故障禁煙 (Simp.: 禁烟)

Entrance Exit Caution Out of Order No Smoking

iriguchi deguchi chûi koshô kin‘en

rù kǒu chû kǒu zhù yì gù zhàng jìn yān

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Double Happiness

# 79 just the facts SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS

In several terms, the order of characters changes from one language to the other. Also, the characters may not be identical, but the gist is the same. Meaning

Japanese

Traditional Chinese

Simpliﬁed Chinese

Parking Lot

駐車場 chûshajô

停車場

停车场

tíng chē chǎng

No Parking

駐車禁止 chûsha kinshi

禁止停車

No Photographs

撮影禁止 satsuei kinshi

禁止攝影

jìn zhı ̌ shè yı ̌ng

Do Not Use

使用禁止 shiyô kinshi

jìn zhı ̌ shı ̌ yòng

Under Construction

工事中 kôjichû

shī gông zhông

Danger Open for Business a.m., p.m.

jìn zhı ̌ tíng chē 禁止摄影

禁止使用施工中

危険 kiken

危險

営業中 eigyôchû

營業

午前, 午後 gozen, gogo noon + before, noon + after

禁止停车

危险

wēi xiǎn 营业

yíng yè 上午, 下午

shàng wǔ, xià wǔ previous + noon, latter + noon

ONLY IN JAPAN

Signs containing hiragana tip you off that they’re exclusively Japanese. So it is that お手洗い (otearai: toilet), 切符売り場 (kippu uriba: ticket counter), and 売切 (uriki•re: sold out) exist only in Japan. That’s obviously because of the linguistic differences between Japanese and Chinese. But what about cultural differences? Although the following signs contain only kanji, they too exist only in Japan. It’s interesting to consider whether some of these only-in-Japan signs reﬂect anything about Japanese culture. Kanji

Yomi

Meaning

土足厳禁年中無休案内両替機改札口非常口立入禁止火気厳禁

dosoku genkin nenjû mukyû annai ryôgaeki kaisatsuguchi hijôguchi tachiiri kinshi kaki genkin

Remove Shoes Open Every Day of the Year Information Change Maker Ticket Gate Emergency Exit Keep Out Caution: Flammable

Signs for the Traveler

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# 80 spectacular shapes Double Happiness This is how the Chinese write “double happiness,” pronounced xı ̌. At Chinese weddings, a large red version of this character hangs where the bride and groom will be sure to see it. In Japanese, 喜 means “to be glad, rejoice” (KI, yoroko•bu).

囍

The large character on the front of this wedding invitation is the double-happiness hanzi, drawn with a calligraphic swooshiness. Along the bottom, the same character appears 17 more times in a more rigid typeface. So what we have here is no longer double happiness but rather happiness x 36.

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Double Happiness

ten tips for studying kanji

7 一

Have you caught kanji fever yet? In off moments, do you find yourself tracing kanji in the air? When someone speaks in English, do you flash on how the equivalent Japanese word would look in kanji? Or do you find kanji to be such a struggle that you can never force yourself to study? When kanji feels torturous, it’s hard to find that motivation. A few pointers can smooth the path and let kanjijoy flood in. Except where indicated, all these tips come from my personal experience. You will probably find other methods that suit you better.

Tip 1: Avoid Mindless Drilling

When I ﬁrst started learning kanji, I asked my teacher how to memorize the characters. A kind native speaker with little imagination, she shrugged and said, “I guess you just write them over and over.” Several of my classmates came from China, and they agreed that they had learned by copying each character a hundred times. That sounds like repeatedly writing on the board, “I will not chew gum in class.” What a joyless way to learn! I was therefore thrilled to ﬁnd this observation from James Heisig in Remembering the Kanji: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters: “You have probably gotten into the habit of writing the character several times when memorizing it, whether you need to or not; and then writing it MORE times for kanji that you have trouble remembering. There is really no need to write the kanji more than once, • 179

unless you have trouble with the stroke-order and want to get a better ‘feel’ for it” (p. 45). He recommends instead spending time on the imagery of difficult characters. How liberating this is! And how sensible, as it’s fallacious to think that knowing how to write a character means knowing how to read it. I can write a character fifteen times in one sitting, only to blank out when I see it the next day. Reading and writing kanji seem to draw on different parts of the brain. (That’s not a scientific assessment, just an experiential one.) In other linguistic endeavors, such as studying Japanese vocabulary, production and recognition of a word go hand in hand. That is, if my flash card says hakubutsukan, I should think “museum.” And if my card says “museum,” I should think hakubutsukan. I’ll need both types of knowledge in conversation, so it’s helpful to practice translating in each direction. But I don’t think the same holds true for kanji. When I started learning characters, I worked on 地下鉄 (chikatetsu: subway) until I could write it fairly easily. In reading sentences, though, I always failed to recognize this word, largely because my eye didn’t go to all three characters at once, seeing them as a unit. That leap requires lots of reading practice, something emphasized far too little in the push to draw kanji. I also believe that because certain characters will always prove elusive, it makes little sense to draw them repeatedly. I’ll never be able to memorize the stroke order and configuration of particular kanji, but I can recognize them in a snap. And that’s my whole goal with kanji—deciphering signs and other text. I can readily understand 営業中 (eigyōchū: open for business) and 非常口 (hijōguchi: emergency exit), and I don’t feel compelled to practice writing them. Occasionally, I forget their readings, and even that’s OK with me. I care most about knowing what they mean. Will there ever come a time when I need to draw 博物館 (the famous hakubutsukan) and don’t have a dictionary at hand? I doubt it. It’s more realistic to conserve one’s energy with certain kanji and to focus on simply recognizing them. Fortunately, that’s easy with characters that reveal their meaning through their shapes and sounds. You’ll find a smattering of those in Exhibit 81, “Thematic Explorations: Inadvertently Appropriate Kanji.”

Tip 2: Engage Fully with Each Character

Don’t get me wrong; I do think it’s essential to practice writing characters. I was shocked when a student in my 180 •

Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

intermediate Japanese class said he tried to memorize kanji by looking at them for awhile. Out of everyone in the class, he had the worst grasp of kanji, but I had figured that was just because he never did homework; I’d never imagined that he studied in such a passive way. Writing kanji is crucial because it makes you an active participant in a process. But the writing needs to happen in a meaningful context, I believe. Rather than drilling on paper that soon gets discarded, I like to feel that I’m building something. For each kanji I study, I create a flash card containing everything I know about that character. For example, I jot down kanji compounds containing the character, especially any compound in which I already know the accompanying character. In this way, I build on a foundation, rather than always feeling that I’m starting from scratch. This method also helps me maintain and practice what I’ve learned before. As I record the translations of words containing a particular character, I sometimes spot trends. In presenting 色 (SHOKU, SHIKI, iro: color), my textbook supplied only two compounds, 原色 (genshoku: primary colors) and 特色 (tokushoku: a characteristic), so I searched Spahn for more. He painted a very different picture with this “color.” His word list included “lust” (色好み, irogonomi), “mistress” (色女, iroonna), “love letter” (色文, irobumi), “amorous glance” (色目, irome), and “sexual passion” (色道, shikidō). Through these words, I learned about a side of 色 that I never would have known otherwise. Breaking kanji apart feels even more informative. Taking my cue from Rowley and Henshall, I dissolve characters down to their smallest components. I record this information on the flash card, too, usually creating a mnemonic sentence. See Exhibit 82, “Just the Facts: Flash Card Layout,” for an idea of how a card might display all this information. I then take this analysis a step further, creating flash cards for each component, such as the movement radical (⻌) or the grass radical (艹), and listing all the kanji I know that contain this shape. I even go so far as to create cards for shapes that have no meaning as individual elements but that recur in kanji nonetheless. One card shows all characters containing a cross (e.g., 真, 準, and 苦). Gathering kanji with shared shapes allows me to make unexpected connections and to notice onechoes. When doing this close-up study of components, I find it helpful to give them names. Because ⻌ looks like a 3 when written by hand and because I first

learned ⻌ in the context of 近 (chika•i: near), I call ⻌ “chika 3” (which distinguishes it from “san 3,” 三). The particular names you assign don’t matter; it’s just important to have them. The brain works better with symbols than with vagueness. To find out more about my component classification system, see Exhibit 83, “Just the Facts: Sample Landmark Cards,” and Exhibit 84, “Just the Facts: Landmark Categories.” Truth be told, I don’t remember a fraction of what goes on my cards after I record information there, but that’s not the point. When I emerge from this kind of analysis, I feel I’ve investigated every nook and cranny of a character, making it seem 3-D, alive, and very much mine. Think about how different it feels to pass a dog on the street and to live with him for two months; the latter is comparable to the in-depth knowledge one can attain by analyzing characters. And with both canine cohabitation and kanji analysis, this intimacy can make you fall in love. Or familiarity can breed contempt! I despise certain characters. They’ve betrayed me again and again, their on-yomi flipping in all directions, their strokes refusing to stick in my brain, the meanings vanishing as soon as I need them. I particularly hate characters that strike me as ugly. There’s nothing quite like drawing a shape that looks too creepy for words, such as anything with the humpbacked, hairy “beast” radical, 犭! Visceral responses to kanji sometimes develop without reason. I feel excited whenever I see 農 (NŌ: farming, agriculture), and I can’t begin to explain why, especially as it’s so tough to draw. But whatever the reason and however positive or negative the feelings are, it’s good to let them find full expression. Passion of any kind makes you more likely to remember a character.

Tip 3: Think Holistically About Patterns

Kanji can seem overwhelming unless one draws back from all the strokes and ﬁnds patterns. The adage about seeing the forest and not the trees really kicks in here. When I ﬁrst encountered 暴 (BŌ, aba•reru: to be violent), I had trouble locating it in a dictionary list of compounds because I couldn’t count the strokes. (I could barely even see any.) Finally, I teased the character apart, realizing that it contained 日 (sun) + a structure resembling 寒 (cold) + 水 (water) at the bottom. In terms of reading, it helps immeasurably when you recognize such shapes, rather than losing yourself in minutiae. For more on patterns within characters and compounds, see Exhibit 85, “Thematic Explorations:

Parallel Features.” And to explore patterns among kanji with a certain sort of radical, look at Exhibit 86, “Spectacular Shapes: Swooping and Cradling Characters.” Spotting patterns will prove helpful when you glimpse unknown characters out in the world and need to remember them until you reunite with your dictionary. Let’s say you see 美術 and have no idea how to interpret these nineteen strokes. Try searching for familiar forms. There’s a sheep (羊) on top of 美. What remains when you remove the sheep? Hey, it’s 大 (ō•kii: big)! And how about 術? Well, that has a lot going on, but when you look at it closely, you can identify the two parts of 行 (i•ku: to go), sandwiching a katakana ho (ホ) with an extra stroke on the upper right. Forget about that stroke for now. Just remember a big inverted sheep going toward a hoe (or going “ho ho ho”). By conceiving of four or five things, rather than nineteen, you’ll remember 美術 until you can look it up, finding that it’s bijutsu (fine arts). Viewing sentences holistically is also quite handy. When you read, it’s ideal to take in a whole string of kanji at a time, up to the next kana or even the maru (the hollow period used in Japanese). That’s the goal, anyway—skipping over characters you don’t know and hoping that more familiar kanji will help you fill in the blanks. (I’m terrible at this; I just know it’s the goal!) It’s rather like what a friend told me when I was learning to drive and felt nervous on a winding road: “Don’t respond to all the curves so much. Focus farther ahead.”

Tip 4: Memorize Words with Each Yomi

Rather than trying to memorize particular yomi for a character (which is extremely diﬃcult), memorize a word that uses each yomi. When I think of 資, I associate it with 投資 (tōshi: investment). Similarly, 料 makes my mind go to 料理 (ryōri: cooking, cuisine). So when I encounter 資料, I can build on associations with tōshi and ryōri, thereby deducing the reading (shiryō: materials). It’s easier to think about whole words than about yomi that scads of other characters share (e.g., SHI and RYŌ). Similarly, it’s more natural to think about the meanings of whole words versus the meanings of characters that rarely, if ever, appear alone (e.g., 料, “fee, materials” and 資, “capital, funds”).

