Words of the day: 鏡餅 (New Year offering consisting of two mochi stacked on each other with a bitter orange on top, cut and eaten on January 11), 尻餅 (falling on one’s backside; mochi tied to a baby’s back on their first birthday), 画餅 (something useless; picture of rice cakes)
Maybe a rather personal choice for today, as mochi is one of my favourite things to eat. But mochi are also prepared for many special occasions, one of which is New Year’s, so I thought it fitting for an advent calendar. It’s a Jōyō kanji taught in junior high, and WK level 42.
Edit: Well, I’m confused. I started writing it, and realized the strokes were 15. Jisho says: 14 strokes (also 15). Looking at the variations above, there really is a 14-stroke variation too. Here they are side by side: ,
I don’t know if there’s a preference for one or the other, or any substantial difference. Is it okay to write it either way?
I have no idea either… I’ve encountered this with the kanji 飴（あめ candy) too. I just figured it’s readable regardless of what variation you use so I did the one I’m used to. But interested to know more
What a confusing kanji I chose. Not only does it have two variations with a different number of strokes, but each variation also has a different stroke order. I tried both, and found the 14-stroke variation more natural to write, but the 15-stroke variation prettier.
There’s also this which I think answers the question…
略字 1. abbreviated form of a Chinese character; simplified character.
旧字 1. old character form; traditional form of kanji used in Japan before 1946.
Well, still don’t know if one is preferred over the other in certain kanji and why tho
Thanks for looking into it!
Apparently the kanji doesn’t have only 2, but actually 4 variants! ,
Out of all those, only the second one (the 15-stroke one, with the old-form component on the left and the modern component on the right) may be used in a child’s name. I learn something new every day.
Source: https://dictionary.sanseido-publ.co.jp/column/第30回「餅」と「餠」
黒執事 vol 1 - this was the first one i picked that i knew anything of already, mostly just cos i wanted to see whether i wanted to commit to reading more of the series. was quite a long sample with a surprising amount of text (even discounting the formal speech lengthening things).
A bit longer text to this morning’s read. More words I have yet to learn or have forgot. I had to ask my daughter to help translate for me. Basically a man buys a dream from another man who painted an image about it and he uses that to find gold in a garden which has the same painted bush.
Today I read サラダの謎 by 中谷宇吉郎 along with this 朗読 and it was quite easy! 昭和三十五 or 1960 - so basically perfectly modern writing. I didn’t realize things from the 60s were already on Aozora
Anyways, it’s a guy reminiscing about great salad he had on a homestay and the 謎 is why he’s not able to recreate the same flavor he remembers now at home.
Words of the day: 幽霊 (ghost; specter; spectre; apparition; phantom), 頑冥不霊 (stubborn and ignorant), 霊気 (mysterious presence; aura of mystery)
霊 means spirit, soul, ghost. Of course it’s a Christmas kanji (ghost of Christmas past, and so on). It’s a Jōyō kanji taught in junior high, JLPT level N1 and WK level 45.
It’s a bit tricky; currently works can go on Aozora 70 years after the author’s death (i.e. theoretically up to 1952 right now), but until 2018 the timeframe was only 50 years, and works did not get unpublished when the time interval got increased, so theoretically you might even find works up to 1968 if the author happened to die soon after the publication.
This was the first time I’ve seen such a tiny little component (the ム-looking one) in a Kanji – I just had to pick it for my practice! The funny-looking 1st try also makes a return.
The quality of my practice has taken a hit by now. Admittedly, my patience and endurance is running a bit thin with the Kanji progressively having more and more strokes. I may switch my writing practice to a later point in the day where I have a bit more time instead of rushing and trying to do it during the morning before I head out for my daily work/tasks.
And on the topic of complexity of the upcoming Kanji, I shall use the thinner black pen from now on (last 2 rows) in order to be able to fit all the strokes into my small notebook.
My hand is starting to feel the strain of repeatedly writing so many strokes so many times. I dread to think what will happen by the end of the challenge.
My boxes are 8x8mm, and I read that’s the standard size for writing kanji. Yet, I need to use an extra thin 0.45 mm marker pen for all the strokes to show clearly. I can’t imagine using a regular pen for complicated kanji at that size. How do people do it?
明日の敵と今日の握手を i forgot i had some more i picked at random! this is a military drama of some description, i’m gonna be honest i got kinda bored. another very long sample too, 50 pages! it also only had three chapters in it, which is the least i’ve seen in a manga volume.
Oh, that makes perfect sense! The author of yesterday’s work died in 1962. I feel like anything post-war is so rare, and it immediately sticks out because the writing style feels so different.
I was unfamiliar with the story, and sometimes reading all hiragana text slips me up, but my daughter has more patience than my wife. Still, made it through with about 45% understanding this time. Having a Japanese wife whose first language was Japanese, but speaks English fluently, and a daughter who lived the first 7 years of her life in Japan, who also speaks English, makes it a challenge to improve my own Japanese as they both speak English to me exclusively. Oh well. Our last trip to Japan to visit the おばあちゃん helped to inspire me to try harder this time. Got to make sure if either ever wants to move back more permanently I’m more lingually proficient.
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Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 14 
Kanji writing
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Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 14 
