Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I've found the nearly perfect kanji sandwich! Check this out: 徒競走 (tokyōsō: running race)     to go on foot + to compete + to run What a thing of beauty! If you took the first kanji, 徒, and removed 彳 (a radical that Henshall defines as "movement along a road" and that Spahn has as "to walk a short distance, stop, linger"), you would have a completely symmetrical compound! (Well, it would be symmetrical in the ABA or ABBA sense. Sticklers might argue that true symmetry requires the word to start with the mirror image of 走. But such people are not permitted to take a bite out of my kanji-sandwich joy.) Tokyōsō is also one of those great... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I've made an exciting discovery! As you may know, I've been collecting exceptions to a rule. If there are back-to-back instances of the same kanji, the repetition symbol 々 typically replaces one (as in 時々, tokidoki: sometimes). Thus far, we've seen five anomalies: 夜中中 (yonakajū: throughout the night)     night + middle + middle 中城城 (Nakagusukujō: a castle in Okinawa)     inside + castle + castle 民主主義 (minshu-shugi: democracy)     people + to play a central role + to play a central role +     righteousness One occasionally sees 民主々義, but it's not common. ... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Today's blog is going to go all over the place. If that makes you so dizzy that you become sick to your stomach, then you've come to the right place, because soon you'll learn a few ways to talk about that! Take a look at this sentence (unless you're eating, in which case you might want to wait): 血を見て彼は胸が悪くなった。 Chi o mite kare wa mune ga waruku natta. The sight of blood turned his stomach. 血 (chi: blood) 見 (mi(ru): to see) 彼 (kare: he) 胸が悪くなる (mune ga waruku naru: to feel sick, to be nauseated)     chest + bad, sick 胸が悪くなる Won't Always Make You Sick ... There are a few things to notice here. One is the extremely cool... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Not that many things happen to the chest. Our fingers get papercuts, our toes get stubbed, and I'm forever bruising my thighs. But unless one plays American football, rugby, or the like, our chests don't get whacked around as our limbs do. In Japanese, though, any number of things can happen to the chest. Take the issue of being hit: 胸を打つ (mune o utsu: to be emotionally moving)     chest, heart + to strike In Japanese, striking the chest can provoke tears, and not of physical pain. We're a world away from the rough-and-tumble world of macho sports! In fact, we're actually talking about the heart here. As we saw last week, expressions... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary If you saw the following word, what would you think it meant? 胸像 (kyōzō) As you may know, 胸 means "chest," and 像 often means "image," as in 心像 (shinzō: mental image, heart + image). The chest and heart are fairly interrelated concepts. So if heart + image means "mental image," what could chest + image be? A chest x-ray? A man's image of a woman's chest? A poor self-image, based on a less-than-robust chest? (This brings to mind comedian John Oliver, who says he has a concave chest and isn't fit for any sports, though he could always serve as a sail.) No, it's none of those things. Instead, here's the deal: 胸像 (kyōzō: bust... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You might think that, as an inanimate object, a rod would be incapable of doing much. But 棒 (BŌ: rod, pole, stick) pairs off with several actions, as in the following expressions: 棒読み (bōyomi)     rod + reading 棒を引く (bō o hiku)     rod + to pull 棒立ち (bōdachi)     rod + standing Any ideas what these might mean? If I were guessing blindly, I might interpret 棒読み as a divining rod, an instrument to detect water or metal. Meanwhile, 棒を引く could refer to pulling a sword from a stone. As for 棒立ち, it could be a telephone pole. Wrong in every case! Let's take 'em one by one.   Reading Like a... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary You know the expression "adding insult to injury"? The following term captures that feeling perfectly: 説教泥棒 (sekkyō dorobō: burglar who preaches at the victim about methods of preventing similar crimes)     to preach + to instruct + thief (last 2 chars.) First he breaks into your house, ties you up, and robs you. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, he looks at you sternly and launches into a lecture: "You really need to be more careful about security, or else you'll continue to be the victim of such crimes." He has redeemed himself for his crime by teaching you a valuable lesson. Why, quite possibly you're indebted to him! We could... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I have little interest in anything steely or mechanical, but this word caught my eye and leapt right into my heart: 心棒 (shinbō: shaft, axle)     heart + rod An axle is a rod at the heart of a car! (Well, an axle may not be the heart in the way that Tokyo is the beating heart of Japan. I guess the car engine performs that function. But the axle is certainly at the center of things.) If 心棒 is an axle, what happens when you precede this compound with 用 (YŌ, mochiiru: use, service)? The word 用心棒 should refer to the function of an axle or perhaps to rotation itself, shouldn't it? No, that would be far too logical. Instead, we have this: 用心棒... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary It's officially summer! And on Alberto's haiku calendar, the July page celebrates the arrival of summer! Here's the PDF where he explains the haiku a bit. Don't be fooled (as I was) into thinking that 来ぬ means "has not arrived." What we're seeing is an old, literary, present perfect form of the verb. In other words, summer has come! I've celebrated the arrival of summer with a trip to Spain, where I've been for nearly a week. Hope you've also rung in the season in a happy way. If not, there's nothing like kanji to make you happy, so let's get to it! If you saw this compound and its breakdown, what would you think arasuji meant? 粗筋... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary If someone planned to serve you the following, how would you respond? 粗煮 (arani: dish consisting of bony fish parts boiled in soy sauce)     coarse + to boil Blech! Not one part of that sounds good to me. Bony fish parts and hot soy sauce do the opposite of whetting my appetite. I would have guessed that you'd make this dish only if the fridge were barren, save for a few bottled sauces and a moldy onion growing new parts. But it's entirely possible that 粗煮 is a delicacy! As it turns out, the answer isn't so clear-cut; see the link for more on that. Native Takes on the Situation ... From the following definitions of the first kanji, you... Show more