Tip 5: Break the Furigana Addiction

When we learned hiragana, the teacher discouraged us from annotating them with romanized readings. We Tip 5: Break the Furigana Addiction

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were incredulous. “You mean, we’re actually going to have to read these characters?!” But before long, it felt fairly comfortable to do so. That wouldn’t have happened if we’d used the crutch of romanization. In terms of kanji, furigana create a similar dependency. When I see a row of small hiragana written underneath kanji, my eye ﬁxates on the lower line and avoids the kanji at all costs. If you’re working on a passage that you intend to read repeatedly for practice, it’s best not to annotate the kanji with furigana. You can make notes on the bottom of the page or in the margins instead. Breaking the furigana dependency will help train your mind to recognize kanji.

Tip 6: Don’t Let Stroke Rules Strangle You

Here’s my unorthodox take on stroke order rules: Only adhere to them insofar as they help you draw characters more fluidly or help you count strokes. If you can’t see that the rules make a difference at a particular time, then don’t worry about them! They’re there to help you, not to strangulate you into writer’s block. Many other aspects of kanji require you to be finicky; save your energy for those. Exhibit 87, “Thematic Explorations: Take Care,” covers some of those situations.

Tip 7: Learn to Use a Dictionary Eﬃciently

If you become a kanji devotee, you’ll want to own at least one specialized kanji dictionary, which could prove to be enormous and expensive (but worth it!). Excellent dictionaries certainly exist online, but printed dictionaries have certain beneﬁts. Exhibit 88, “Just the Facts: Kanji Dictionaries,” examines your options and presents basic methods for navigating kanji tomes, as well as tips on doing so eﬃciently.

Tip 8: Assume There Are Other Readings

You’ve seen 何 loads of times, always reading it as nan or nani (what), so you ﬁgure that’s all there is to that character. But a kanji dictionary also presents these less-common yomi: KA, “what,” and izu•re or do•re, “which.” Surprisingly, 何故 (naze: why) contains 何. Here’s a bigger shock. The ultra-ordinary 食 (SHOKU, ta•beru: to eat) has another side to its personality with these readings: food, eating ha•mu: to eat, feed on, receive (an allowance) JIKI:

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ku•enai: unable to eat, shrewd, cunning ku•eru: to be able to eat ku•rau, ku•u: to eat, drink, receive a blow ku•rawasu: to feed, make (someone) eat, give (someone a punch), trick (someone) Of course, we’ve already talked about how kanji have many yomi, some uncommon. But I mention this now because it’s relevant to dictionary usage. When you’ve looked up scads of surrounding kanji, the last thing you feel like doing is researching 何 or 食. Until you do, though, you may not have the information you need.

Tip 9: Make Time to Study Kanji Regularly

Make room in your life for kanji. Create a regular time to study it, rather than hoping you’ll absorb characters on the fly. Teachers of Japanese conversation and grammar often make kanji a sideline, a mandatory part of the curriculum that they treat as a nuisance. But you can’t take that approach if you hope to get anywhere with kanji. Your mastery of kanji won’t happen on its own. Unlike conversational practice, kanji is a solitary pursuit. It can feel weird to spend hours alone, engrossed in something esoteric (by Western standards anyway). But this is also the joy of studying such complex symbols. You can delve into them as deeply and as idiosyncratically as you like, making them yours, all yours. A little bit of kanji every day helps keep it fresh in the brain. You don’t need a lengthy session. If I spend ten minutes looking up characters I spotted somewhere, that satisfies something inside. But quick visits to the vast world of kanji won’t make me proficient. If I want great clarity about the characters, I need to study three-plus hours a day for at least a week. Then my associations go from being fuzzy to crisply precise, and I can reason my way through what I see, rather than panicking or drawing a blank. But spending three-plus hours on kanji is unsustainable in daily life. It’s a great experience to have once in awhile, like an arduous hike. On regular days, though, walking around the block may have to suffice, metaphorically speaking.

Tip 10: Find Ways of Testing Yourself

Life can seem like one big, ongoing test. That’s a sour way to look at the world, but when it comes to kanji,

this is a positive outlook to have. There are opportunities all around to test your knowledge of kanji. It appears that people develop electronic kanjistudy aids every week. Most include the full range of Jōyō kanji, and some programs are geared toward those studying for the annual Japanese Language Proﬁciency Tests (JLPT). Nowadays, many self-quizzing programs have progress-tracking systems; the software can remember which characters you’ve gotten wrong before and will quiz you on those tough ones more often. Electronic flash cards are common, and they’re good because they don’t let you cheat! That is, you can’t tell yourself that you know certain kanji when your score indicates otherwise. Many kanji-study aids also include stroke-order animations, yomi and deﬁnitions, lists of compounds featuring the kanji in question, and sample sentences for a given character. As so many study aids have similar features, your choice may well depend on what kind of computer you use. For instance, Mac users can take advantage of iKanji from ThinkMac Software. They can download at least two programs—one simply called Kanji, and another called Kanji Flip—from iTunes. Nintendo produces quite a few study aids that require you to own a handheld Nintendo DS console, which features a touchscreen and comes with a stylus. For Nintendo products, the instructions and the software itself may be entirely in Japanese. That’s true of Perfect Kanji: Kakitori Kun. With this learning tool, you can try writing any of the 1,006 characters that Japanese sixth graders know. A digital teacher inside the game judges how well you drew them. Similarly, Nintendo’s DS Bimoji Training comes with a special stylus designed to feel like a calligraphy pen. You can practice drawing nearly 3,100 characters with proper calligraphy, making your strokes curve and slant just so. With My Japanese Coach from Ubisoft Nintendo, you practice your strokes by tracing over the characters you see on the screen. Advanced students might like Nintendo’s なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習完全版 (Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshū: Kanzenhan), as well as 意味までわかる大人の熟語練習角川類語新辞典から5万問

(Imi made Wakaru Otona no Jukugo Renshū: Kadokawa Ruigo Shinjiten Kara 5-Man Mon), which Now Productions has recently released. For much more information on electronic oﬀerings, you can read users’ opinions at http://forum.koohii. com (enter “Kanji Games for the Nintendo DS” as

your search term) or check out the product list at www. whiterabbitpress.com. Free online resources abound, as well, such as Kantango (www.kantango.com), which once helped me prepare for a big kanji exam. The Mnemosyne Project (www.mnemosyne-proj.org) also features kanji flash cards and a progress-tracking system. If you go to Mary Sisk Noguchi’s Kanji Clinic website (www.kanjiclinic.com) and hit “Links,” you’ll see several other possibilities for online self-evaluation. Finally, with a paid membership at the Japanese-language-learning site JapanesePod101.com, you’ll find kanji flash cards with an audio component, JLPT practice tests, and more. The variety of programs available in electronic form and on the Internet is constantly changing. If you can’t ﬁnd any of the projects I’ve mentioned here, use a search engine or other online resources to find programs with similar and ever-improving features. Charts in reference books provide low-tech ways of testing yourself. Spahn contains grids of the most frequently used kanji and of the characters that Japanese kids memorize at each grade level. The yomi and meanings don’t appear; there’s nothing but naked kanji to let you see what you’ve acquired and what remains fuzzy. In Spahn you’ll also find displays of kanji with a common radical (say 3e, 女). How many do you know? The options for quizzing yourself are endless, once you become creative about doing so. If you pass Japanese or Chinese shops, read all the signs you can. On TV stations broadcasting in Japanese and Chinese, subtitles often appear in kanji (or hanzi). Have a go at it and see how well you do. You may even stumble upon kanji in unexpected places such as Wales! To ﬁnd out about that, see Exhibit 89, “Just the Facts: Kanji Wood.”

And We’re Oﬀ (in Several Senses!)

In anything, success has a great deal to do with attitude. That’s especially true of kanji. Whenever I feel more confident about my kanji ability, I find that I can do more. If a teacher hands me a paper containing kanji, I assume that the characters have come from our textbook and that I therefore know them. That keeps me focused on figuring out what they say. By contrast, when I see Japanese signs, I often presume that they contain kanji I’ve never encountered before. Not surprisingly, I can’t read those signs. Later, when I realize And We’re Off (in Several Senses!)

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that I did in fact know those kanji, I kick myself for having assumed otherwise. Kicking oneself is a popular part of the sport of kanji, but of course self-abuse doesn’t help. In the alltoo-likely event of errors, you need to accept yourself. If you find kanji tough, you’re not stupid, and you’re not alone. It’s just that kanji can be, as a classmate said to me one day, a “strucking fuggle.” Kanji makes everyone feel dumb at times, even Japanese people. Kanji is bigger than you are. Don’t fight it any more than you would fight a panther. You won’t win. Accept that you’re small and less-than-fanged, and just admire the panther for all that it is. This will save you considerable mental energy and prevent you from spiraling downward with self-loathing. There’s something peculiar about the way kanji has little staying power in the mind. Titles of several resource books reflect this aspect, especially the title and subtitle of James W. Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters. I believe kanji affords an early glimpse of Alzheimer’s. How many times have I realized that the radical 月 can mean not only “moon” but also “flesh”? Whenever this insight used to hit me as if for the first time, I would flip over my flash card for 脱 (nu•gu: to undress) to record this information, only to see it there already. And then I would remem-

Here’s a puzzle for you. Try reading kanji when they’re inverted and oriented in random ways, as in the photo. A Yokohama bookstore sold this printer’s tray of metal type, which includes the mirror images of kanji, hiragana, punctuation, and numbers. Of course, in the cases of 本 (hon: book, origin) and 日 (NICHI, hi: day, sun), inversion doesn’t make a diﬀerence.

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ber that the same scenario had played out many times before with that very card. These kinds of demoralizing experiences prompt many students to give up on kanji. But I’ve arrived at a different place with this issue. I now find it comforting that I can have the same wonderful insights again and again, always with a fresh, intense feeling! Those of us afflicted with Kanji-Induced Dementia (from which one can derive the acronym KID) are eternally young at heart. By giving ourselves permission not to know, we create room to grow, to learn, and to feel the thrill of discovery. When we put a great deal of emphasis on the knowledge we’ve acquired in life, we forget the joy of not knowing, of feeling a little lost. But that’s precisely the appeal of puzzles and mazes. Easy ones aren’t as fun. Most of us like to tease our brains by cracking the codes of vanity plates. We may figure out the cryptic letters, and we may not, but it’s essentially OK with us not to know. We like to be outwitted at times. Feeling stumped makes us eager for the next challenge. Kanji is an ongoing discovery, an endless game. You’ll certainly find that to be the case in Exhibit 90, “Game: Kanji Crossword.” In this puzzle and in all your kanji pursuits, I wish you every possible success. I hope that you, too, become “crazy for kanji.”

# 81 thematic explorations Inadvertently Appropriate Kanji Some characters provide visual clues to the meanings of singletons and compounds, even when the kanji aren’t pictographs. In the following examples, the comments indicate what the kanji look like.

