Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In my first blog for JapanesePod101.com, I sought compounds with a neat repetition of shapes, such as 宝玉 (hōgyoku: jewel, gem, treasure + jewel). Soon afterward, I found repeating shapes inside 読売 (to read + to sell), which says Yomiuri, as in the prominent newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. As Yomiuri isn't a real word, I can't help wondering if the founders coined 読売 partly for its visual appeal. Repeated shapes within a compound can be visually arresting. Just look at all these words containing two or more instances of 力 (RYOKU, chikara: power):   助力 (joryoku: help, assistance)     help + power   努力 (doryoku: effort) ... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You've likely heard of "voiding the check." Well, today we'll be doing the inverse—checking the void. That is, we'll look at more ways in which 空 conveys a sense of emptiness ... or even a yawning void! A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Empty Empty the mind, empty the mind. That's supposed to be the goal of meditation. But what if people really were empty? That wouldn't be optimal, according to this compound: 空け者 (utsukemono: fool, idiot, dunce)                 empty + person On Options forInsulting Someone ... When 空 has the kun-yomi utsuke, it means "empty-headed" or even "dumb"!... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Musically and astronomically, we know about the dark side of the moon. But what about the dark side of the sky—or rather, the dark side of the "sky" kanji, 空? As I mentioned in my last blog (when discussing 空々しい　(sorazorashii: false, hypocritical) and 空手形 (karategata: bad check; empty promise)), 空 has a seamy side. This kanji often means "fake" or "sham." Take, for example, these words: 空名 (kūmei: empty name; false reputation)             fake + name 空夢 (sorayume: fabricated... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary A Japanese friend wrote a tongue-twister and presented it to me in rōmaji, challenging me to convert the words into kanji and hiragana. I did fine until I encountered this line: Kono bin itsu kara kara, kinō kara kara, ototoi kara kara? I associate kara with "from" and "because," so I thought the repeated kara kara phrases might have meant "because it's from." Wrong! For every kara that appeared before a punctuation mark, I should have written 空, meaning "empty" in this case. For The Answer tothe Kara Kara Puzzle ... Just as kara has multiple personalities, so does 空. Look at all its yomi! KŪ: sky, empty a(keru): to empty, leave blank kara, kara(ppo):... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary When a Japanese friend emailed me a recipe, one ingredient jumped out at me: 玉ねぎ (tamanegi: onion). I hadn't realized that "onion" contains 玉 (GYOKU, tama), the character for "jewel." I momentarily enjoyed thinking of onions as the gems of the vegetable world! As I soon found, though, 玉- is also a prefix meaning "spherical" or "round." That's the sense 玉- conveys in 玉ねぎ. On 玉- as a Prefix Meaning "Spherical" ... Oh, well. Seeing the 玉 of 玉ねぎ as "round" is a little more mundane than imagining a white onion as the pearl of the produce store, a yellow onion as a topaz, or a red onion as a ruby! On Jewels ofMany Colors ... The "onion" compound isn't the only food... Show more