Browsing the blog archives for July, 2009
ata-eru, yo With eru in hiragana sylaballies called okurigana, the verb ata-eru means to give or to supply. One of the Japanese tropical islands is called Yorontō. Yorontō begins with this character. All horizontal lines are parallel and the gaps between two horizontal lines are almost the same. Draw the shortest horizontal stroke from left to [...]
man 1 man or ichi man is the number 10,000. So a million is 100 man or hyaku man (100 x 10,000 = 1,000,000). It also means a myriad. The word man ga ichior man ichi literally tells one out of 10,000 meaning by any chance. A possibility of man ga ichi or man ichi [...]
jō, take Let me start telling you about ichijō (one jō). It is a unit of length equal to about 3.03 meters, but the unit is obsolete. This character, jō, is part of the name of an island, Hachijojima, in Tokyo. It’s a tourist resort in the Pacific. Fine silk fabrics called hachijō is a [...]
sai If you have sai for something, you have a talent for it. When you say your age, you use sai, too. If you are 3 years old, you say san (3) sai. When it is combined with another character, it means talent most of the time. For example, tensai (genius), saino (talent) and bunsai [...]
kan, ho(-su), hi(-ru) This character means dry. Both ho-su and hi-ru have the same verbal meanings, to dry, whether they are transitive or intransitive (su and ru are hiragana syllabaries, which are like alphabets). The tide receding from the beach is expressed by hi-ru or kancho of which the kan is this character and cho [...]
shita, moto, sa-geru, sa-garu, kuda-ru, kuda-su, kuda-saru, o-riru, o-rosu, ka, ge, shimo The most basic meaning of the word, shita, is the bottom or the foot. Another word including this character is Shimoda, a tourist spot in Izu, Shizuoka. Shimoda is the historic port where Commodore Perry landed when Japan was taking a national seclusion [...]
ni, futa, futa-tsu, ji If you have already seen ichi (one) and san (three), you might be able to guess what it means. It means two or second. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary includes the headword, nisei. This ni is second and sei is generation. So, nisei is a second generation whose parents are Japanese immigrants called [...]
mi, mi-tsu, mit-tsu, san This means a number, again. It is three. When we count 1, 2, 3 … , we say ichi, ni, san …. When we count things more slowly, we sometimes say, “hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu …” All the tsu is one of the hiragana syllabaries, which are like alphabets. So if you [...]
nana, nana-tsu, nano, shichi This means seven. When we count numbers, we wrongly pronounce it hichi. Some friends of mine pointed out hichi is a local dialect. So, I try not to say hichi. Nana-chan is a nickname of a doll standing in front of an annex of the department store, Meitetsu Hyakkaten in Nagoya. [...]
tei, chō We read it tei or chō. This character means little by itself. According to a dictionary, tei means the fourth of the ten calendar signs, grade D in school reports, strength, or men from 20 to 59. Such definitions are not common these days. Rather, we read it chō and use the word [...]