Kanji That Look Like What They Mean 高 (KÔ, taka•i: tall, expensive) Tall, expensive real estate. 固 (KO, kata•i: hard, stiff) “Old” (古) in a box, which corresponds to our idea of a “stiff”! 費 (SHI, tsui•yasu: expense, cost) A backward dollar sign atop a component associated with money (貝). 脳 (NÔ: brain, memory) Three hairs on a head, with X marking the location of the brain. 殺 (SATSU, koro•su: to kill) Here, the X, along with all the other spiky lines, looks violent. 難 (NAN, muzuka•shii: difficult) A difficult character to remember how to draw! 複雑 (fukuzatsu: complicated) A complicated mess! 均等 (kintô: equal) Equal signs in both characters. The second kanji (hito•shii: equal) seems to be all about equality and balance, with two pieces of bamboo perched symmetrically on top. 渋滞 (jûtai: [traffic] congestion) The first character means “not going smoothly.” In its bottom part I see vehicles converging at a

jammed intersection. As the 止 on top indicates, they’ve completely stopped. The busy second character, 滞 (to stagnate), enhances the sense of chaos. I spot something like a city (市) in its bottom part. 明日 (ashita: tomorrow) You’ll ﬁnd a wonderful bit of logic if you treat the components as autonomous kanji: 日月日. Today’s sun + tonight’s moon + tomorrow’s sun will get you to tomorrow!

Kanji That Sound Like What They Mean Other Japanese words sound like their meanings. Without being loanwords, they happen to sound like English words for the same concepts: 買彼背骨軍乱暴名前移民子孫起懊悩

BAI, ka•u: to buy, purchase HI, kare: he, that

sebone: backbone gun: military ranbô: violence namae: name imin: immigrant shison: descendant o•koru: to occur ônô: anguish

Two more such words require brief explanations: 渦中 (kachû: vortex, maelstrom) Kachû brings to mind a sneeze, and isn’t that a maelstrom in the respiratory system? 強引 (gôin: forced, coercive) You can easily hear a captor’s commanding a captive, “Go in!”

Inadvertently Appropriate Kanji

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# 82 just the facts Flash Card Layout Here are two sample ﬂash cards, ﬁrst the front, then the reverse. The layouts of these cards work well for me, but another approach may work better for you.

test yourself, say the yomi of all four words. Also list as many yomi as you can associate with this kanji.

I. Singleton

The meaning of the character appears in the center of the card. The upper corners display the various yomi, kun to the left (in hiragana), on to the right (in katakana). As indicated, this kanji has two intransitive-transitive verb pairs: osamaru-osameru and naoru-naosu. The on-yomi are JI and CHI. The readings for the words appear halfway down on the left (again in hiragana) and on the right (again in katakana). The left-hand ones say osameru and naosu, whereas the right-hand ones say seijika and

A. Front The information on this card comes from Basic Kanji Book (BKB) by Chieko Kano and others. The number 241 means that 治 (the character in question) is kanji #241 in that series, and “L22” means that 治 comes from Lesson 22. The left-hand column contains vocabulary formed with the kun-yomi of 治. Meanwhile, the right-hand column displays words containing the on-yomi. To

B. Reverse

Singleton Front

241

BKB L22

治

治める治す

政治家明治

ジチ

おさ•まる— intrans. おさ•める— trans. なお•る— intrans. なお•す— trans. おさめる = to govern なおす= to cure

to govern

セイジカ = politician メイジ = Meiji (era)

water氵 self ム

治 stand 台

is to provide mouth 口

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To govern water for your own mouth.

Singleton Reverse

# 82 just the facts Meiji. Visualizing words on the left versus right and in hiragana versus katakana may help you remember whether certain yomi are kun or on. The bottom lines contain a breakdown of the components in the kanji, inspired by Rowley’s analyses in Kanji Pict-o-Graphix. To the right of the breakdown lies a mnemonic sentence containing as many key words as I could lasso at once.

II. Compound A. Front Pretty simple! This word comes from the Situational Functional Japanese (SFJ) series, Lesson 17, as shown. The compound in question is 都合. This type of self-

quizzing is hard because there’s no other information on the front to tip you off about the yomi and meaning. If you don’t know those, think of other words containing these characters. Does that help? B. Reverse The answer lies in the center. The word is tsugô, “circumstances” or “convenience” (written in hiragana no matter what kind of yomi it contains). Analyses of each character appear on either side of the card, including breakdowns, on-yomi, and kun-yomi. You might want to circle or underline the yomi that’s pertinent to this card. Finally, a mnemonic sentence lies at the bottom. The underlined portion is the best English approximation I could make of the word’s yomi.

Compound Front

SFJ L17

都合

都 = capital, metropolis

ト (as in 京都, Kyôto) ツみやこ

合 = to suit, combine

person 者

Compound Reverse

village 阝

つごう circumstances, convenience

ゴウガッあ（う）

Sue, go to Kyoto if it’s suitable and convenient.

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# 83 just the facts Sample Landmark Cards When I learned enough kanji to start mixing them up, I decided to create order out of chaos. I gathered all kanji with a common component and listed them on a single flash card. I suppose you could say it’s a reference card, rather than a flash card, because I don’t use the front and back to quiz myself. But I can still create test situations by covering all but one column and seeing if I know how the rest of the row goes. Below you’ll find some samples. Note that the names of components are my own (or have come from Rowley’s or Henshall’s often fanciful suggestions). Sometimes I create cards for shapes that dictionaries and other reference sources would probably never call “components” (e.g., , “deformed cow,” as in 先, 生, and 告). I realize that the second horizontal stroke in 生 is shorter than the top one, whereas that’s not the case in . But I take liberties with my landmarks. Rather than calling these unorthodox shapes “components,” I call them “landmarks,” as they orient me in the landscape of kanji.

In addition to putting 続 on my card for 冖 (“Carport”), I also include 続 on cards with the landmarks 糸 (“Thread”), 土 and 士 (“Soil and Samurai”), and 儿 (“Legs”). Therefore, it’s not as if “Carport” is an exclusive categorization for 続. Such exclusivity could limit my ability to locate this character in my system, Instead, I can find it any number of ways. I’ve learned that this is one case in which repeating myself proves incredibly useful. By adding a character such as 続 to my flash card file, I end up writing it on four cards (jotting down its yomi and meaning each time). And that imprints something on the brain—not only the readings and translation but also a sense that four discrete parts occupy certain positions in this kanji. If you can visualize the layout of characters, you’ve won half the battle. Whenever I need to write kekkon (marriage), I gear up to draw two kanji with identical structures— one component on the left and two stacked ones on the right. On a good day, I can fill in the blanks and produce 結婚. Most days I can’t!

Landmark: 广, “Building Frame”

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Kanji

Kun-Yomi

広店度

ひろ•いみせたび

コウテンド

府

–––

フ

座席

すわ•る –––

ザセキ

Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

On-Yomi

Meaning wide, spacious shop degree, frequency administrative prefecture to sit seat

# 83 just the facts Landmark: 厂, “Lean-to” Kanji

Kun-Yomi

On-Yomi

歴返

— かえ•る, かえ•す

レキヘン

農

—

ノウ

備原願産感顔反

そな•える, そな•わるはらねが•うう•む — かお —

ビゲンガンサンカンガンハン

Meaning career to return (an item) farming, agriculture to provide ﬁeld, origin to request to produce to feel, sense face opposite

Landmark: 冖, “Carport” Kanji

Kun-Yomi

On-Yomi

写

うつ•る, うつ•す

シャ

運深続受寝

はこ•ぶふか•いつづ•くう•ける, う•かるね•る

ウンシンゾクジュシン

Meaning to copy, to project to carry, fate deep to continue to receive to sleep

(The last three kanji here have the landmark tucked midway down their structures.)

Sample Landmark Cards

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# 84 just the facts Landmark Categories In Exhibit 83 we focused on 广 (“Building Frame”), 厂 (“Lean-to”), and 冖 (“Carport”). All three landmarks come from the same landmark category, “Buildings and Roofs.” That is to say, I file landmark flash cards by category. This is crucial because they do accumulate, and if you can’t find them efficiently, they won’t serve you well. Below you’ll find a personal, idiosyncratic list of the categories with which I organize landmarks, along with just a few of the many kanji in each category. Each group represents one flash card, which would resemble the ones displayed in Exhibit 83. I present this as a way to get you started on your own similar system, should you so choose. If you want something more “official,” Basic Kanji Book, Vol. 2, and Intermediate Kanji Book have pattern indexes that group kanji by radicals. However, that approach excludes some of the oddball shapes I’ve collected. Also, those indexes present radicals only in a certain position within kanji (e.g., on top, on the bottom, on the left, on the right, etc.). I find it helpful to think more broadly about the issue. That allows me to collect 白 and 階 on the same card, “Acute Accent,” filed under “Rays and Legs,” as you’ll see below.

Buildings and Roofs (including anything vaguely architectural) Building Frame (广) Lean-to (厂) Carport (冖) House Roof (宀) Takai Roof (亠) Steps (彳) Gate (門) Hill, Village (阝)

広歴写安高待間都

店返運宅京行聞階

度農深家文彼問院

先政毎鉄石太

生教海銀面犬

告数族鈞残笑

Diagonal Lines Deformed Cow ( ) Strike (攵) Handle ( ) Money (金) Weird T ( ) Big (大)

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Cut-through (丿) Kana He (へ)

史会

者合

必今

天近形写究真

賛遊残号雑準

暖返実考熱苦

Numbers 2 (二) Chika 3 (⻌) San 3 (彡) 5( , ) 9 (九) 10 (十)

Katakana E (エ) 式試空午話活 Chi (チ) 公港器 Ha (ハ) Hi (ヒ) 指階老術述 Ho (ホ) 勉効加 Ka (カ) 放族遊 Segmented Ka (方) 場物約 Stunted Ka (勹) 旅遠園 Weird Ke ( ) 色急魚 Ku (ク) Ma (マ) 予冷野 Mu (ム) 私払強友有右 The ritten Na (ナ) dw 礼社神 hansion of this Ne (ネ) r . ve ins マ初裕複 Complex Ne (衤) conta 友経寝 Nu (ヌ) 帰割別 Ri (リ) 夕多移 Ta (タ) 冬夏落 Long Ta (夂) Takai-Mu ( ) 育流 (combining Takai Roof [亠] and Mu [ム]) 帰住紙 Yo (ヨ, E, 王)

Tools and Weapons Sword (刀) Fishhook (卩) Rake ( ) Dart (矢) Needle’s Eye (立)

分服書短音

切報静知商

留印事医接

# 84 just the facts Grill ( ) Ladder ( ) Ax (斤) Thread (糸) Halberd (戈) Partial Halberd (弋)

研面所練成貸

形済折終感式

期質結議代

Body Parts Head (頁) 頭願類急思悪 Heart (心) 性情快 Arrow Through Heart (忄) 聞取恥 Ear (耳) 味同合 Mouth (口) 辞活 Tongue (舌) Hand (扌) 持押打室屋到 Dirty Arm (至) (Heisig [kanji #753] sees 至 as an elbow hanging from the ceiling [ ] with soil [土] below. I abbreviate this as “Dirty Arm.”)

化次好学

仕以始教

借座妻遊

黒会電治冬美鳥駅記地茶答村頭私

赤転雲涼寒着島験引場荷笑様短科

談伝雪洗次議

Nature Fire (灬, , 火) Cloud (云) Rain (雨) Water (氵) Ice, Ice Chips (冫, ) Sheep (羊) Bird (鳥) Horse (馬) Snake (己, 弓) Soil and Samurai (土, 士) Grass (艹) Bamboo (竹) Tree (木) Beans (豆) Watashi Grain (禾)

数料歯情割表静情晴 has a plant on top.)

