Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
なおみ: なおみです。
Peter: Peter here.
なおみ: 四字熟語
Peter: Lesson 23. Discover the Easy Life in Japanese. Naomi Sensei,
なおみ: はい
Peter: Welcome to Yojijukugo.
なおみ: ねーIt’s my first time.
Peter: Yeah. Up to now, we’ve had Sakura san, we’ve had Natsuko san and this is the first time to have Naomi Sensei on the show.
なおみ: よろしくお願いします
Peter: よろしくお願いします Now Naomi Sensei, you are very familiar with what we do here right?
なおみ: Yeah. Yeah.
Peter: Yeah why not? Basically we take four kanji compounds and each of these compounds has an idiomatic meaning. We take a look at the kanji to understand where this meaning comes from, the origin of this meaning, the origin of the meaning so that we could better understand our Japanese people think. So we are basically going to go over the idiomatic meaning and the meaning of all the characters to see the origin of the phrase. So you are ready?
なおみ: はい

Lesson focus

Peter: What do we have first?
なおみ: 悠々自適
Peter: To take life easy, to lead a leisurely life. Break it down.
なおみ: ゆうゆうじてき 悠々自適
Peter: I like the pronunciation on this one. We are going to take a look at the four kanji characters that make up this expression and we are going to look at the individual meaning of each character. So the first character is,
なおみ: 悠
Peter: Leisure. Second character,
なおみ: 々
Peter: Leisure but this is actually a repetition character.
なおみ: はい
Peter: Which means to repeat the character preceding it. Third character is
なおみ: 自
Peter: Oneself, fourth character is
なおみ: 適
Peter: Suitable. Leisure, leisure oneself suitable. So what we are going to do now is take a look at the two – two kanji character compounds that are found inside the four kanji character compound. The first two character kanji compound is
なおみ: 悠々
Peter: It means to be in a leisurely fashion or to be in a comfort zone.
なおみ: そうですね
Peter: Second one is,
なおみ: 自適
Peter: To live with one’s heart. So we put it altogether.
なおみ: 悠々自適
Peter: To lead a leisurely life without being bothered with matters in the real world and do as one wishes. I think someone said it often indicates life after retirement.
なおみ: そうですね 悠々自適な生活とか言いますね He is spending 悠々自適な生活
Peter: So just enjoying life.
なおみ: そう
Peter: Now let’s talk about the usage. Naomi Sensei, it’s used as a set phrase like in the one you just gave us.
なおみ: 悠々自適な生活or 悠々自適の生活
Peter: So the phrase precedes a noun and it is separated from the noun by either na or no. Now it can be also used as an adverbial phrase. In that case,
なおみ: 悠々自適に
Peter: For example,
なおみ: 悠々自適に暮らす
Peter: To lead a leisurely life.
なおみ: 暮らしたいですね、悠々自適に
Peter: 引退したら After you retire.
なおみ: Yeah. Can I retire now?
Peter: Without pay?
なおみ: 無理だな
Peter: まだまだ若いでしょOkay how about some sample sentences?
なおみ: 彼は好きな時に食べて寝て悠々自適の生活をしている。
Peter: He sleeps and eats whenever he wants and is taking life easy.
なおみ: 良いですね
Peter: Like a college student.
なおみ: Umm…
Peter: 大学生みたいでしょ
なおみ: まあね But college student doesn’t have enough income.
Peter: Ah okay next.
なおみ: 私の父は定年退職後、悠々自適に暮らしている
Peter: My father has been living a leisurely life since he retired and finally,
なおみ: 彼は不動産をたくさん持っているので悠々自適の生活がおくれる
Peter: He can lead a leisurely life because he owns a lot of real estate. So like he said and I think he hit on a point that is associated with his phrase that there is not just doing what you want, but having the financial means to do it.
なおみ: Right.
Peter: Okay. On to our second phrase. Naomi Sensei,
なおみ: That’s you right?
Peter: どうかな
なおみ: 文武両道
Peter: Both in academics and in sports.
なおみ: I am just upper polishing.
Peter: Okay break it down.
なおみ: ぶんぶりょうどう 文武両道
Peter: The first character
なおみ: 文
Peter: Literature.
なおみ: 武
Peter: Warrior.
なおみ: 両方
Peter: Both.
なおみ: 道
Peter: Course.
なおみ: 文武両道
Peter: Literature warrior both course. Let’s take a look at the two two kanji character compounds. First.
なおみ: 文武
Peter: Literary and military arts. Second two kanji character compound.
なおみ: 両道
Peter: Both arts. So put it all together
なおみ: 文武両道
Peter: It means to be excellent in both academics and in sports but actually it really means military arts but now-a-days I guess the military has kind of given a way to sports.
なおみ: Sports.
Peter: So now-a-days, it means academics and sports.
なおみ: はい
Peter: Let’s take a look at the usage. When you want to express that someone excels in both academics and sports, you can say
なおみ: だれだれは文武両道だ
Peter: So the person followed by は and the expression and the copula which is the equivalent to the verb to be which is a linking verb, kind of equivalent to the English to be or you can also say
なおみ: だれだれは文武両道に秀でている
Peter: 秀でる This is a verb which means to
なおみ: To excel in
Peter: And it can also be used to introduce a model or policy such as
なおみ: 私のモットーは文武両道だ
Peter: My model is to excel in both academics and sports.
なおみ: すごいですね
Peter: Naomi Sensei, how about our first sample sentence?
なおみ: 彼は勉強もスポーツもできて文武両道だ
Peter: He’s excellent both in academics and sports. Next.
なおみ: 僕は文武両道を目指します
Peter: I am trying to be excellent in both academics and sports. Finally,
なおみ: 彼はサッカー部のエースで勉強もクラスで1番だ。まさに文武両道だ
Peter: He’s our best player in soccer and also the smartest kid in class. He is excellent in both academics and sports. Now Naomi Sensei, how often do you use these?
なおみ: これはね I think I use this quite often.
Peter: Both expressions?
なおみ: Yeah.

Outro

Peter: So what we would like to invite you to do is come to the site, try a sample sentence. Now since we’ve been doing this course, we’ve had a lot of people come up with some really good sentences. Come, write the sentence. We will check it and let you know if it’s right. If not, we will give you the correction. So this is your chance to get free check.
なおみ: ピーターは文武両道だ
Peter: かなあ Okay that’s going to do it for today.

Kanji

Review & Remember All Kanji from this Lesson

Get complete breakdowns, review with quizzes and download printable practice sheets! Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Comments

Hide