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How does Kanji work?

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mmmason8967
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Joined: January 7th, 2012 12:24 pm

Re: How does Kanji work?

Postby mmmason8967 » August 27th, 2014 8:03 am

I think the answer is that it all happens the other way round.

Words are said, not read. The word for "today" is kyou. The way it's written is 今日, which looks like a fairly obvious way to represent the meaning. When you come to read it, you just have to know that it's kyou and not, as you might have expected, imabi or konnichi.

I guess that, since kanji were originally imported from China, 今日 is how "today" is (or was) written in Chinese. So the Japanese used 今日 to write "today" as well.

マイケル

community.japanese
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Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: How does Kanji work?

Postby community.japanese » September 7th, 2014 10:32 am

Adelholtz san,

I can understand it’s annoying you.
Basically we use onyomi and kunyomi for kanji however, we have some exceptions.
Unfortunately we have to memorize them :cry: because that is the Japanese language.

Other examples are
小豆 あずき red bean
土産 みやげ souvenir
大豆 だいず soy bean


Yuki  由紀
Team  JapanesePod101.com

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community.japanese
Expert on Something
Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: How does Kanji work?

Postby community.japanese » September 8th, 2014 5:30 am

マイケルさん、

As you said kanji was introduced to Japan from China.
It is actually said that what you mentioned.

Yuki  由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

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