Rays and Legs 業学病説楽非科白約記真院

当覚疲並様悲料向太誌寒売

階主訪選見

朝週対時原予水以

前市得待願務静良

有橋府持涼欠呼風

Sun (日) 百県 Eye (目) 質 Shell (貝) 買 Net (罒) 町 Rice Field (田) 理 Dirty Rice Field (里) Incomplete Grid (隹, 用, ) 離 ”P” (尸) 所中 Rectangle ( ) 価 Basket (覀) 温 Dish (皿) 運 Car (車)

明組題置番黒備民号悪盗連

晩真員

Equally Spaced Rays ( ) Gaku Rays ( ) Sickness (疒) Horns (丷) 4 Side Rays ( ) 6 Side Rays (非) Rice Measure (斗) Acute Accent ( ) Grave Accent (丶) Words (言) Table Legs ( ) Pi Legs (儿)

消単痛洋求

Hooks

People Person (亻) Hito (人) Onna (女) Child (子)

Rice Star (米) Plant ( ) Blue (青) (In “Nature” because 青

驚起経薬簡業喜秋

Moon (月) Moon Frame (冂) Inch (寸) Temple (寺) Little (小) Horizontal Hook ( ) Left Hook (亅) Right Hook ( )

Quadrangles

留野論眠史要盆軽

Landmark Categories

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# 84 just the facts Easily Confused (my personal challenges, with mnemonics presented for some) Exchange (交)

効

校

較

Tomo Grid ( )

共

港

選

Stop (止) vs. Tada•shii (正) vs. Rooﬂess Tei ( )

歴正定

歩政足

歯走

報 (HÔ, muku•iru: to report) Dirty yen (土 + ¥)—seize and report to me, hô.

横

起

Halberd Shack ( ) 成 (SEI, na•ru: to form) An ear forms, they sei. (I see an ear inside the “shack.”)

Characters including “to seize” ( ), “happiness” (幸), and spicy (辛, which I think of as takai yen, because it contains 亠 + ¥)

服 (FUKU: clothes) My ﬂesh (月) seizes up on me with these clothes. 題

辞 (JI, ya•meru: to resign, term) Resign, and you’ll be licking (舌) spices (辛). Sun and Eye 質 (SHITSU: question, quality) Ax (斤) a question and you shell (貝) receive shitsu.

減 (GEN, he•ru: to decrease) The water (氵) level gen(erally) decreases.

宿 (SHUKU, yado: lodging) The Shuku lodge holds 100 (百) people (亻).

感 (KAN: to feel, sense) The heart (心) kan feel.

題 (DAI: title, theme) Son (日: sun), if you get kicked ( foot) in the head, you’ll dai.

Dover Publications printed a small book of temporary kanji tattoos. You peel back the protective plastic on top, press the image face-down on the skin, moisten the back of the paper (to activate the ink), and then lift up, leaving behind a “tattoo” that should last three to ﬁve days. The kanji here are all mirror images of the characters you would produce with this method. From left to right, they are: 平 (HEI: peace), 幸 (KŌ: good fortune), 美 (BI: beauty), 愛 (ai: love), 安 (AN: tranquility), 福 (FUKU: happiness), 英 (EI: excellence), and 健 (KEN: health). You may know 英 as “England” in 英語 (eigo: English). But it also has other meanings. “Courage” doesn’t seem to be one of them, even though that’s what the tattoo book says.

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Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

resembles 足,

# 85 thematic explorations Parallel Features Here is a memory trick that I’ve found very useful. In a few kanji with right-hand and left-hand sides, the ﬁrst strokes in each element look alike. Consider these: 作物

SAKU, tsuku•ru: to make BUTSU, MOTSU, mono: thing

Now visualize them as separate components: 亻牛

乍勿

The initial stroke for all four components is a diagonal line on the upper left. We see this pattern again in a different way with this character: 持

JI, mo•tsu: to hold, have

It resolves into the following components: 扌

寺

Each starts with a + sign of sorts, though this may not be obvious until you draw them. Now look at the next character: 硬

This one doesn’t fit the pattern in terms of stroke order; you start 石 by drawing a T shape, but you don’t approach 更 that way. However, the finished product makes the left-hand and right-side look like T-twins, and it might help if you remember this kanji as such. The pattern of parallel strokes applies to at least one compound: 先生

sensei: teacher

The ﬁrst four strokes are alike in 先 and 生! Finally, it may help to remember the following compounds if you focus on the identical components each contains: 健康全国

kenkô: health zenkoku: the entire nation

In 健康, you see two variations on a “writing brush” (聿), and then 全国 includes two instances of a “king” (王). We saw many more examples of repeating components in Exhibit 47, “Thematic Explorations: LookAlikes in Compounds.”

KÔ, kata•i: hard, stiff

In Japan, people hang paper lanterns (提灯, chōchin) outside drinking establishments, shops selling yakitori (skewers of grilled chicken and vegetables), and the like to attract business. If there is kanji on the paper, the typeface style is usually chōchinmoji. The lanterns here are from China, where shop owners similarly use lanterns to attract attention. The middle one says 福 (FUKU: good fortune), whereas the one to the right says 春 (haru: spring).

Parallel Features

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# 86 spectacular shapes Swooping and Cradling Characters The component ⻌ means “movement,” and it certainly creates that feeling as it swoops beneath other shapes, extending to the right. That happens in these common kanji: 近返遊適過連退

KIN, chika•i: near HEN, kae•su: to return, answer

order, you start by drawing the items to the right, then end with ⻌ or 廴. But in another type of kanji construction, you draw the swooper in preparation for a component that will go on top. In the following examples, it looks as if the bottom line is cradling the soon-to-be-drawn component: 起勉題趣越

YÛ, aso•bu: to play TEKI, kana•u: suitable KA, su•giru: to exceed REN, tsu•reru: to take along, connect TAI, shirizo•ku: to retreat

Another swooping form, 廴, also means “movement.” The following characters contain 廴: 建健延

超

KI, o•kiru: to rise, rouse, happen BEN: exertion, endeavor DAI: title, theme SHU, omomuki: gist, to tend ETSU, ko•su: to surpass, cross over,

Vietnam CHÔ, ko•eru: to transcend, super-, ultra-

Finally, here’s an oddball with the swooper in the middle of the character:

KEN, ta•tsu, ta•teru: to build KEN, suko•yaka: healthy

導

EN, no•biru: to prolong

All these bottom liners provide the ﬁnishing touches on characters. That is, if you follow the stroke

DÔ, michibi•ku: to guide, lead

We saw this one at the tail-end of Exhibit 24 in “Game: Radicals.”

STRANGE THINGS ON THE MOVE

逐運週道迫進透迭迷逝速違遠

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What’s Apparently Moving

Yomi and Meaning of Whole Kanji

pig army perimeter neck, head white bird excellence to lose rice to fold bundle tanned leather long kimono

CHIKU: to accomplish

Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

UN, hako•bu: to advance SHÛ: week DÔ, michi: road, way HAKU, sema•ru: to draw near SHIN, susu•mu: to advance TÔ, su•kasu: to penetrate TETSU: to transfer, alternation MEI, mayo•u: to lose one’s way SEI, yu•ku: departed, to die SOKU, haya•i: fast I, chiga•i: difference EN, tô•i: far

# 87 thematic explorations Take Care Kanji reminds me of calculus, particularly integration by parts. (Remember that?!) Both involve fussy details that require considerable concentration. If you make the slightest mistake, you can alter the results significantly. For that reason, be sure to double-check the kanji you write by hand. Here are a few potential trouble spots that particularly come into play when you take tests. 1. When using hiragana or rômaji to write the yomi of a kanji, don’t shorten long vowels. It’s easy to forget the long o when indicating the reading for, say, 投資 (tôshi: investment) or when typing that compound. But a short o gives you toshi, which means “year” (年) or “city” (都市). 2. Conversely, don’t lengthen a vowel when a word doesn’t call for that. It’s hard to remember which o’s are long and which are short in a word such as 歩道橋 (hodôkyô: footbridge). It helps to think about other contexts in which these syllables appear. For instance, 道 lends the DÔ sound to many of the words we saw in Exhibit 62, “Thematic Explorations: The Way of Culture and the Arts.” 3. If it tires you out to write a complicated bit of kanji, you may forget the rest of the compound or its okurigana. This often happens to me with 難しい (muzukashii: difficult). 4. When you need okurigana, it’s easy to write too little or too much. That is, when you write tsukuru (to make), it’s hard to remember whether 作 represents tsu or tsuku. (It’s the latter.) Make sure your choice of okurigana reflects the yomi precisely. I’ve long searched for memory tricks or patterns to help me with this issue but have unfortunately come up empty. Exhibit 86 contains several toughies: 過 (su•giru); 連 (tsu•reru); 延 (no•biru); 起 (o•kiru); and 超 (ko•eru). Whew, that’s a lot of exceptions to remember!

5. It’s easy to combine two similar shapes while drawing. I’ve added horse hair to a bird, making a hybrid creature that doesn’t exist. (Then again, “horsefeathers” means “nonsense,” so perhaps it’s appropriate after all!) That is, to draw 集 (atsu•meru: to collect), I started with 隹 (bird) and ﬁnished the character just as one would ﬁnish 馬 (horse). It all feels logical enough to the hand, so make sure to keep the mind on the job, too. 6. When two kanji have similar components but different arrangements, it’s easy to forget the order of things. I can never remember where to put the 阝 in 障 (SHÔ of koshô, “broken”) versus 部 (BU of zenbu, “all”). And I confuse the layout of 部 with that of 暗 (AN, kura•i: darkness) and 音 (ON, oto: sound). Perhaps when it comes to kanji, we should feel happy if we can remember anything at all!

Careful attention to kanji study will help you reach the pinnacle of literacy and ﬂuency! Tomohiro Matsuzaki has already reached the mountaintop. After climbing Mount Iwasuge (岩菅) in Nagano Prefecture, he reached the 2,295-meter summit (山頂, sanchō). For those of us who don’t think in meters, that’s more than 7,500 feet. お疲れさまでした！(Otsukaresamadeshita: Well done!)

Take Care

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# 88 just the facts Kanji Dictionaries Buying a kanji dictionary is tricky and somewhat paradoxical. You need to buy one and spend a lot of time learning its ways before deciding whether you really want to own it. By then, you’ve probably exceeded the store’s time limit for returning books. Also, if you want to know how that dictionary stacks up against others, you’ll need to buy those, too! Or maybe you want a portable, electronic dictionary (電子辞書: denshi jisho), which everyone in my advanced Japanese classes considered indispensable. If you often need a dictionary when you’re away from your desk (e.g., while traveling through Japan), an electronic gadget may indeed suit you best. Deskbound sorts often find that online resources such as Jim Breen’s site (www.csse.monash. edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C) entirely meet their needs. I use that site constantly and can’t imagine how I lived without it. I won’t make a recommendation about print versus electronic, but I can share my experience. When I bought a denshi jisho, I figured I was an intermediate user and selected one advertised for that level. Lo and behold, the thick user’s manual was entirely in Japanese. So was the interface, until by some stroke of luck I figured out how to change it to English. I could never figure out how to use the machine in any meaningful or efficient way, so I returned it (proceeding to get burned by the company’s return policy, but that’s another story). My new rule of thumb: If you’re so unmechanical that you struggle to check cell phone messages, you’ll likely be none too adept at a denshi jisho. Save yourself a few hundred dollars. Print dictionaries will run you more in the range of $40 to $70. I own three popular ones: • •

•

The Kanji Dictionary by Mark Spahn and Wolfgang Hadamitzky The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary, originally by Andrew N. Nelson and revised by John H. Haig The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary by Jack Halpern

Each has a different look-up method, and all have pluses and minuses. I’ve used Spahn for years, so I’m biased toward that. I’ll tell you what I know about the

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others, then share detailed information about Spahn. The revised Nelson has disappointed many who adored the classic version. Based on a new “Universal Radical Index” (URI), the book now allows you to look up characters based on virtually any component you spot in the kanji. As the revised Nelson says, “Attention to detail and a forgiving attitude toward inexperienced users has resulted in an index in excess of 30,000 individual listings, or roughly four to ﬁve for any given character.” This built-in redundancy means that the book weighs four pounds. And as one disgruntled user wrote on Amazon.com, the redundancy of the URI “is analogous to equipping a car with 5 extra gas tanks and 4 extra engines—in case you run out of gas or have some sort of engine problem.” Some say it’s hard to get the hang of the URI. I confess

# 88 just the facts

that the only part of Nelson I’ve ever used is the yomi index. Although assorted people praise Nelson for its completeness, others point to a major flaw. It provides only compounds that include a given kanji in the first position. Take 純. The one word with which I associate this kanji is 単純 (tanjun: simplicity), but Nelson doesn’t include it, because 純 occupies the second position in this compound. Halpern is by far the most portable and affordable of the three. Geared toward beginners, Halpern helps you learn as you look up kanji. In the case of 活, you’ll find two meanings, “active” and “live.” Halpern first presents compounds influenced by the meaning “active” (e.g., 活動, katsudô: activity), then lists those informed by “live” (e.g., 生活, seikatsu: life, existence, livelihood). This arrangement thereby conveys etymological information in a clear, concise way. The compact dictionary lists only eighteen compounds for 活, whereas Spahn and Nelson each provide more than sixty. But multiple Amazon reviews have said

that Halpern presents the compounds you’re likely to need. Halpern has invented a SKIP (System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns) method, involving the layout of each character (e.g., whether you can divide it into left and right parts). One Amazon user found SKIP easy to use but would rather have acquired practice in using radicals, as that skill is transferable to other dictionaries. And that brings us to Spahn. After buying this 1,766-pager, I gazed at it fearfully for weeks, having no idea how to use it. But once I took a few tentative stabs at it, I fell deeply in love, for all the wonderful words it allowed me to ﬁnd serendipitously. Spahn is incredibly thorough, providing almost every compound you could hope to ﬁnd. The book also contains fascinating, information-packed appendixes. But this thoroughness does add up to 4.5 pounds. As much as I adore Spahn, I never bothered to read the “user’s manual” until recently. How much time I’ve wasted, not knowing how to use the book properly!

