I tend to look around at words when learning about kanji meanings and this one got me kinda confused. There is only one word in which this means mutual which happens to be with another kanji which also means mutual, so it could very well be that only the other kanji was mutual and this was something completely different.
While jisho.org does list this meaning, I think maybe a better alternative is “aspect”, it also makes more sense with the rest of the vocab: 相 #kanji - Jisho.org
It’s definitely a baffling one. Does anybody else have a better way of thinking about this?
It’s also acting as mutual in 相談 and 相手 on WK. You could argue for 相変わらず as “aspect”, but 首相 and 宰相 are both using the “minister” sense which is neither “aspect” nor “mutual”.
Sometimes kanji just have multiple disjoint meanings. In the end they’re not very important to learn except as stepping stones for the vocab.
There are only two that work well, sumou which works really well, and aite, both of which have different readings than the kanji reading SOU. So that’s 2/8
For jisho.org, they’re all aspect / PM except maybe one (copy pasting the vocab list):
相 【ソウ】 aspect, appearance, look, physiognomy (as an indication of one’s fortune), aspect, phase (e.g. solid, liquid and gaseous)
相違 【ソウイ】 difference, discrepancy, variation
実相 【ジッソウ】 reality, real state of affairs, true state of affairs, true form of all things as they are, ultimate reality
世相 【セソウ】 social conditions, phase of life, (sign of) the times, state of society
相 【ショウ】 minister (of a government department)
相伴 【ショウバン】 partaking, participating, taking part in, sharing (something with someone)
Does anyone know where that “on reading compounds” list on the kanji page comes from? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was selected to provide examples of the different readings and meanings for the kanji, in which case it won’t tell you much about which meaning is most common in wider vocabulary. (For that you could look at the bigger list of “words containing $KANJI”.)
That’s interesting. I usually look at the trans-lingual etymology on wiktionary not knowing any better. EDHCC is really cool but I wish it had sources / went a little bit more in depth.
The wiktionary entry is interesting. The etymology for “mutual” seems to be linked to AI (so AITE), while SOU reading is linked to the “aspect” meaning:
And it seems that the “together with” is separate from “mutual”:
From Middle Chinese相 (“together, with”), from the way that a minister would always be with their lord. Kan’on, so likely a later borrowing than the sō reading.
I would argue 相談 doesn’t count because advice is by nature asymmetrical. There is an advisor and and advised, it’s not mutual. It’s more like an aspect of a conversation.
I was already counting 相手, but I didn’t think of SUDOU which is definitely a good fit for mutual.
Yes the kanji do have disjoint meanings which is why they’re interesting, but it does bother me a little when the meaning given in wanikani doesn’t make sense with most of the vocab. I won’t be satisfied until I understand why it’s found in the rest of the vocab otherwise. By itself, 相 (SOU) means aspect
I don’t think the Japanese dictionaries agree with you on that (and the JE dictionaries gloss it not only as “advice” but also with a “consultation, conference, discussion” sense). Daijisen’s definition is basically “talking or thinking together to solve a problem or decide what to do”:
I have some offline dictionaries, but the best free web source I know for JJ dictionaries is kotobank which will make you sit through a short ad before showing you stuff but is otherwise OK. Also searches for things like “WORD 由来” can surface interesting information.
