On 沿

希望に沿う (kibō ni sou: to meet someone’s requirements, meet expectations; go along with what somebody wants)     hope + hope + along

The water () in 沿 (EN, sou: to go alongside) surprised me in the context of 希望に沿う, which seems as non-soggy a term as possible. But here’s how it works. In 沿う, the means water and might mean “river.” The rest of the character means “hollowed out” and acts phonetically to mean “to follow” or even “to follow from a source.” So we have “to follow a river from its source.” The broader meaning is “to follow, go alongside.”

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