Kanji Dictionaries

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# 88 just the facts And yet . . . the brain can take in information only when it’s ready to do so. There’s no way I could have absorbed all the tricks of the trade when I first started looking up kanji. Gradually, one is ready to become more sophisticated, as with any tool. You can search Spahn by radical or by yomi. Let’s start with a sample radical search. If you want to find out what 酒 means (and don’t know the yomi), consult the radical chart. Your choices will be 3a, 氵(the water radical), and 7e, 酉. For some reason, whenever water is present, that trumps all other radicals, so the answer is 3a. You can turn to the 3a section of the book and find the kanji there (by scanning one and a half pages of small 3a characters, as I unthinkably used to do!). Or you can count the number of residual strokes in 酒. That is, take the total stroke count of the character (10) and subtract the number of strokes in the radical (3). Your residual stroke count is 7. Now you have 3a7._ , nearly the whole Spahn code for 酒. (The underline represents the digit that’s still unknown to us.) You can flip to the few pages of 3a7 listings to find 酒, conveniently the first kanji presented in this category. Spahn has consolidated the typical set of 214 radicals into 79. I think this makes life simpler, though others disagree. A huge weakness of his approach is that he considers nearly three hundred characters to have no radical. As a result, they’re lumped together in 143 pages, and you can’t find them via a radical search. This unclassified group includes many common kanji, such as 気 (KI: spirit), 北 (HOKU, kita: north), and 出 (SHUTSU, de•ru: to go out). One thing I wish I’d done earlier is study Spahn’s chart of radical variants in the front. It isn’t beach reading, but it is essential if you don’t want to waste a half hour trying to locate 忄 in the dictionary, only to realize later that this radical is a variant of 心. Fortunately, a yomi index is a convenient fallback with any kanji dictionary. If you know at least one reading of a character, you can locate it in the book. The main yomi for 酒 are SHU and sake, and you can look up either word in the yomi index, arranged in Spahn according to a Western alphabet (not a kana syllabary). Somewhat annoyingly, Spahn’s yomi index differentiates between kun and on readings, providing

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Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

separate categories for AI and ai, to take one example. If you’re looking for ai, you’ll need to know whether you’re working with a kun- or on-yomi (or else you can scan both groups of listings). In any case, both SHU and sake will lead you to listings for 3a7.1 fairly quickly. Even so, there are ways to speed up a Spahn yomi search. Here are some tips: •

Let’s say you want to look up 離 in the yomi index so you can ﬁnd compounds containing this kanji. And let’s say you know both the kunyomi (hana•reru) and the on-yomi (RI). Work with hana•reru, because you’ll ﬁnd only three listings for that word, rather than thirty-four for RI. That’s typically true of kun- versus on-yomi, because as we saw in Exhibit 46, “Thematic Explorations: Syllabic Similarity,” on-yomi are limited and repetitive.

•

Now you want to know what 式典 says. Let’s say you know the first yomi, SHIKI, but not the second. Rather than looking up the latter kanji (as instinct would tell you to do), look up 式. You already know its yomi, so it won’t take long for you to locate that reading in the yomi index. (It’s much more confusing to isolate the radical, which is 戈, oddly enough.) Once you arrive at the page containing 式 compounds, scan the ones with eight-stroke characters (e.g., 典) in the second position. You’ll find that 式典 is shikiten, “ceremony.” Although you still won’t know that 典 means “code” or “ceremony,” you’ll know its reading, which enables you to find it in the yomi index. I think that’s faster than figuring out that its radical is 丷. I never would have guessed that!

•

Say you already know the radical and yomi of 典 but want to see words formed with this kanji. Look up 丷 to see its radical code—2o. Now locate TEN in the yomi index. There are about sixty such listings. But when you look at the index, you can head right for the 2o section under TEN. You don’t need to read over all the entries, as I used to do.

Using a printed kanji dictionary is never a quick affair, so efﬁcient methods such as these are critical.

# 89 just the facts Kanji Wood If you’re thinking of traveling to countries rich in kanji, consider Wales! The characters are a central attraction in one part of Afan Forest Park, near the South Wales town of Neath. In some senses, the park dates back to the World War II era, when the British government bought large tracts of sheep-grazing land from farmers and planted conifers high in the hills. These contrasted beautifully with the original ancient oak woodlands on the lower slopes. With the lovely Afan River snaking along the valley ﬂoor, all was paradisial, except for one thing. A robust coal-mining industry had blighted the valley, polluting waterways and depositing slag heaps. When the last mines closed in the 1970s, this only made matters worse, leaving many people unemployed and the region depressed. Things turned around in the late 1970s when Sony and Panasonic (as well as Ford Motor Company) opened factories in the Bridgend-Swansea area, restoring jobs. Land restoration also began, primarily in the park, which was formally established in 1972 as Afan Argoed Country Park and renamed in 1993. The clean-up effort brought back trees and streams, which encouraged wildlife to return. In 1984, this effort inspired a former Neath resident to do something similar in Japan’s Nagano Prefec-

ture, where he lives. Impressed by a visit to the Welsh park, C. W. Nicol—a well-known naturalist, author, and longtime Japanese citizen—bought parcels of neglected woodland in Nagano and nursed them back to health. Nicol donated the land to a prefectural trust, with which Afan Forest Park now has a close relationship, too. Nicol’s actions inspired a sense of a WelshJapanese link. Moreover, 2002 marked the hundredth anniversary of an alliance between the United Kingdom and Japan. On top of that, the Welsh community wanted to solidify their ties with the Japanese who had moved to Wales to work for Sony and Panasonic. For all these reasons, the staff of the Forestry Commission of Wales planted Japanese trees and shrubs in a small section of the park. Later, the head gardener teamed up with the local Japanese community to create “Kanji Wood.” This garden includes flowerbeds and picnic tables that, from a bird’s-eye view, form the shapes for人 (hito: person), 森 (mori: forest), and 生 (i•kiru: to live). Large wooden sculptures feature the same three kanji. One Japanese visitor wondered why the park had a kanji for “cow” (牛, ushi). As it turns out, the grass around it needed mowing. The tall grass had obscured the bottommost stroke in 生.

This is 生, which has scads of meanings, many of them related to “life.” In Exhibit 20, “Just the Facts: The Empty Sky and Other Variable Meanings,” we saw just how many yomi this character has.

Kanji Wood

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# 90 game! game! game! game! Kana Needed: N / Kanji Level: 3 / Difﬁculty Level: 3

Kanji Crossword 1

Ganbatte kudasai!

200 •

Ten Tips for Studying Kanji

# 90 game! game! game! game! ACROSS

DOWN

3. 5. 6. 8. 9. 11. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 22. 23. 25. 26. 28. 29. 30.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 41. 42. 44.

45. 46.

Carpenter Traﬃc, transportation Air, atmosphere Household chores Doghouse (dog + little + house) Focal point (center + heart + point) Probably Western-style food Psychiatry (lit., the study of the divine spirit) Operating room (surgery + room) University student Dwarf, midget, or child Active Overseas (sea + outside) Volcano One year Work Device for measuring wind speed (wind + speed + measuring instrument) Prophet (in advance + word + person) Region To disembark from vehicles Painter Pastime shared by U.S. and Japan Women’s handwriting (i.e., old name for hiragana) Journalist __ __ __ go means “silence” (lit., “no words, no language”) Habit, way, peculiarity (to learn + character, nature) Unfortunate, regrettable Like learning swimming on dry land; i.e., useless book learning vs. life experience (cultivated ﬁeld + water + training) Business holiday (to rest + business + day) Killing two birds with one stone

2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 10. 12. 13. 14. 15. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 24. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 33. 34. 36. 37. 38. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Japanese dog (Hint: Not a breed but all Japanese dogs) yaoya (vegetable store) Landlord Under construction Intersection Feeling, mood Check used in banking (little + stamp) Psychology (lit., studying the reasons of the heart and mind) Polytheistic (many + gods + religion + -ic) Department, section (division + subject of study) Western-style room Adult Life Minor (not yet + adulthood [to become + year] + person) Major northern Japanese island Hill Animal Fire High-speed A word or two (Hint: Be literal here!) ______ ga nai means “It cannot be helped.” Windmill (wind + car) Planner Planet Earth Unskillful Vegetable garden (vegetable + cultivated ﬁeld) Female Anniversary Phoenix (the bird, not the city; lit., the bird that doesn’t die) Practice, training, drill Overtime One by one

Kanji Crossword

• 201

終

Answer Key Exhibit #4 “Game: What Do You Get?” 1. a. Beautiful: 美, utsuku•shii, is 羊 (sheep) on top of 大 (big). 2. d. Teaching: 教, oshi•eru, is 孝 (filial piety) + 攵 (to strike). 3. Both c and d are right. 親 means “intimate” when read as shita•shii, “parent” when read as oya, and either one when read as SHIN. The left side of 親 means “needle,” and the right side (見) means “to see.” 4. c. Yes, it’s bizarre, but in terms of kanji, the answer is “special,” 特, TOKU, which combines 牛 (cow) with 寺 (temple). 5. Both c and d are right. 忙, isoga•shii, means “busy” and combines 忄 (heart) with 亡 (to die), placing them side by side. 忘, wasu•reru, means “to forget” and combines 亡 with 心 (also “heart”) but stacks one atop the other. 6. b. Public: 公, KŌ, combines 八 (to split) with ム (self ). 7. a. Snow: 雪, yuki, stacks 雨 (rain) atop ヨ (a hand holding a brush). 8. d. Blowfish: 河豚, fugu, puts one rendering of “river” (河) alongside “pig” (豚). 9. c. Whale: 鯨, kujira, combines 魚 (fish) with 京 (capital). Years ago, filmmakers combined kujira with gorira (gorilla) to produce Gojira (“Godzilla” in Japanese). 10. d. Paradise: 楽園, rakuen, mixes 楽 (pleasure) with 園 (garden).

