Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary In an email I recently received from Japan, the first sentence contained an intriguing compound: お元気に活躍されている様子嬉しく存じます。 O-genki ni katsuyaku sarete iru yōsu ureshiku zonjimasu. I'm happy to know you appear to be healthy and doing well. What the Words Mean ... Actually, before 活躍する intrigued me, it stumped me, because I didn't know 躍. Then I looked it up and discovered this great breakdown: 活躍する (katsuyaku suru: to flourish, do well, be actively engaged)     lively + to leap! More Sentences with 活躍 ... The first character, 活, means "active, lively, energetic, moving" here. All that makes sense in the context of the sentence. But 躍 involves leaping?! I didn't... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary This week, as the United States ushers in a new president and a new era, it seems appropriate to focus a bit on politics. Here are three political words that intrigue me: 共和党 (kyōwatō: Republican Party)     together + harmony + faction The breakdown gives us "harmony together"! And the first two kanji mean "cooperation"! Sounds like socialism to me! 進歩的 (shinpoteki: progressive)     to progress + progress + adjectival suffix The Japanese word for "progressive" actually involves "progress," 進歩. Strangely, the progress seems to come not from running but rather from walking (歩)! (Although 歩 generally means "to walk,"... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary If English speakers talk about seeing something quickly, they usually mean that they glimpsed something as it whizzed by but couldn't study the image in detail. In Japanese, looking at something fast has an entirely different meaning: 早見 (hayami: chart, table)     fast + to see An alternate way of writing this compound features another "fast" kanji: 速見 (fast + to see). In both compounds, notice the kun-kun construction. This is old Japanese. A chart organizes the bare bones of information, enabling you to find what you need quickly! And what would it mean to look at something slowly in Japanese? Think of quintessential Japanese... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Let's start with a quiz today. What do you think the following equation yields? excess + talk a. headache, earache b. gossip c. insincerity d. digression While you think about it, I'll share some photos from my recent trip to New Zealand (so as to block the answer). The Japanese writing is fuzzy. But you can blame any fuzziness on the millions of New Zealand sheep. The sign says this: キウィ・サウス (Kiui Sausu: Kiwi South) 羊の国のセーター (hitsuji no kuni no sētā:     knitwear)      sheep + country I love how "knitwear" turns into "sheep country sweaters"! The characters 喫茶 (kissa: tea house, to... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Happy New Year! Or is it so happy right now? Quite possibly, you’re home with one of these: 宿酔 (shukusui: hangover) And how would I know that you happen to be at home with your hangover? Well, if you're feeling sick, it's likely that you'll want to stay home. But beyond that, the "ingredients" in 宿酔 more or less mandate that you be at home: 宿酔 (shukusui: hangover)     home + to become intoxicated Actually, it would seem from the breakdown (the kanji kind, not the bodily sort) as if you had gotten drunk at home, too. But I'll leave such matters to your discretion. You could probably succeed in getting drunk in any number of locales.   ... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary At this time of year, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate: 12 days of Christmas, 8 days of Chanukah, 7 days of Kwanzaa, and a partridge in a pear tree. But in all this merrymaking, you may have overlooked one important cause for celebration: 赤道祭（sekidōsai: ceremony to celebrate crossing the equator)     red + road + festival The Equator Is the Red Road?! ... As it turns out, an equatorial crossing is exactly what I celebrated this week. Somewhere over the Pacific, as others slept, I hooted and hollered as we crossed from winter into summer en route to New Zealand. I also celebrated the idea of seeing water swirl down the drain in... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I feel that I've overloaded recent blogs, making us all work way too hard. There's been too much consideration of fine distinctions between similar kanji, too many examples, too many links to click, and too much to read. So it's time for an extended vacation from all that hard work—from all that thinking. (It sometimes seems as though we're never allowed to give our brains a rest, doesn't it? So much to stuff in there and keep straight.) I've decided that, over the next month or so, I'll return to the thing that inspires me most about kanji—cool compounds. In each blog, I'll present some great compounds, grouping them according to a theme (just to provide a reassuring... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary I love the yomi arawa. It rolls off the tongue. And yet the sequence of sounds is also tough to remember—so much so that when I first learned arawa(seru) as the kun-yomi of 表, I had to associate it with a mnemonic: Ottawa. Strangely, those words sound similar—or they do when I pronounce them! Last week we found that 露 can have the yomi of arawa, in which case it means "exposed, scanty, bare, unconcealed, naked." In a tucked-away corner of an August blog, we looked at three other kanji with the kun-yomi of arawa and with similar meanings. So here's what we now have altogether: 1. 露 (arawa: exposed, scanty, bare, unconcealed, naked) 2. 著 (arawa(su): to write,... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary Two weeks ago, we came to know 露 (RO, RŌ, tsuyu) as "dew." So when I saw 露 in the following compound, my mind naturally turned to "dew": 流露 After all, 流 (RYŪ, naga(reru)) means "to flow," and dew could easily flow. But in this case, 露 means "to expose"! Here's the word again: 流露 (ryūro: to disclose, reveal, express)     to flow + to expose In fact, 露 often conveys a sense of exposure. That was actually our first taste of this kanji two weeks ago, when I introduced a compound about introductions: 披露 (hirō: announcement, introduction)     to reveal + to expose We also knew 露 as "to expose" back in March, when we... Show more

Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary We saw last week that 露 (RO, RŌ, tsuyu) primarily means "dew." But this kanji has also spun off several auxiliary meanings, most relating to dew metaphorically. Let's take them one by one. DewPhoto: Mustangaly   Tears This will be a very short section, because I can offer you only one expression involving 露 as "tears." But it's a doozy: 袖の露 (sode no tsuyu: tears falling onto the sleeve)     sleeve + tears I'm hoping there's also a phrase for "tears falling onto shoes" or "tears (sparked by poverty) falling onto empty wallet," but if so, I haven't yet found those expressions. If you need to know more about tears in a... Show more