kutsuro-gu, kan The last character we would like to present to you in year 2010 is “to relax,” one thing most of our contemporary people forget to do no matter where you live in the world. Whether you think ourselves as productive or not, we are bound to be busy. Being busy has been almost [...]

mukashi, shaku A long time ago, we watched kids’ TV series called “manga Nippon mukashibanashi,” which means cartoon Japanese folklores. Each episode lasts for about 10 minutes. Now you can watch them on YouTube. Try “Kaguya hime.” I wrote about this story the other day. My version is a little different due to my vague [...]

osa-meru, osa-maru, nao-su, nao-ru, chi, ji Like yesterday’s character, this character means “to govern.” The verb osameru means “to govern” or “to settle a dispute.” The verb osamaru means “to settle down” or “to become stable.” We have another verb with this. Naosu means “to cure disease.” Naoru means “to recover.” You can use Nao’s [...]

he-ru, kei, kyō This character is used in many different ways because it has many meanings. It is primarily known as a character meaning “to go through” and therefore keiyu means via. The verb heru also means “to go through” or “to experience.” If the subject of heru is time, the meaning is “to go [...]

  wa-ru, wa-reru, wari, katsu The verb waru means to split. In math, it means to divide. If the object of the verb is a hard thing such as ceramics or glasses, waru means to break it or to crack it. The intransitive verb wareru is used when it breaks or it cracks. The verbs [...]

reki This character means history or lucidity. So the title roughly expresses its meaning. As we mentioned here before, history is rekishi. Something historical is expressed by rekishiteki or rekishitekina. Both words modify nouns coming after the words. The noun rekishi sometimes modifies nouns. Historical novels are “rekishi shō setsu.” Someone’s biography is sometimes called [...]

kan As you can see in the title, today’s character’s meaning is related to watching. See some compounds including the character to feel the meaning. kankō … sightseeing jinseikan … one’s theory on of life rakkan … optimism hikan … pessimism bikan … a sense of beauty gaikan … the appearance of something such as [...]

hari, shin Hari is a needle. Clocks and watches have two hands. These are called hari. The longer one is chōshin; the shorter, tanshin. Stitches can be counted by hari. Hitohari is one stitch; futahari is two stitches; mihari, three; yonhari, four and so on. Start to draw from the left part of the character. [...]