Exhibit #19 “Game: Kun or On?” 1. a. yama (kun)

b. SAN (on)

2. a. kuruma (kun) b. SHA (on) 3. a. KŌ (on)

b. taka•i (kun)

4. a. GETSU (on)

b. GATSU (on)

c. tsuki (kun) d. GETSU (on)

Exhibit #20 “Game: One Kanji, So Many Yomi” 1. なごやかなおんなのひとはわしょくにみそをあえると、きもちがやわらぎます。 Nagoyakana onna no hito wa washoku ni miso o aeru to, kimochi ga yawaragimasu. When a congenial woman puts miso in Japanese food, it makes her feel calm. 2. かれはふくをぬいで、せかいからだっして、だつぞくになりました。

3. かれはせいりょくてきにこめのせいせいほうをくわしくせつめいしました。 Kare wa seiryokutekini kome no seiseihō o kuwashiku setsumei shimashita. With great energy, he gave a detailed, precise description of how he refines rice. 4. かれは、じっさいに、まことのこころでぜんぶのきにくだものときのみがみのるといいました。 Kare wa, jissai ni, makoto no kokoro de zenbu no ki ni kudamono to ki no mi ga minoru to iimashita. He actually said with real sincerity that all trees bear fruits and nuts. 5. はなののはらでうまれて、あのがくせいは、いけばなをするのとみしょうをはやすのがすきです。 Hana no nohara de umarete, ano gakusei wa, ikebana o suru no to mishō o hayasu no ga suki desu. Born in a field of flowers, the student likes arranging flowers and growing seedlings. 6. じてんしゃがなおせないとこまっていたこどもがいました。せいねんがきて「すぐなおるよ」と、じめんにじかにすわってただちにさぎょうにかかり、「じきにいえにかえれるからね」とやさしくいいました。 Jitensha ga naosenai to komatte ita kodomo ga imashita. Seinen ga kite, “Sugu naoru yo,” to, jimen ni jikani suwatte tadachi ni sagyō ni kakari, “Jikini ie ni kaereru kara ne,” to yasashiku iimashita. A child was in trouble, unable to fix his bicycle. A young man came and said, “It’ll be fixed right away,” and he immediately sat down right on the ground and got to work fixing the bike. He said kindly, “You can go home right away.”

Exhibit #24 “Game: Radicals” 1. The answer is three: hen (偏), kanmuri (冠), and nyō (遶). 2. The kanji 導 is (DŌ, michibi•ku, shirabe: to guide, lead). Spahn says the radical is 目. (It's hard to see how he ﬁgured it this way.) Nelson, Halpern, and Breen have the radical as 寸.

Kare wa fuku o nuide, sekai kara dasshite, datsuzoku ni narimashita. He took oﬀ his clothes, escaped from the world, and became a hermit.

• 203

Exhibit #28 “Game: Which Is Which?” 1. おおきくてふとったいぬですね。 Ōkikute futotta inu desu ne.

Exhibit #34 “Game: The Missing Link” 1. 少 9. 右

2. 京 3. 自 4. 楽 5. 間 6. 欠 7. 谷 8. 古 10. 各 11. 雷 12. 東 13. 歯 14. 取 15. 音

That's a big, fat dog, isn't it? 2. とくべつなものをもって、おてらでまっています。

Exhibit #35 “Game: Create a Kanji”

Tokubetsuna mono o motte, otera de matte imasu.

Kanji

Formation

Yomi

Holding something special, I'm waiting at the temple.

1. 歩

(止 + 少)

HO, aru

to walk

2. 京

(亠 + 口 + 小)

KYŌ, KEI

capital

3. 間

(門 + 日)

KAN, aida

between

4. 簡

(竹 + 門 + 日)

KAN

simple

5. 古

(十 + 口)

KO, furu

old

6. 右

(一 + 丿 + 口)

U, YŪ, migi

right (i.e., not left)

7. 各

(夂 + 口)

KAKU, ono•ono

each

8. 竜

(立 + 日 + 乚)

RYŪ, tatsu

dragon

3. セミナーでわたしはちゃくせきしましたが、ともだちはけっせきしたので、とうとうそとにでて、もういちどどうろをわたりました。 Seminā de watashi wa chakuseki shimashita ga, tomodachi wa kesseki shita node, tōtō soto ni dete, mō ichi do dōro o watarimashita. I took a seat at the seminar, but my friend was absent, so I ﬁnally left and once again crossed the street. 4. このしゅうまつ、まだ、おっとがみつかっていません。 Kono shūmatsu, mada, otto ga mitsukatte imasen. This weekend I haven't yet found a/my husband. 5. からだをやすめたいので、このきのしたできゅうけいして、ほんをよみます。 Karada o yasumetai node, kono ki no shita de kyūkei shite, hon o yomimasu. I want to rest my body, so I take a break under this tree, reading a book. 6. ぼうどうのげんいんはあのしゅうじんでした。いまみんなこまっています。 Bōdō no gen’in wa ano shūjin deshita. Ima minna komatte imasu. That prisoner was the cause of the riot. Now everybody will suﬀer for it. 7. ちからをもってそれをするためには、かたなをもっているひとをいちまんにんあつめることです。 Chikara o motte sore o suru tame ni wa, katana o motte iru hito o ichiman-nin atsumeru koto desu. The way to do it powerfully is to assemble ten thousand people with swords. 8. かこ、かいはどうぐでもきんいんでもありました。かいで、ものをかえました。 Kako, kai wa dōgu demo kin'in demo arimashita. Kai de, mono o kaemashita. In the past, shells were both tools and money. One could buy things with shells.

Meaning

•ku

•i

Exhibit #44 “Game: Will the Real Compound Please Stand Up?” None of the following words are real, so they should have been marked “False.” You might have fun showing them to a native speaker of Japanese and watching his or her reaction. 1. Compounds with 幸言幸

(to say + good fortune) genkō: fortune teller

幸日 (good fortune + day) kōbi: lucky day 幸当たる (good fortune + to win a lottery) kōataru: to win at gambling 2. Compounds with 激激血激運動 sports

(violent + blood) gekiketsu: violent crime

激心

(severe + to move + to move) gekiundō: extreme (severe + heart) gekishin: change of heart

3. Compounds with 能喜劇無能 (comedy [1st 2 chars.] + no + ability) kigeki munō: comedy of errors 欠能体 (lack + ability + body) ketsunōtai: physical disability 生能

(birth + ability) seinō: innate

4. Compounds with 軽軽点

(light + focus) keiten: to relax, unwind

軽人

(light + person) keijin: thin person

軽心 (light + heart) keishin: to unburden oneself emotionally 5. Compounds with 力過力 (to pass by + power) kariki: power of past events over an individual or society 報道力 (public news [1st 2 chars.] + power) hōdōryoku: power of the press

204 •

Answer Key

感力する (to feel deeply + power) kanryoku suru: to be overcome with emotion Note that 人力車, jinrikisha, is correct. We derived our word “rickshaw” from jinrikisha!

Exhibit #45 “Game: Homonym Match-Up” A.1.b.; 2.a. B1.b.; 2.a.; 3.c. C.1.c. shindo; 2.d. shindo; 3.b. shindo; 4.a. shindō D.1.a.; 2.b. E.1.b.; 2.a. F.1.c.; 2.b.; 3.a. G.1.a. shingo; 2.b. shingō H.1.b.; 2.a. I.1.a. shinju; 2.b. shinjū J.1.c.; 2.d.; 3.b.; 4.a. K.1.b.; 2.a. L.1.b.; 2.c.; 3.a. M.1.a.; 2.b.

Exhibit #50 “Thematic Explorations: Metals” 1.b., 2.a., 3.d., 4.c., 5.a., 6.a.

Exhibit #59 “Game: Weekday Sūdoku” 土

火

月

水

木

日

金

火

木

日

金

月

土

水

月

日

水

土

火

金

木

日

金

火

月

水

木

土

水

土

金

木

日

火

月

木

月

土

火

金

水

日

金

水

木

日

土

月

火

Exhibit #51 “Game: What's the Meaning of This?!” Part I 1.c. NAN, yawa•rakai 2.a. KO, mizuumi 3.b. KAN, wazura•u 4.a. EN, kemuri, kemu•i 5.c. SHŪ, sode 6.b and c. MYŌ 7.a. YŪ Part II 1.b. hijōguchi 2.c. kaifuku 3.c. kōza 4.a. kaisatsuguchi 6.c. gyūho 7.b. kasei 8.b. shussho 9.c. omimai

Exhibit #52 “Game: International Intrigue” 1. Malaysia, Portugal, Belgium, Holland 2. France, Vatican, Mongolia, Sweden or Switzerland 3. Brazil, Great Britain, Germany, Malaysia, Greece 4. Denmark, Spain, Turkey, Egypt 5. Australia, Norway, India, Mexico

Chapter 5

Main text, quiz at beginning

1. d. marugoshikkutai, 丸ゴシック体, or “rounded Gothic typeface” (round + Gothic + style) 2. e. poppushotai, ポップ書体, or “POPshotai” (pop + calligraphy + style) 3. a. sumōmoji, 相撲文字 (sumo + characters) 4. c. reisho, 隷書 (civil servant + to write) 5. b. minchō kaisho, 明朝楷書 (Ming-cho typeface + noncursive or printed style)

Answer Key

• 205

Exhibit #65 “Game: Kanji Word Find” 短

縮

小

説

明

白

鳥

肉

屋

目

森

間

名

日

町

雪

通

同

以

寝

南

北

光

速

力

山

和

外

前

米

形

年

面

点

由

風

出

痛

国

連

中

分

数

仕

船

発

味

内

涼

古

返

学

月

便

音

女

部

首

都

人

生

六

利

読

酒

流

十

門

決

牛

若

用

書

道

具

眼

科

長

所

得

意

The kanji is 画 (GA, KAKU: picture, kanji strokes). Here are the compounds in the chains: Top row:

Central box, left-hand vertical line: 南米 (Nanbei: South America) 米国 (Beikoku: United States) 国内 (kokunai: domestic) 内部 (naibu: interior)

短縮 (tanshuku: shortening) 縮小 (shukushō: reduction) 小説 (shōsetsu: novel) 説明 (setsumei: explanation) 明白 (meihaku: clear, unmistakable) 白鳥 (hakuchō: swan) 鳥肉 (toriniku: poultry) 肉屋 (nikuya: butcher)

Central box, right-hand vertical line:

Central vertical line: 明日 (ashita: tomorrow) 日光 (nikkō: sunshine) 光年 (kōnen: light-year) 年中 (nenjū: throughout the year) 中古 (chūko: secondhand) 古都 (koto: old capital, esp. Kyoto)

以外 (igai: except, other than) 外出 (gaishutsu: going out) 出発 (shuppatsu: departure) 発音 (hatsuon: pronunciation) 音読 (ondoku: reading aloud) 読書 (dokusho: reading)

Central box, ﬁrst line across:

Perimeter chain, bottom row:

南北 (nanboku: north and south) 北光 (hokkō: northern lights) 光速 (kōsoku: speed of light) 速力 (sokuryoku: speed)

書道 (shodō: calligraphy) 道具 (dōgu: tool) 具眼 (gugan: discernment) 眼科 (ganka: ophthalmologist) 科長 (kachō: department head) 長所 (chōsho: strong point) 所得 (shotoku: income) 得意 (tokui: strong point)

Central box, second line across: 国連 (Kokuren: United Nations, abbreviated) 連中 (renchū: companions, party, company, crowd) 中分 (chūbun: half ) 分数 (bunsū: fraction) Central box, third line across: 部首 (bushu: radical [in kanji]) 首都 (shuto: capital) 都人 (tojin or miyakobito: people of the capital) 人生 ( jinsei: life)

206 •

Answer Key

力点 (rikiten: emphasis) 点数 (tensū: points, score) 数学 (sūgaku: math) 学生 (gakusei: student) Perimeter chain, left side:

Perimeter chain, right side: 和風 (wafū: Japanese-style) 風船 (fūsen: balloon) 船便 (funabin: sea mail) 便利 (benri: convenient) 利用 (riyō: use) 用意 (yōi: preparation)

