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Level: Yojijukugo

Do you use 4 letter words? Well, the Japanese love them! 4 kanji words, usually taken from Chinese Classics are called yojijukugo. In this series, we’ll learn some of the most common and interesting 4 kanji words and the contexts in which to use them! Awwww yeah! Whether you’re an advanced Japanese student or want to start learning Japanese, this series is the perfect place to begin learning kanji or refine your use of kanji. Perfect for Japanese learners of all levels.

Learn Japanese Kanji at JapanesePod101.com


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This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Yojijukugo . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

43 Responses to “Yojijukugo #1 - Introduction to 4 Kanji Words!”

JapanesePod101.com says:

yeah ~ its finally here :mrgreen:

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Pirkko says:

:dogeza:
こんにちは、
四字熟語はとっても面白いでしょう!!!!!もっともっとを夢中でかじりつきたいんです、おねがい。悪戦苦闘してけれど、あまりかまいません。
:kokoro:
元気で
ピルっ子

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rigo says:

very interesting , just the other day i was reading an article in the Japan Times
about this subject

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Spidey says:

Several lessons are not downloading properly. :cry:

This another blank PDF one through my feed. No text is printed on either PDF file.

Also the kanji sheet from the 101 site is blank too.

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Meshuggener says:

Guys, a lesson on Yojijukugo is such a great idea! Just when I fought I had seen it all on japanesepod, you still manage to surprise me!
:kokoro: Peter and Natsuko, you definitely rule! :kokoro:

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ジャービジ says:

今日「やぶの中」と言う芥川龍之介(あくたがわ りゅうのすけ)に書かれた短編小説を読んでさすがに悪戦苦闘していたんです。

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ノーガス says:

あの、レッスンはとてもありがたいけど、上記の画像上の「以心伝心」の振り仮名は間違っていますよ!
編集役はピーターさんでしょうか(冗談です!)

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プチクレア says:

四字熟語の関してシリーズありがとうございます。 :kokoro:

色々な熟語について教えて下さい!ItalianPod101のIdioms & Proverbsの同じに文法と文化を合わせて教えたらレッスンはもちろん面白くなりますよ!

いつも通りJpod101の皆さんは頑張ってね!

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Rhys says:

Great lesson guys, this is really an interesting topic. I asked my assistant teacher in the Japanese class to teach me about yojijukugo but she was very reluctant to, is it hard even for native Japanese?
Also, this lesson isn’t coming through iTunes for me. Is this happening anywhere else?

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watermen says:

Awesome lesson, finally see some new things coming in. Keep up the great work.

In the sentence, 親友のタケシとは、以心伝心の仲だ。

What does this word 仲だ mean? May someone kindly explain it to me? Thanks.

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Mayumi says:

ノーガスさん
Thank you for letting us know the error in the picture.
I fixed it. :oops: :dogeza:

watermen-san,
In this case, 仲 means “relation between people.”

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Alain says:

Very interesting.
I just began to look

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Alain says:

Sorry:

I just began to learn some 3 kanjis compounds in the 6kyuu / kanji kentei on my Nintendo DS.
So I’m very interested with this new feature
Thank you !

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AndamanIslander says:

Ah, so this is the replacement for the Newbie series?

Excellent. These look like a lot of fun.

I have some mixed feelings about the end of the newbie series. On the one hand, I never like Fabrizio, on the other, I will miss Rebecca’s fabulous radio voice.

My feeling is that these will be more useful, though.

:dogeza:

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maxiewawa says:

In Chinese education, 成语 (the chinese equivalent) is never translated into English as anything other than “chengyu”, so I wouldn’t bother trying to translate 四字熟語 into anything other than yojijukugo.

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HighBridge says:

I was really looking forward for the yojijukugo lessons!!! :dogeza:

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Arabela says:

:neutral: ちょっとまてください!これをわかりませんでした!chotto mate kudasai! kore o wakarimasen deshita! I find some interesting the words of 4 kanjis but… I don’t see how this is so great :roll: I don’t see how this can help me to learn kanjis, to me this is only like a lesson of vocab and expensive to pay for something like that :sad: . Japanesepod should try to improve something more interesting… of course you don’t have the obligation of to have my point of view…

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タネ says:

このレッスン最高! たぶんNewbie/Beginnerにはあっまり役に立たないかも知れないが。。。。 
もっともっと、楽しみにしています。

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PrettyNappy says:

Aikawarazu, great lesson!! Biggup to Marky for keeping the intros tasty-fresh! :dogeza: :dogeza:

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KaShizui says:

Yes! I love these.

In Chinese we call them 成語.

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Abrassart says:

I was a little bit annoyed by the fact that Peter wanted to translate “ishindenshin” by “thelepathy”, because I’m very skeptical of the existence of thelepathy.

“ishindenshin” for me is more like being so close to someone that you share the same heart, so think really alike.

No need to introduce something paranormal here. :wink:

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Christmas Burger says:

I was a little bit annoyed by your misspelling of “telepathy.” :lol:

jk

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Tanart says:

It’s really a perfect and useful category for us. Hope all Japanese learner happy for this valuable series.

