産卵 (sanran: spawning) to give birth to + egg
What I really like about these two sample sentences from Breen (the only ones he provides) is that they seem to contradict each other completely. Or is it that salmon lay eggs on the sand at the bottom of a river?
鮭は川を遡って砂に産卵する。
Sake wa kawa o sakanobotte suna ni sanran suru.
Salmon go up the river and lay their eggs in the sand.Did you notice how sibilant this sentence is?! Lots of s words!
鮭 (sake: salmon)
遡 (sakanoboru: to go upstream)This is a rare kanji, and although I found sakanobotte represented in hiragana on Breen’s site, I changed it to kanji here, so it becomes clearer that this is all one word. I like that 逆 (GYAKU: reverse) has found its way into a kanji about swimming upstream. Going solely from the components, one might think that 遡 referred to the dark side of the moon (月)!
砂 (suna: sand)
鮭は淡水で産卵する。
Sake wa tansui de sanran suru.
Salmon lay their eggs in fresh water.淡水 (tansui: fresh water) light + water
What’s this? “Fresh water” involves a kanji that combines water (
) and fire (火)? The character, 淡, means “light,” as in “light-colored, faint, pale.” So I suppose fresh water tends to be shallow and therefore lighter in color.
Apparently I’ve discussed the etymology of this kanji before! News to me! Here’s what I wrote.