Exhibit #73 “Game: On-Yomi Tongue Twister” 古 (KO: old); 小 (SHŌ: small); 正 (SHŌ: correct); 消 (SHŌ: to extinguish); 私 (SHI: private); 汚 (O: dirty); 少 (SHŌ: a little, few); 章 (SHŌ: chapter, badge, mark); 商 (SHŌ: trade, merchant); 由 (YU: to be based on, due to); 相 (SHŌ: government minister); 焼 (SHŌ: to burn, roast). Koshō shōshō, shio shōshō, shōyu shōshō. A little pepper, a little salt, a little soy sauce. 胡椒少々、塩少々、醤油少々。

Exhibit #90 “Game: Kanji Crossword” Across

Down

3. daiku

1. Nihonken

5. kōtsū

2. yaoya

6. kūki

3. ōya

8. kaji

4. kōjichū

9. inugoya

5. kōsaten

11. chūshinten

7. kibun

13. tabun

10. kogitte

15. yōshoku

12. shinrigaku

16. seishinka

13. tashinkyōteki

17. shujutsushitsu

14. bunka

18. daigakusei

15. yōshitsu

22. kobito

18. otona or dainin

23. katsudōteki

19. seikatsu

25. kaigai

20. miseinensha

26. kazan

21. Hokkaidō

28. ichinen or hitotoshi

22. koyama

29. shigoto

24. dōbutsu

30. fūsokukei

26. kaji

32. yogensha

27. kōsoku

33. chihō

28. hitokoto futakoto

34. gesha

29. Shikata

35. gaka

30. kazaguruma or fūsha

36. yakyū

31. keikakusha

37. onnade

33. Chikyū

38. kisha

34. heta

39. fugen-fu•go（不言不語)

36. yasaibatake

41. shūsei

37. josei

42. zannen

38. kinenbi

44. hatake suiren

40. fushichō

45. kyūgyōbi

41. renshū

46. isseki-nichō

42. zangyō

1 日本 9 犬

2 八百 10 小切 17 手

21 北 25 海

15 洋術

29 仕

球 41 習水

練

45 休

16 精

学

19 生 23 活

速

車 38 記 42 残

念

業

日

13 多

14 分

神

科 20 未

教 24 動

的

物 31 計 35 画

7 気分

点

27 高

手

6 空

通

差 12 心

人

30 風

性

5 交

理

山

34 下 37 女

事 11 中

18 大

事

方

4 工

食

室

26 火

外

33 地

菜 44 畑

屋

22 小

道

36 野

3 大 8 家

成 28 一

年

言

者

32 予家

二 39 不

者 43 一 46 一

言

40 不死

石

二

鳥

43. ichi ichi or itsu itsu

Answer Key

• 207

Glossary ateji (当て字): Type of word that existed in Japanese before kanji arrived and to which the Japanese later assigned kanji, basing the selection on the meanings of the characters, with no regard for their sounds. EXAMPLE: 無花果 (ichijiku: fig). None of these kanji carries the sounds i, chi, ji, or ku. But the meaning (not + flower + fruit) matches the old Japanese perception of the fig, which had visible fruit but flowers that were not visible. In another type of ateji, the Japanese chose kanji based on their sounds, with no regard for their meanings. EXAMPLE: 寿司 (sushi). The characters mean “longevity” and “to govern.” bushu. SEE radical. component: Indivisible unit of meaning inside a character. EXAMPLE: 照 (SHŌ, te•ru: to illuminate) contains four components: 日 (sun, day), 刀 (sword), 口 (opening), and 灬 (fire). ALSO CALLED: element. composite: Usage coined for this book to refer to the type of singleton known as keiseimoji. The official term for “composites” is “semantic-phonetic compounds,” but in this book “compound” refers to a union of two or more kanji, so “semanticphonetic compound” would have introduced confusion. SEE ALSO: keiseimoji. compound: Word consisting of two or more kanji. Typically, compounds use on-yomi. EXAMPLES: 大学 (daigaku: university); 電車 (densha: train). EXCEPTION: 友達 (tomodachi: friend) combines two kunyomi. COMPARE: singleton. SEE ALSO: jukugo. furigana (振り仮名): Small hiragana written underneath, above, or beside kanji, indicating their pronunciations. EXAMPLE: ふがな

振り仮名 This shows the furigana for the word furigana. ALSO CALLED: ruby, rubi, agate. hangeul: Alphabetic script used in Korean. hanja (漢字): Chinese characters used in Korean. In other words, hanja is the Korean equivalent of kanji. hanzi (漢字): Chinese word for Chinese

208

characters. In other words, hanzi is the Chinese equivalent of kanji.

Makudonarudo, meaning “McDonald’s.” COMPARE: hiragana, kanji. SEE ALSO: kana.

hiragana (平仮名): Loopy, cursive writing used mainly for grammar (e.g., okurigana and particles) but also for kanji that are too diﬃcult to write. EXAMPLE: ひらがな, which says hiragana. COMPARE: katakana, kanji. SEE ALSO: kana.

keiseimoji (形声文字): Kanji in which the radical or the “semantic component” relates to the meaning of the whole character, while the “phonetic component” relates to the on-yomi. This is true for 67 percent of Jōyō kanji. EXAMPLES: 時 (JI, toki: hour, time); 組 (SO, kumi: group, set). ALSO CALLED: phonetic compounds, semantic-phonetic compounds, phonetic composites, semantic-phonetic composites. COMPARE: kaiimoji.

ideogram (指事文字, shijimoji): Kanji representing abstract concepts, such as numbers and directions. EXAMPLES: 三 (SAN, mi•ttsu: three); 上 (Jō, ue: above); 凸 (TOTSU: protrusion, bulge). COMPARE: pictogram. Jōyō (常用): Characters that the Japanese Ministry of Education selected for regular use in 1981. The ministry determined that newspapers and magazines would limit their kanji to this pool of 1,945 kanji, which schools would require students to know. jukugo (熟語): Kanji compound. kaiimoji (会意文字): Kanji in which all components contribute to the meaning, never to the pronunciation. This is true for nearly a quarter of Jōyō kanji. EXAMPLE: 花 (KA, KE, hana: ﬂower), since a ﬂower is grass (艹) that changes (化). COMPARE: keiseimoji. kana (仮名): Umbrella term for hiragana and katakana. kango (漢語): Word imported whole from China. Typically compounds, kango are composed solely of on-yomi. EXAMPLES: 食事 (shokuji: meal); 学校 (gakkō: school); 先生 (sensei: teacher). EXCEPTIONS: Some imported singletons use on-yomi, including 茶 (cha: tea); 絵 (e: picture); and 服する (fukusuru: to obey). COMPARE: wago. SEE ALSO: on-on combination. kanji (漢字): Most complicated of the three scripts used in Japanese writing. Almost all the characters in this script originated in China. ALSO CALLED: Chinese characters. COMPARE: hiragana, katakana. katakana (片仮名): Angular writing used for words not of Japanese or Chinese origin. EXAMPLE: マクドナルド, which says

•

kokugo (国語): Word invented in Japan. Almost always a combination of on-yomi, kokugo combinations never existed in China before someone invented them in Japan. This makes them diﬀerent from other compounds. EXAMPLES: 会社 (kaisha: company); 銀行 (ginkō: bank); 笑止 (shōshi: absurd). SEE ALSO: on-on combination. kokuji (国字): Kanji invented in Japan from preexisting components. EXAMPLE: 畑 (hatake: ﬁeld of crops). Kokuji don’t have on-yomi. EXCEPTION: 働 (DŌ, hatara•ku: to work). kun-kun combination: Compound that one reads by using the kun-yomi of each kanji (as opposed to the on-yomi, with which one typically reads compounds). EXAMPLES: 建物 (tatemono: building); 名前 (namae: name). Most place names in Japan combine kun-yomi. EXAMPLE: 成田 (Narita). EXCEPTIONS: The names of the four major Japanese islands (such as 本州, Honshū) and some major cities (such as 東京, Tōkyō, and 京都, Kyōto) use onyomi. COMPARE: on-on combination. SEE ALSO: wago. kun-yomi (訓読み): “Japanese” way of reading kanji. There are two distinct ways of reading many characters: a “Japanese” way and a “Chinese” way. Kun-yomi are the readings corresponding to the language spoken in Japan before kanji arrived. Kun rhymes with “noon” and means “teachings.” ALSO CALLED: kun readings, Japanese readings. COMPARE: on-yomi.

Crazy for Kanji

nigori. SEE voicing. okurigana (送り仮名): Hiragana that trail after kanji, though they can also pop up between kanji, as in the very word okurigana, 送り仮名. Okurigana are necessary because back when the Japanese imported kanji, they found it awkward to represent their spoken language with the written symbols of the Chinese. The Japanese could write most nouns entirely with kanji. But they needed hiragana to indicate the inﬂections of verbs and adjectives, among other things. Singletons generally have okurigana, whereas compounds do not. EXAMPLES: 明るい, 明かり, and 明ける all have okurigana. This helps you know to use their kun-yomi: akarui (bright), akari (light, clearness), and akeru (to become light). By contrast, the compound 明白 (meihaku: clear, unmistakable) has no okurigana and is an on-on combination. on-echo: Term coined in this book for instances in which kanji have a common phonetic component and the same onyomi. EXAMPLE: 安, 案, 按, and 鮟 share the component 安 and the on-yomi AN. This shared shape has no bearing on meaning. One can ﬁnd on-echoes in 20 percent of Jōyō kanji. on-on combination: Compound that one reads by using the on-yomi of each kanji. EXAMPLE: 住所 ( jūsho: address). Most compounds follow this pattern. All kango are on-on combinations, but not all onon combinations are kango; some on-on combinations are kokugo. EXAMPLE: 現象 ( genshō: phenomenon) is kokugo and uses on-yomi. COMPARE: kun-kun combination. SEE ALSO: kango, kokugo. on-yomi (音読み): Pronunciation of a character that roughly corresponds to the ancient Chinese pronunciation of that character. Some people call on-yomi “Chinese readings,” but this is somewhat misleading. From the time they were imported, Chinese pronunciations changed in Japanese mouths. Plus, in both China and Japan, these sounds have evolved over the millennia. On roughly rhymes with “bone” and means “sound.” ALSO CALLED: on readings, Chinese readings. COMPARE: kun-yomi. phonetic component: Part of a character that tells us how that kanji sounds. Not

all kanji contain phonetics, but at least two-thirds do. When you can split a kanji into left-hand and right-hand sides, the radical (or the semantic component) will typically be on the left, the phonetic on the right. The on-yomi of the phonetic often matches the on-yomi of the whole character. EXAMPLE: The left side of 時 is the radical 日. The phonetic 寺 is on the right side. Because 寺 has the on-yomi JI, the bigger kanji 時 does, too. ALSO CALLED: the phonetic. COMPARE: radical. pictogram (象形文字, shōkeimoji): Character that is a good likeness of the object it represents. EXAMPLE: 門 (MON, kado: gate); 串 (KAN: to pierce; kushi: skewer). COMPARE: ideogram. pinyin: Most widely accepted and used romanization of Mandarin speech. Pinyin appears in road signs, maps, brand names, computer input, Chinese Braille, telegrams, and books for Chinese children and foreign learners. radical (部首, bushu): Part of a character that enables people to categorize kanji and therefore to look them up in dictionaries. The radical may be a component with a clear meaning. EXAMPLES: 艹 (grass), 宀 (roof ), or刂 (sword). And that meaning may relate directly to the meaning of the whole kanji. EXAMPLE: 艹 (grass) is the radical in 薬 (kusuri: medicine). Clearly, medicines often come from grasses or plants. In other characters, however, the radical appears irrelevant to the signiﬁcance of the whole kanji. EXAMPLE: The 宀 (roof ) in 字 (JI: character, letter) seems unrelated to the meaning of the character. ALSO CALLED: semantic component, classiﬁer. COMPARE: phonetic component. rōmaji (ローマ字): Romanized letters (the same ones used in the English alphabet) used to represent Japanese words. EXAMPLE: rōmaji (as opposed to ローマ字, which expresses the same word with a combination of katakana and kanji). semantic component. SEE radical. shōkeimoji. SEE pictogram. singleton: Term coined in this book for a kanji standing alone, rather than being bonded to another kanji. A singleton might have okurigana or might not. EXAMPLES: 茶 (cha: tea) is a singleton. As part

