JapanesePod101.com Blog
Learn Japanese with Free Daily
Audio and Video Lessons!
Start Your Free Trial 6 FREE Features

Passing Through the Hospital

A passage to death often involves trips to the hospital:

通院 (tsūin: to go to the hospital regularly as an outpatient)
     to pass + (medical) institution

Some patients require this piece of equipment:

通風機 (tsūfūki: ventilator)     to pass through + wind + machine

The first part, 通風 (tsūfū), means “ventilation.” So does its inverse:

風通し (kazetōshi: ventilation)
     wind + to pass through

In either case, the wind blows through a room to ventilate it! Then you add “machine.” And now the wind blows through a person’s lungs.

Nowadays, this term is more popular:

換気扇 (kankisen: ventilator)     to exchange + air + fan

The first two kanji, 換気, combine to mean “ventilation.” I like seeing wings, , inside the fan, !

Back to A Passage to Words About Passages …

Back to the Blog …