Wow the explaination of 酸素 is really good!

WaniKani
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The explanation from WaniKani

The acid element is oxygen. In German it’s the same as in Japanese - it’s called “Sauerstoff”, including “sauer”, the word for “sour”. The noun version is “säure” which means both “sourness” and “acid” (which again is the same in Japanese, the same kanji is used in both words). The word “oxygenium” in Greek/Latin literally means “acid maker”. Long ago chemists thought oxygen was a defining characteristic of acids, later they found out there are also acids without oxygen like hydrochloric/muriatic/salt acid and the defining characteristic actually is hydrogen. But the name stuck.

Or you could just imagine all the oxygen you breathe has turned into acid (oh no!), and it sucks to breathe. Whatever works for you.

I wish the meaning explanation of another vocabs on WaniKani are more like this. It’s really interesting to read. I love it!!

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Agreed (with the both of you)! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Fun-fact:
“syre” is Norwegian for “acid” (also in Danish)
“syre” is Swedish for “oxygen”

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Does the word for Oxygen in Thai also have something to do with acid or sour?

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Just Oxygen lol.

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Zuurstof in Dutch. We might have introduced it to Japanese through trading with them, as western science was progressing and there was a need to have terms for them.

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And syra is acid in Swedish. Don’t mix up syra and syre! lol

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And “stoff” means 素 in this case :blush: For other elements, the kanji are very 1:1 with German as well:

水素 (“Wasserstoff”, “Wasser” means “water”)
炭素 (“Kohlenstoff”, “Kohle” means “coal”)
窒素 (“Stickstoff”, “Stick” means “choking”)

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