of 喫茶店 (kissaten: café), it ceases to be a singleton. Similarly, 行 (i•ku: to go) is a singleton, but that’s no longer true when 行 is part of 旅行 (ryokō: travel). Typically, you need to use kun-yomi to read singletons. EXCEPTION: Use on-yomi to read the singleton 茶. COMPARE: compound. single-unit character: Yaeko Habein’s term for the simplest kanji. Single-unit characters are remnants of ancient pictures and are therefore “indivisible” into smaller kanji. EXAMPLES: 小 (SHŌ, chii•sai, ko, o: small); 用 (YŌ, mochi•iru: to use); 県 (KEN: prefecture). Accounting for 9 percent of the Jōyō kanji, single-unit kanji appear inside many complicated characters. EXAMPLE: 犬 (KEN, inu: dog) is part of 伏 (FUKU, fu•seru: to lie prostrate, hide). stroke order: Predetermined sequence with which one should draw lines in each kanji. Your writing utensil should also travel in the “correct” direction (i.e., left to right or up to down) as you draw characters. It is thought that when you learn a character, you should learn its stroke order. voicing (濁り, nigori): Slight spelling changes that yomi may undergo when they’re not in the ﬁrst position of a compound. Patterns include the following: k becomes g; s becomes z; sh becomes j; and h becomes b. Note that these changes match those that occur when one adds a tenten or maru ( ゛or ゜) to certain syllables. EXAMPLES: When two kun-yomi combine to form 力強い (chikarazuyoi: forceful, vigorous, emboldened), the tsu of tsuyoi becomes zu. When two on-yomi combine in 始終 (shijū: always, all the time), the second yomi changes from SHŪ to JŪ. wago (和語): Native Japanese vocabulary. Most singleton words are wago, and many wago words are singletons. EXAMPLES: 春 (haru: spring); 女 (onna: woman); 出 (de•ru: to appear, leave). But there are also quite a few kun-kun combinations, and these tend to be wago. EXAMPLE: お手洗い (otearai: bathroom). COMPARE: kango. SEE ALSO: kun-kun combination, singleton. yomi (読み): Pronunciation of a character. There are generally two ways of reading any character, though there may be many more or as few as one. Yomi rhymes with “foamy.” SEE ALSO: kun-yomi, on-yomi.

Glossary

• 209

works cited Addiss, Stephen. How to Look at Japanese Art. New York: Abrams, 1996. Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Boston: Houghton Miﬄin, 1946. Betros, Chris. “The Subtleties of Subtitles.” Japan Today. Aug. 10, 2005. Cherry, Kittredge. Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2002. Chino, Naoko. Japanese Verbs at a Glance. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1996. Covington, Richard Glenn; Joyce Yumi Mitamura; and Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura. Let’s Learn More Kanji: Family Groups, Learning Strategies, and 300 Complex Kanji. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1999. Davey, H. E. Brush Meditation: A Japanese Way to Mind & Body Harmony. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1999. Davey, H. E. The Japanese Way of the Artist. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2007. Davey, H. E. Living the Japanese Arts & Ways: 45 Paths to Meditation & Beauty. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2003. DeFrancis, John. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984. “Editorial: Sacriﬁcial Cash Cows.” Sunstar. Oct. 10, 2005. www.sunstar.com.ph/ static/ceb/2005/10/10/oped/editorial. html. Habein, Yaeko S. Decoding Kanji: A Practical Approach to Learning LookAlike Characters. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2000. Habein, Yaeko S. The History of the Japanese Written Language. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1984. Habein, Yaeko S., and Gerald B. Mathias. The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1991.

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Halpern, Jack, ed. The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1999. Hannas, William C. Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. Heisig, James W. Remembering the Kanji: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1977. Henshall, Kenneth G. A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Boston: Tuttle, 1998.

Pye, Michael. The Study of Kanji. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1971. Richie, Donald. “Signs and Symbols.” In A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Contemporary Japan. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1992. Rowley, Michael. Kanji Pict-o-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1992. Spahn, Mark, and Wolfgang Hadamitzky, with Kumiko Fujie-Winter. The Kanji Dictionary. Boston: Tuttle, 1996.

Horvat, Andrew. Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2000.

Traganou, Jilly. “The Fireworks of Edo—or Japan’s Early (Post?) Modern Past.” Architronic: The Electronic Journal of Architecture 6, no. 1 (May 1997). http://corbu2.caed.kent.edu/ architronic/v6n1/v6n1.04a.html.

Kano, Chieko, and others. Basic Kanji Book. 2 vols. Tokyo: Bonjinsha, 1989. Kano, Chieko, and others. Intermediate Kanji Book. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Bonjinsha, 1993.

Trumbull, Robert. “How to Write in Japanese.” New York Times. Sept. 19, 1965. http://partners.nytimes.com/ books/98/10/25/specials/mishimajapanese.html.

Kindaichi, Haruhiko. The Japanese Language. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1978. Korean Overseas Information Service. “Belief, Philosophy, and Religion.” In A Window on Korea. Seoul, Korea: Seoul Systems, 1994. CD-ROM. http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/ countries/korea/beliefsystem.html.

Tsuda, Sanae. “Contrasting Attitudes in Compliments: Humility in Japanese and Hyperbole in English.” Intercultural Communication Studies 2, no. 1 (1992). Tsukuba Language Group. Situational Functional Japanese. Tokyo: Bonjinsha, 1992.

Mair, Victor H. “East Asian Round-Trip Words.” Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 34 (Oct. 1992).

Tyson, Rodney. “A Successful Mixture of Alphabetic and Non-Alphabetic Writing: Chinese Characters in Korean.” Chapter in unpublished book.

Nakao, Seigo. Random House JapaneseEnglish English-Japanese Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1997. Nelson, Andrew. Completely revised by John H. Haig. The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Boston: Tuttle, 1997. Noguchi, Mary Sisk. “TV Shows Confront Decline of Japanese Language.” Japan Times. Nov. 22, 2005. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ek20051122mn.html.

•

Ozaki, Robert. The Japanese: A Cultural Portrait. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1978.

Unger, J. Marshall. The Fifth Generation Fallacy. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1987. www.pinyin. info/readings/fifth_generation.html. Vance, Timothy J. Building Word Power in Japanese: Using Kanji Prefixes and Suffixes. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1990.

Crazy for Kanji

Websites and Web Documents Site from which I gleaned much of the information in Exhibit 23, “Thematic Explorations: Kanji of a Feather Flock Together,” as well as some of the items in Exhibit 12, “Just the Facts: What Else ‘Kanji’ Can Be”: www.d.umn. edu/~jbelote/japanwriting.html. Kanji Haitani’s proverb site (mentioned in Exhibit 55, “Thematic Explorations: Hyperbolic Humility”): http://home. earthlink.net/~4jword/index3.htm. Site about kanji typefaces (mentioned in Exhibit 57, “Just the Facts: Typefaces”): www.sljfaq.org/afaq/ shotai.html. Matt Treyvaud’s blog post about kanji used in advertising (mentioned in the main text of Chapter 5): http://no-sword.

jp/blog/2005/04/explaining-jokesmakes-them-funnier.html. Blog post about kanji-themed Kyoto bonﬁres (mentioned in Exhibit 58, “Just the Facts: Kanji Ablaze”): http:// japundit.com/archives/category/ matsuri/page/1. Go to the entry for Aug. 18, 2005, “Towering Infernos,” posted by “Ampontan.” Rev. Kanto Tsukamoto’s site about the Lotus Sutra (mentioned in Exhibit 60, “Just the Facts: Kanji Meditation”): www.nichiren-shu.org. Nadja Van Ghelue’s site about Heart Sutra calligraphy (mentioned in Exhibit 60, “Just the Facts: Kanji Meditation”): www.theartofcalligraphy.com. Blog comment about the use of pinyin in Taiwan (mentioned in the main

text of Chapter 6): www.languagehat. com/archives/001202.php, posted by “xiaolongnu” on Mar. 11, 2004. Tian Tang’s blog about the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture (mentioned in the main text of Chapter 6 and in Exhibit 69, “Just the Facts: Mind the Gap”): www.hanzismatter.com. Site with kanji ﬂashcards (mentioned in the main text of Chapter 7): www. kantango.com. Mary Sisk Noguchi’s Kanji Clinic site (mentioned in the main text of Chapter 7): www.kanjiclinic.com. Jim Breen’s Japanese Page (mentioned in Exhibit 88, “Just the Facts: Kanji Dictionaries”): www.csse.monash.edu. au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C.

The Fushimi-Inari Taisha shrine near Kyoto features thousands of pumpkinorange torii engraved with columns of kanji. This is a close-up of one such kanji— 武 (BU, MU, takeshi), which means “warrior.” If you’ve made it this far in the book, you are indeed a warrior of kanji. Fight on!

Works Cited

• 211

Other Titles of Interest from Stone Bridge Press Obtain any of these titles from your local bookseller or online. [emailprotected] • www.stonebridge.com • 1-800-947-7271

Designing with Kanji: Japanese Character Motifs for Surface, Skin & Spirit. Shogo Oketani and Leza Lowitz. 144 pp, 7 x 9", paper, 125 2-color illustrations, ISBN 978-1-880656-79-2, $14.95. Kana Pict-o-Graphix: Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana. Michael Rowley. 72 pp, 3 x 5", paper, ISBN 978-1-880656-18-1, $6.00. Kanji Pict-o-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics. Michael Rowley. 216 pp, 8 x 8", paper, ISBN 978-0-9628137-0-2, $19.95. Kanji Starter 1. Daiki Kusuya. 200 pp, 4 1⁄8 x 5 3⁄4 ", paper, 200 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-1-933330-14-3, $9.95. Kanji Starter 2. Daiki Kusuya. 208 pp, 4 1⁄8 x 5 3⁄4 ", paper, 300 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-1-933330-15-0, $9.95. Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure. Wayne P. Lammers. 312 pp, 8 1⁄4 x 10 1⁄4 ", paper, 500+ b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-1-880656-90-7, $24.95. 70 Japanese Gestures: No Language Communication. Hamiru-Aqui. 160 pp, 4 3⁄4 x 7 1⁄4 ", paper, 70+ b/w photos, ISBN 978-1-933330-01-3, $9.95.

A Homestay in Japan: Nihon to no Deai. Caron Allen, with Natsumi Watanabe. 204 pp, 7 x 10", paper, ISBN 978-09628137-6-4, $19.95. Japanese Beyond Words: How to Walk and Talk Like a Native Speaker. Andrew Horvat. 176 pp, 5 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄2 ", paper, ISBN 978-1-880656-42-6 $16.95. Sacred Sanskrit Words: For Yoga, Chant, and Meditation. Leza Lowitz and Reema Datta. 240 pp, 5 1⁄4 x 7 1⁄4" , paper, 6 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-1880656-87-7, $14.95. The Japanese Way of the Artist: Living the Japanese Arts & Ways, Brush Meditation, The Japanese Way of the Flower. H. E. Davey. 512 pp, 6 x 7 3⁄4 ", paper, 135 b/w photos and illustrations, ISBN 978-1-933330-07-5, $19.95. The Heart Sutra in Calligraphy. A Visual Appreciation of the Perfection of Wisdom. Nadja Van Ghelue. 128 pp, 7 x 11", paper, 55 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-1-933330-79-2, $19.95.