Keep mixing up "room" and "clubroom", 部屋 and 部室, in vocabulary revision

WaniKani
1

Both “room” and “clubroom” share the same Kanji, 部室.

How am I supposed to know which one WK is looking for?

1 Like
2

Welcome to the community! :durtle_hello:

部屋 and 部室 is indeed a tricky word pair that is easy to mix up. The first kanji in both words are the same. The second kanji have a slight difference. Notice how the top radical of 屋 in 部屋 (heya, room) has the flag radical. While 室 in 部室 (bushitsu, clubroom) has the roof radical.

屋: image 室: image

8 Likes
3

Used to be leeches of mine as well, left with one leech…
Roof 屋や and Room 室しつ are visually similar but if you take a closer look Roof has the flag radical so it’s not symmetrical but closed on the left side while Room is open from both sides since it uses the roof radical which leaves it open from both sides.
If you can remember that 屋や is a store then perhaps associating it with storeroom would help you to identify it when you see 部屋へや you go to the room in the back of the store

As for 部室ぶしつ this one is just club and room it’s pretty straight forward, so just make sure you see that this is the kanji for room and not for store.

5 Likes
4

Oh, how did I not realise that? :man_facepalming:

Thanks to you both!

5 Likes
5

Ignore the first mora, and you get 屋(や) and 室(しつ).

Most probably, you need to realize the word へや, and the fit in the Kanji. Though ～部(べ) is also used in names.

3 Likes
6

Wait until 窒 gets into the mix…

Vastly less common, admittedly.

2 Likes
7

Fortunately for the context of this thread, 部窒 isn’t a word.

6 Likes
8

True but it reminded me of how much I struggle to remember the differences between 屋, 室, 窒 and 窓 when handwriting them…

I could definitely imagine reading 部室 as the more common 部屋 if I’m not paying attention though, especially since semantically 部屋 is very closely related to 室. It’s a very awkward pairing.

3 Likes