ta-keru, naga-i, naga-sa, chō, chō-zuru The adjective nagai means long. The noun nagasa means length. Today’s character and the character we uploaded the other day mean long and read nagai. The former looks more common for both meanings; the latter is not used for the length of something. Only today’s character reads chō-zuru or chō. [...]
Basic Japanese Characters
Japanese Calligraphy Art by Japanese Calligrapher Nao
Browsing the blog archives for January, 2010
30 Jan 10
The Rabbit
u (wu) This character means the Rabbit, one of the animals of the oriental zodiac. We don’t use this character to mean an ordinary rabbit. The twelve animals of the oriental zodiac are used for years, days, hours, and directions. The year 2010 is the year of the Tiger. The year 2011 is the year [...]
29 Jan 10
Bamboo
take, chiku A bamboo and bamboos are “take.” Splitting a bamboo is “take wo waru.” If somebody is straightforward or frank, you can describe the person as “take wo watta yō,” whose literal meaning is “like splitting a bamboo.” Today, I’ll introduce a palindrome and a tongue twister, both of which are well-known among the [...]
28 Jan 10
River
kawa, sen Kawa is a river. The names of rivers end with this character. Its sound becomes gawa that is the voiced sound of kawa. For example, the longest river in Japan is Shinanogawa (the Shinano River), which is also known as Chikumagawa (the Chikuma River). It runs from Nagano prefecture to Niigata prefecture. Tonegawa [...]
27 Jan 10
Deep
fuka-i, fuka-maru, fuka-meru, shin The adjective fukai means deep. The noun fukasa means depth. The noun fukami means a deep place. The endings of these words, i.e. “i,” “sa,” and “mi,” are all written in hiragana. We can measure depth. For example, if you have been to a Japanese swimming pool, you might have noticed [...]
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Filed in Japanese calligraphy
26 Jan 10
Willow
yanagi, ryū A tree called yanagi is a willow. A pussy willow is nekoyanagi. Neko means a cat. The buds of nekoyanagi are furry like a cat. Some names include this character. Yanagase in Gifu and Yanagawa in Fukuoka are examples. The former is a shopping district; the latter is famous for a boating trip [...]
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Filed in Japanese calligraphy
25 Jan 10
Stroke
kaku, kaku-suru, ga The main meaning of this character is “image.” I chose a minor meaning. As you can see, we use the word “stroke” every day. The number of strokes is important when you look up a kanji dictionary. For those who study Japanese, I should stress that the main meaning of this character [...]
24 Jan 10
Cozy
kokoroyo-i, kai The titles of our posts are the meanings of characters. As for the title of this entry, the first word I conceived was “comfortable.” On second thought, I chose “cozy.” We have the word “kaitekina,“ which sounds more appropriate for “comfortable.” By the way, teki means appropriate and looks intricate. Like cozy, kokoroyoi [...]
23 Jan 10
East
higashi, tō Higashi means east. When this is combined with other characters, we usually read it tō. Tōzai means East and West. Tōkyō is the capital of Japan. This is the first letter of Tōkyō. Until the end of the Edo period (1868), Kyōto was kyō, which means the capital of a country or the [...]
22 Jan 10
Fat or Thick
futo-i, futo, buto, ta, tai The adjective futo-i means fat or thick. If you have a big arm, we call it “futoi ude.” Ude means arm. A fat person is described as futotteiru. Futoru means “to gain weight.” The noun futosa means thickness. The rest of the readings are used in compounds. For example, futoji [...]
After Blossom Viewing
Snow Moon
