Doing some four 'o clock thinking eh? I love 四字熟語 any time of day though!
十人十色（じゅう・にん・と・いろ）is also a good one; meaning something like “to each their own”.
And there’s an alternative version that ups the numbers: 千人千色（せん・にん・せん・しょく）。
No need to be coy about it; I have a real soft spot for kanji with the heart radical. Romance happens to be one of those lovely kanji that you can combine with ones that have similar meanings, like love（愛）to create something… well, similar, like “love” 恋愛 (how fuzzy).
Still, this is a versatile character that’s easy to remember, thanks to a consistent reading as:
a noun 恋
a verb 恋する
an adjective 恋しい
It also has a very nice older version: 戀
Which makes me think of literally binding your words to your heart, with strings. Probably the most enjoyable part of learning Japanese, for me, is all this imagination and creativity in writing. Sooo, let’s continue throwing hearts around:
We know this is pronounced そうbecause it has 相 in the kanji.
Here is my pseudo 四字熟語 for this kanji. It trips from the tongue very nicely.
想像妊娠 false pregnancy
Weirdly, jisho lists a whole bunch of Ringo Starr and George Harrison songs and albums with this kanji in the title:
想い出のリヴァプール
想いは果てなく〜母なるイングランド
想い出を映して
想い出のフォトグラフ
This is part of the 寺 group of characters, which are thankfully pretty well-behaved about having an 音読み of じ (except for that weirdo 待).
The bit on the left is 日 (sun, day), so it’s not much of a stretch to get from there to the actual meaning of time, hour.
In English the words “time” and “hour” are pretty easy to distinguish while reading, but in Japanese both concepts can be written with 時, so you end up having to use context to figure out which sense is intended.
I am pretty sure the first Japanese word I learned or used was なに? I picked it up from watching things, and later found that it works nicely as a vague general question word.
This kanji depicts a person carrying a load, and was the original form of the kanji 荷, which still denotes cargo. 何 then came to be used for “what” because of its sound.
This kanji is used in so many expressive ways (most of which are just written in kana) that it is hard to know where to start. But here is a common expression that I don’t remember ever hearing:
何を隠そう to tell you the truth, to be frank
I was going to go with 隠next, but instead I’ll go with
When Japan’s simplified 新字体 kanji were created, those simplifications were only officially applied to kanji in the 当用漢字 list (later replaced by the 常用漢字 list).
For example, the character 龍 (dragon) was simplified to 竜, and the character 瀧 (waterfall) was simplified to 滝, but the character 籠 (basket) was not officially simplified, because it was not on the list.
Nevertheless, some people chose to create simplified versions of non-Tōyō/Jōyō kanji, following the obvious patterns used in the official simplifications. So characters like 篭 came into existence anyway.
What’s peculiar in this case is that the character 籠 was later added to the Jōyō list, in its traditional form. So it’s an example of a simplified/traditional pair where the traditional form is on the list, and the simplified form is not, which is the opposite of the usual situation.
That was quite the kicker; scared us all away. I’ve known words with this one in it since I was 7 years old, but I’ve never remembered the kanji, nor the on’yomi （シャク・シユウ）
前蹴り＝ front kick
横蹴り ＝ horizontal side kick
回し蹴り ＝ roundhouse kick
後ろ蹴り ＝ backwards kick (not to be confused with the other 下痢 ）
And today I learned:
蹴飛ばす = to kick [and send flying], also: to reject [completely]
Plus an alternative writing: 蹵 Might like this one better actually.
The Shang Dynasty oracle bone predecessor of the character 飛 is a bit of a mystery, but it has been suggested that it represents birds flying in the distance (not unlike how we often doodle gulls as little m:s).
Its shape changed quite a lot by the (Chinese) Warring States period, and is thought to represent a bird spreading its wings and heading upwards (presumably, the bottom bit are its tail feathers).
From there, the character appears to have transitioned gradually into the character we know today.
I have always thought that this is an attractive kanji. It is nice too that its meaning is still close to what is pictured. Two feathers (wings) flapping in the sky with the sun (now the white radical). Hence a bird learning to fly, practicing.
The 訓読み for this kanji has always been especially easy for me. I just think of all of the things that I learned from our student guide in 奈良.
What I did not know that I have been hearing this kanji spoken each day when I listen to news broadcasts about 中国習近平国家主席. (Chinese head of state Xi Jinping)
I had come across this kanji even before WK, through watching Japanese speedruns of the game 隻狼. One of the major characters is 葦名・弦一郎, so you get to see his name appear at certain points.
Indeed, 郎 is a very common suffix for male given names. If you see a name that ends in 〜ろう, there’s a decent chance that it uses this character. And if it ends in 〜たろう, there’s a decent chance that it uses 太郎.
A few more examples of names:
一郎
慶太郎
敬太郎
承太郎 やれやれ
The next kanji is one that I mentioned at the start of this post:
隻
As ‘one half’ of a pair, 隻 is (naturally) related to 雙 >> 双 a pair. It also generally means “one / single / alone”, which probably explains how it ended up in the name of the game, seeing as how it’s inspired by「子連れ狼」Lone Wolf and Cub. For some reason I went looking for it in yoji, and found: 斗酒隻鶏（としゅせきけい）“a barrel of sake and a single chicken” … Apparently this has to do with funeral services and memorial offerings in the long-long-ago, and thus expresses a sense of mourning or condolences over the loss of a friend.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, it is a counter for boats, cars, as well as some animals.
I could talk about how this nominally means gauze, but the much more exciting fact is that this kanji shows up in the name of 神羅電気動力株式会社, also known as the Shinra Electric Power Company.
Shinra’s advanced 魔晄炉 (Mako reactors) bring electricity to brighten the lives of all the inhabitants of Midgar. Pay no attention to the pesky eco-terrorists who claim that they are exhausting the life energy of the planet.
Their power plant looks truly terrifying. And ticket prices have gone up. If only anyone would take a US passport right now.
All that I have to say about 爆 is that the kanji has not changed much over the centuries:
Observe that 火and 暴,( violent, depicting according to one source a salivating savage deer), both contribute to the meaning of this kanji. The 暴 gives the ばく reading to words like 爆, 爆発, 爆弾, 爆破, 爆笑.
I am disappointed in the Japanese in that of all of the ways they might choose to creatively and metaphorically use the idea of a bomb detonating, the only one that they use is this boorish one, 爆乳.
I thought it was the opposite? Or at the very least, 暴 might be both phonetic and semantic, but 火 is semantic. 暴 shares the ばく reading, though it’s less common. For instance, in 暴露, ばくろ.
I think this one is interesting. If you can really use your imagination, I think you can picture a child being breastfed in this kanji. The 子 is the child, the “cleat” radical is the mother’s breast, and the “umbrella” radical is the mother’s arm holding the child in position. I haven’t seen this one in WK yet, but I have it seen it used many times in my textbooks and language learning apps, particularly in 牛乳. Sometimes I think that the learning order of WK is so weird, considering that we learn kanji like 努 and 局 early, which I find to be rarely used in WK and in the wild. That’s just off the top of my head though, there are probably some more.
局 is ranked #286 for frequency in newspapers (i.e. it’s really common), and is also part of common words like 結局 and 郵便局, but I guess you haven’t reached those in WaniKani yet.
努 isn’t uncommon, though it’s true that it mainly appears in one word (努力). But to be fair, that’s an extremely common word.
(how fuzzy).
I’ve known words with this one in it since I was 7 years old, but I’ve never remembered the kanji, nor the on’yomi （シャク・シユウ）
And ticket prices have gone up. If only anyone would take a US passport right now.
