This is a pretty random one that I mentioned in a post last month when talking about if I learn kanji in isolation. Funny to see someone else bring it up
While I’m here, 梃 from 梃子でも動かない
This is a pretty random one that I mentioned in a post last month when talking about if I learn kanji in isolation. Funny to see someone else bring it up
While I’m here, 梃 from 梃子でも動かない
咳 a cough (noun / suru verb )
池田さん 風邪で咳が出るのに、タバコばかり吸っています。
Ikeda-san wa kaze de seki ga deru no ni , tabako bakari sutte imasu. Even though Ikeda is coughing from a cold, all he does is smoke cigarettes [he is (still) smoking all the time].
Chino, Naoko. All About Particles (Kindle Locations 1989-1994). Kodansha USA. Kindle Edition.
翅 in the word 鱗翅目(りんしもく). 翅 means wings (翼 can also be written 翅).
鱗翅目 means Lepidoptera, the order of insects that includes butterflies, moths etc (another word I didn’t know before).
Nowadays you would say チョウ目 in Japanese, 鱗翅目 is an obsolete term.
躾 (しつけ, training, discipline, teaching manners)
しつけ is a very common word, but I was curious what the kanji was, and it’s pleasantly easy to remember. 身を美しくする.
I’ve seen 躾 written in kanji in books a few times. It probably had furigana, but I can’t remember.
It looks like it has no on’yomi, which is interesting. Is it rare to have kanji with no on’yomi?
It’s a kokuji. Like 峠. That’s one of the common characteristics of Japanese-invented characters that aren’t keiseimoji (so, unlike 働 which is a kokuji, but is based on 動, so the onyomi came along for the ride).
佻 (read ちょう, as one would expect)
In the word 軽佻浮薄 — frivolity, shallowness, superficiality.
A 訓読み for 佻 is かる.い
So the word 軽佻 basically means かるい+かるい. Meaning-wise, it’s close to 軽率.
伝承: Folklore, tradition etc.
Those are both WK kanji. 伝 is in level 11, and 承 is in level 34. But I guess you were thinking that it’s a non-WK word.
窟 - cavern
I saw the kanji 捺 (ナツ・お.す) for the first time today. It means to stamp, to press.
押捺 おうなつ
捺印 なついん
Heh. “Brah” was clever.
These sorts of things often involve some fairly intellectual visual and typographic puns, and it always gives me a nice “aha” feeling when I work them out.
For more on this pattern:
I learned 臼 because a character from a folk tale I read is an usu (臼, a type of japanese mortar used to pound rice into mochi)!
Interestingly, the kanji is also used in the word for molar (大臼歯)
Only fans was the funniest for me ![]()
繋 as in 繋がる etc has to be the most common non-WK Kanji out there right? I see the word 繋がる so often
First time I’ve seen it. ![]()
I see it pretty often in the loading screen of the games that I play, as well as on Japanese tech news, but I guess the word usually is written in kana
I usually just see ローディング ![]()
Are they online games?
Interesting. I watch the regular news but I’m not at 100% comprehension there so I may have missed it.