Love you all : JapanesePod101Team

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KaShizui says:

Just because telepathy might not exist doesn’t mean that 以心伝心 can’t mean telepathy. In fact my Japanese-English dictionaries include “telepathy” as one of the translations.

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Sumisu says:

if anyone was wondering, the middle kanji with no hiragana under it says yojijukugo. I only know that because I know the kanji for the number 4. i was really confused for a few minutes as to what it was supposed to be.

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markystar says:

hehehehe, yeah, you’re going to see those kanji 25 times, so i figured the furigana would be pointless. by episode 5, everyone will know that word by heart! :kokoro:

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kadajam5 says:

Great new series - Yojijukugo ga tanoshimi desu!

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Spidey says:

:kokoro:
Here are a few reasons why I think this new series is great

#1 The connection between the 4 different kanji helps us to see more deeply into the Japanese culture.

#2 We can use these 4 character kanji nearly on their own. Of course being able to fit them into a more complex sentence is higher goal, but I really like to keep new things short and sweet.

#3 I’m drowning in a sea of kanji. SO I’m keen on trying most anything in order to learn more of it.

Thanks for this new series 101!

:grin:

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Abrassart says:

OK. The dictionary may say that “ishindenshin” can be translated by telepathy. No problem with that. But Peter was introducing some exemples of situation of deep frendship, when people think alike, and then used the word “telepathy” in that context.

If you say: Japanese parapsychologists use “ishindenshin” in their publications, fair enough. But the exemple given by Peter don’t fit the definition of “telepathy” in my point of view.

So what are the other definitions in your dictionary?

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ビリー says:

勉強はいつも悪戦苦闘しているけれど、jp0dのおかげでうまくなるチャンスがあるかもしれない。
四字熟語のレッスンはとても楽しくて助かりました。

でも、ちょっと質問があるんですが、ピータが以心伝心について、「i do have that sort of connection with people」と言ったら、奈津子さんの答えは何かわからなかったんですよ〜 ちょっとおかしいかなと思って、日本語でしょうか? 何を言ったかあまり必要ではないと思いますが、ただ気になりました  :roll:

いつもありがとうございます。

ビリー

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KaShizui says:

My last post on this issue…

Mentioning telepathy doesn’t always mean you’re describing actual telepathy.

In most cases, even in English, we use the word with a metaphorical meaning.

“We share so much in common it’s like we have a telepathic connection!”

と言うことです。

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Abrassart says:

I’ve listen to the lesson again today and… hum… you’re right.

They did talk a lot about other translation (heart to heart, communication without language, and so on).

OK. Never mind then. :roll:

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VGcat says:

Wow! this was a fun lesson and interesting lesson! :mrgreen:

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rhi says:

このレソンは面白かったが、日本語でできたっらもっと面白くなるとおもいます。。。

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Naomi says:

ビリーさん

I thought Natsuko said “Not necessarily :roll: .”

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arabela says:

:cool: Namoi say to all: バカ! :wink:

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nanairo says:

There’s a pop song by Orange Range called Ishindenshin, which is where I first heard the phrase. If you take a look at the chorus, the word telepathy IS used… and the form in which the yojijukugo is said (sung, actually) is “bokura wa itsumo ishindenshin”

僕らはいつも以心伝心
二人の距離つなぐ テレパシー

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Jenks says:

Ya, I know that song too, thats why I laughed when Peter didn’t (after that intro to the phrase which kinda went opposite my expectations). :roll: Ask any of you girl friends mang, they’ll have that song for sure. :) :wink:

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cinamorollrabbit says:

The pdf is not working correctly. I can save the file but then cannot open it. All the programs on my computer are fully upgraded. Could you help at all?

Thanks :smile:

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Jessi says:

cinamorollrabbitさん、
Can you let us know what happens when you try to open it? Does it give you some kind of error?
Thanks :)

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マルセル says:

Cool this is a new and interesting aspect of the japanese language for me!
Never heard of this before. (most likely because I started a week ago)

My new favorite word is 悪戦苦闘 - I can not find any other word, even in my own language, that describes my everyday job as a software developer better than this xD
(I am even thinking about a tatoo right now :wink: )

Tooo bad I am just working on beginner-1-5 lesson, so I can not use it right away. But this lesson here surely motivated me even more.

ありがとうございます。

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マルセル says:

@cinamorollrabbit

By the way, Adobe Acrobat pdf reader XI + asia language pack works nicely (had to install it first also).

I have the language pack from here http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=5508&fileID=5521

If this link does not work for you, try to search for “Adobe Reader XI Font Packs Asian and Extended Language Pack” - that is the exact name of the upgrade.

Best of luck! :cool:

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JapanesePod101.com says:

マルセルさん こんにちは。
コメントありがとうございます。 :grin:
Thank you for your comment! You can use 悪戦苦闘 like
まいにち、[something]で 悪戦苦闘 しています。
“Everyday I do [something] hard / struggle with [something].”
Keep listening!
Motoko
Team JapanesePod101.com

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