Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

ひろこです (Hiroko desu.)
Hiroko here.
Welcome to japanesepod101.com kanji corner brought to you by japanesepod101.com, start speaking Japanese in minutes. Get your free lifetime account at japanesepod101.com, it’s a grove.
Lesson 23.
A Language of Its Own.
This Japanese kanji video lesson shows the right way to draw and pronounce the kanji that means a word or language.
Okay let’s draw the kanji for this lesson. The meaning of this kanji is a word or language.
We are going to have a trick for memorizing this kanji in just a minute but let’s first look at the readings.
Remember there are two readings in Japanese kanji? One is 音読み (on'yomi) the On reading, the other one is 訓読み (kun'yomi) the Kun reading. Long story short, the On reading comes from Chinese and the Kun reading comes from Japanese.
Now let’s look at the On reading for today’s kanji. The On reading for this kanji is ゴ (go). The Kun reading for this kanji is かた (kata) as in かたる (kataru).
Remember the trick that I was telling you about? Let’s look at that now. I need the green pen.
It looks like the kanji for a story? The right part indicates itself. When a word acts as itself, it becomes a language.
Now let’s look at how to draw this kanji. Pay attention to the stroke order, it’s very important. We start from the left part, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, the right part, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Let’s try it again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.
Now let’s look at some sample words.
Ta-dah.
The On reading for this kanji is go . Here we have げんご (gengo) this word means a language.
The Kun reading for this kanji is kata as in かたる (kataru). This word means to tell a story. Now do you know the word for Japanese language? Let’s try to draw it here. You know this kanji for sun and you know this kanji for root. And today we learned this kanji, language. So Japanese language にほんご (Nihon-go).
Get the lesson notes for this kanji lesson at japanesepod101.com, go to japanesepod101.com and sign up for your free lifetime account and start speaking Japanese in minutes.
Thank you for watching ありがとうございました (Arigatō gozaimashita.)

Kanji

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Comments

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25 Comments
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JapanesePod101.com
2009-11-06 18:30:00

みなさん, Do you know how to write 語 now? :smile: Now hopefully you can write the word for Japanese - 日本語!

JapanesePod101.com
2021-07-19 21:07:52

Tanmayiさん

コメントありがとうございます😄

That's great!!

Please keep up the great work😇

Please let us know if you have any questions :)

Sincerely

Ryoma

Team JapanesePod101.com

Tanmayi
2021-06-17 14:15:09

日本語! Now i can write kanji words . Japanese pod 101 . com is v. good

Tanmayi
2021-06-17 14:09:49

日本語!

JapanesePod101.com
2020-03-27 20:29:15

こんにちは ステイーヴ,

コメントありがとうございます!Thank you for your comment.

It's great to read your motivating lines, thank you so much for it! Indeed, it might seem overwhelming at first, but it gets easier and more logical as you move forward! 😇

Let us know if you have any questions.

Wishing you good luck with your Japanese,

レヴェンテ (Levente)

Team JapanesePod101.com

ステイーヴ
2020-03-21 23:59:13

I have found that although it is difficult to learn all the kanji, it gets easier as you learn more. You begin to see patterns in how words are formed. Also, the more of them you learn, the more you learn HOW to learn them, and the better you get at it. Keep adding all the vocabulary to your flashcards (I have a "Beginner Kanji" flashcard deck for this course) and review them regularly. It's not that bad if you keep at it. There are just so many kanji out there that it can seem daunting, but don't let that stop you. Just keep moving forward and you'll get there!

JapanesePod101.com
2018-11-03 00:55:51

Hi cione,

Thank you for leaving a comment to help out other learners!

Thanks for studying Japanese with us! 😄

Sincerely,

Miki H

Team JapanesePod101.com

cione
2018-09-29 06:53:12

@Damian

Review the 日 kanji and the 本 kanji, the answer is there. Look at the On readings and the Kun readings of both

JapanesePod101.com
2016-06-20 05:27:04

Damian Gribovski san,

Konnichiwa.:smile:

We are sorry about that.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us anytime.

Yuki  由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

Damian Gribovski
2016-06-08 03:47:44

I'm confused...

How comes 日本 is pronounced as 'nihon', if you didn't tell us about that O_O

JapanesePod101.com
2015-04-14 13:01:01

japanese guy san,

konnichiwa.

Yes, you are right.

Long long time ago a Japanese king sent a letter to a Chinese king and said ‘from king rising sun to king sundown’ in the letter.

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

japanese guy
2015-04-11 16:29:32

ありがとうございます 

and i have a quick question

is japan called 日本 because you see the sun there first?

so japan would be the origin of sun?

JapanesePod101.com
2015-03-31 17:18:57

Marcos san,

Konnichiwa.

I can understand the difficulties.

Please take your time and practice! :smile:

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

marcos
2015-03-28 02:55:03

i understand a little bit of the kanji but they very hard to learn:disappointed:

Bea
2012-02-21 02:29:06

Hiroko-san,

you are a great sensei, always happy and you put the things in a very simple way.

japanesepod101.com,

love your site and method :grin: but I have a question:

why are not the PDF numbers consecutive?:???:

Jessi
2009-12-03 09:25:55

スコットさん,

Thank you so much for your wonderful comment :grin: We're really glad to hear that you are enjoying the video lessons! We think that the history and culture is an important and interesting part of the language, which is why we like to go over it. Thanks again!! :mrgreen:

スコット
2009-12-03 08:49:34

すべてをオンラインで公開レッスンをしていただきありがとうございます!

I am finding that your lessons are really helping me with my japanese! They give me tips on kanji and how to use them. I find alot of teachers don't bother to explain the history of the japanese characters and phrases, just for the fact that it take time to go over it. But with Japanese Pod 101, they give you insite as to how the kanji was formed, which gives you a better understanding of the language as a whole. You can relate with what is being said and writen based on what you already know about the language, I like that. It gives the languge a life of it's own!

Thank you so much! Scott

Patrick
2009-11-21 11:56:44

Hiroko-san,

Thanks for doing these videos, only a few thousand to go. Watching this one made me look up the kanji for "say" because you write it differently to the way it shows on my computer and elsewhere (like the PDF). I also went back to lesson #20 for reference. It might be beyond the scope of the lessons (maybe not the notes), but picking up the subtle differences appears important. Is it incorrect to write "say" as four horizontal lines plus the mouth box, or better to follow you example?

Patrick

Mayumi
2009-11-16 15:00:05

tom Garney-san,

Thank you for your feedback! We introduced 言 and 口 in our previous lessons, and then finally 語 in this lesson. :wink:

tom Garney
2009-11-14 07:16:30

Hiroko Sensei,

These are great lessons. I really enjoy the video approach to online learning.

How about teaching us some kani that have fewer strokes?

Arigato

スコット
2009-11-12 03:32:19

I kind of agree with LG (I didn't mean for that to rhyme) :???: I signed up for this thinking it was going to be free... But when I clicked on video, it brought me to the "Buy a package" page :neutral: What gives? Not that I'm angry with the site or anything... I just would like to know why I can't access it. I think this site is a very useful tool for learning the Japanese language, and I would like to see more people join the experience:wink:. Although I would like to know why it proposes to being free on the main sign-up page. Do I have to start a "7-Day Free" trial? I hope this helps anybody else out there with the same questions as me. :smile: -Scott Coughlan

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