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Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary It often seems that food is the best entryway into learning Japanese. Without even taking a Japanese class, most of us know words such as sushi, tempura, miso, and so on. Ah, but do you really know all there is to know about miso? Here's the word in the way you already know it: 味噌 (miso: fermented bean paste)     tasty food + boisterous On the Ateji in 味噌 ... 味噌汁 (miso shiru: miso soup)     miso (1st 2 chars.) + soup Because miso is usually white (shiro, 白), I always want to call this miso shiro. (Plus, that rhymes.) Maybe it would help to associate this shiru with the verb "to know" (shi(ru), 知), using the mnemonic,... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary If a man tastes something bitter and then runs away, what do you get? A man in discomfort? A disappointed (that is to say, bitter!) man? No, you get a "sternly handsome" man, whatever that is! 苦味走った (nigamibashitta: sternly handsome)     bitter + taste + to run The first two characters form the word 苦味 (nigami or kumi), meaning "bitterness" or "bitter taste." Meanwhile, 走った (hashitta, voiced here as bashitta) looks like the past tense of the verb 走 (hashi(ru): to run). But actually, 走った functions here as a participle, a verbal adjective describing the implied 男 (otoko: man). That is, he's a man who ran after he ate something bitter. Sounds... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I recently rented the Japanese movie 茶の味 (Cha no Aji, tea + taste), thinking it might actually be about tea. After all, someone translated the title as The Taste of Tea, so I don't think I was off base in hoping it might be at least partly about Japanese tea. Out of all the uncontrollable passions in my life, tea runs a close second to kanji. If you want to know just how crazy I am about tea, take a look at my tea cabinet. Green teas fill most of the upper shelf, with teabags to their left.Black teas are on the lower right. Decaf teas are on the lower left.There's more at the office. But the sad truth is that the movie wasn't about tea. Not even a little. Well, OK,... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Given the trials and tribulations I described last week, the title of this blog might make you think I'm referring to my mental health. No. I'm doing OK, because the data-recovery crew salvaged almost 100 percent of my data! Yippee! Hurray! And hallelujah! "Putting the Pieces Together" means that today, in the latter half of a two-part review, we'll shift away from last week's focus on individual kanji and will now look at compounds containing those characters. In past blogs, we've spent time discussing all the words you'll encounter in today's quizzes. But of course, kanji being what it is, there's no guarantee that anything has stuck. That's certainly true for me.... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I've been staring down one of those traumatic birthdays that zeroes out your age. Just as the numbers on a gas pump cycle through too quickly to comprehend, I've zipped through the past decade faster than I can grasp. I'm unwilling to leave this personal decade, but I don't see that I have a choice. When I arrive at the beginning of the new one, will I even know who to be? I've never been able to imagine myself as quite that ancient, and yet I will be, nonetheless. How to adjust? How to forge a new identity (without the slightest motivation to do so)? I can't seem to make my self-image fit my new age. Shouldn't I be wiser or at least taller? Whenever January comes... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary A long time ago, we talked about terms that contain back-to-back kanji but that don't merit the repetition kanji 々. Here's a new candidate for the collection: 直接接触 (chokusetsu-sesshoku: direct contact)     straight + contact + contact + contact The character 接 appears twice, using the yomi SETSU both times. But these identical twins have hooked up with other kanji, not with each other. It's more of a double-date than an incestuous situation, if that makes any sense. To put it more simply, we're seeing the union of two compounds, each of which happens to include 接. That's why the two instances of 接 have no relationship to each other here. ... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Before boarding a flight to Europe this summer, I passed through the security gate and sat down to put my shoes on again. When I looked up, a multilingual sign caught my attention. In English, it said, "Don't touch the table," which struck me as strange. Could someone undermine security merely by touching a table? If so, it seemed there wasn't much security to be had. I worried about that for a moment until I noticed the Japanese version of this sentence. I'm going from a vague memory here, but the sentence was something like this: テーブルを触らないでください。 Tēburu o sawaranai de kudasai. Or was it longer than that? I know I recognized everything except 触. Leafing... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Sometimes it's wonderful to find that the Japanese (or the Chinese before them) have coined a word for concepts that don't exist in English. But occasionally I have the opposite feeling, as with this compound: 脱輪 (datsurin: wheel going off the road, usually into a ditch; wheel flying off its axle)     to take off + wheel Why did they need to coin a word for these disasters? How often do they happen in Japan?! Last week we investigated the way 輪 (RIN, wa) can mean "ring, circle, loop." Now we'll look at its other meanings, starting with "wheel." 輪 as Representing a Wheel ... Wheel Power At the link, you'll find sentences in which 輪... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Last week we encountered this fun compound: 花環 (hanawa: wreath, garland)     flower + circle The following version is actually much more common: 花輪 (hanawa: wreath, garland)     flower + circle The second kanji has changed, but everything else remains the same: the yomi of hanawa, the meaning of "wreath, garland," and the flower + circle breakdown. Although 環 and 輪 look very different, both have the kun-yomi of wa, and both can mean "ring." These similarities make them something like dead ringers! Another Hanawa ... However, they're not exactly alike. As we saw, 環 (KAN, wa) can have two meanings: 1. ring,... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Well, a promise is a promise. I told you that no matter how much 環 intimidated me, especially in the context of 環境 (kankyō: environment, situation), I would eventually return to this wild beast of a kanji and tame it. Fortunately, 環 is not a bad-looking character. Let's have a better look: 環 The radical, 王, is symmetrical, if slightly cramped and warped now that it's been pushed off to the left. On the right-hand side, the top part makes a strong geometric statement, like a row of small windows. The 一 ... well, who can find anything wrong with a horizontal line? And as for the bottom part, the only thing that bothers me is a tiny stroke that throws off the... Show more