Learn some common prefixes in Japanese
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some prefixes in Japanese? |
| Risa: And why are they useful to know? |
| Michael: At JapanesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Hana Hashimoto and Ben Lee (@hero-son) are talking about the weather. Hana says, |
| "We will have heavy rain tomorrow." |
| Hana Hashimoto: 明日は大雨ですよ。 (Ashita wa ōame desu yo.) |
| Dialogue |
| Hana Hashimoto: 明日は大雨ですよ。 (Ashita wa ōame desu yo.) |
| Ben Lee: 本当ですか。 (Hontō desu ka.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Hana Hashimoto: 明日は大雨ですよ。 |
| Michael: "We will have heavy rain tomorrow." |
| Ben Lee: 本当ですか。 |
| Michael: "Really?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Today, we will look at Japanese prefixes. Prefixes are small meaningful units which are added to the beginning of certain words in order to change their meaning. For example, in English, the prefix "im" is used to add the meaning of a negation in words such as "immoral," "immature," or "immortal." Similar prefixes are also present in Japanese. For example, in the main conversation, Hana says "heavy rain" using the word for rain |
| Risa: 雨 (ame) |
| Michael: and the prefix meaning "big" |
| Risa: 大 (ō) |
| Micheal: If this reminds you of the word |
| Risa: 大きい (ōkii), |
| Micheal: you’re on the right track. It’s the same kanji character, but we only take the first part of that word, which is |
| Risa: 大 (ō) |
| Micheal: So, together, we have literally "big rain," and, more naturally, "heavy rain," which is |
| Risa: 大雨 (ōame) |
| Michael: You can use the same prefix with other words as well, but, just like in English, you can’t use certain prefixes with all words. There are some restrictions, and you will need to memorize the words that can be used with this prefix. Here are some other examples: |
| Risa: 大雪 (ōyuki) |
| Michael: meaning "heavy snow fall" |
| Risa: 大声 (ōgoe) |
| Michael: meaning "loud voice" |
| Risa: 大空 (ōzora) |
| Michael: meaning "big [blue] sky" or |
| Risa: 大人数 (ōninzū) |
| Michael: meaning "big group of people" where |
| Risa: 人数 (ninzū) |
| Micheal: means "number of people." Now, let's see another prefix. Similarly to the kanji for |
| Risa: 大きい (ōkii), |
| Michael: the kanji for "small" or |
| Risa: 小さい (chiisai) |
| Michael: can also be used as a prefix. In this case, it can be read as |
| Risa: ko as in 小石 (koishi) |
| Michael: meaning "small stone" or "pebble." Here are some other examples: |
| Risa: 小道 (komichi) |
| Michael: meaning "small road," |
| Risa: 小鳥 (kotori) |
| Michael: meaning "small bird." So far, we saw two examples of prefixes |
| Risa: 大 (ō) and 小 (ko). |
| Michael: which is the Japanese pronunciation or |
| Risa: 訓読み (kun’yomi) |
| Michael: The two prefixes can be pronounced differently depending on the word they are attached to. Let's see how. Consider the word "student" or |
| Risa: 学生 (gakusei) |
| Michael: When combined with this word, both prefixes change, following the Chinese pronunciation or |
| Risa: 音読み (on’yomi) |
| Michael: So, let's hear how the two prefixes sound. The first is |
| Risa: 大学生 (daigakusei) |
| Michael: meaning "college student" or literally "big student." Then, we have |
| Risa: 小学生(shōgakusei) |
| Michael: meaning "grade school student," or literally "small student." As you may already know, this phenomenon is very common in the Japanese language, as much as the possibility of attaching prefixes to certain words is a convenient way of creating new words. The different pronunciation of the words makes knowing the basic kanji an important step in your learning journey. If you see a new word and you know its kanji, even if you don't know how to pronounce a word, you'll still be able to guess the meaning. |
| Michael: Let's see a few more examples of prefixes. You should already be familiar with polite prefixes |
| Risa: ご (go) and お (o) |
| Michael: There is no clear rule for distinguishing, but usually the prefix o- is added to Japanese words, for example |
| Risa: お部屋 (o-heya) |
| Michael: meaning "room," whereas go- is mostly added to Sino-Japanese words, for example |
| Risa: ご予約 (go-yoyaku) |
| Michael: meaning "reservation." Another common Sino-Japanese suffix is |
| Risa: 新 (shin) |
| Michael: which means "new." You can see it in front of nouns of crops to mean that they're from a new harvest, for example |
| Risa: 新米 (shinmai), |
| Michael: which means "new rice" and it's made of the prefix for "new," followed by the kanji for "rice," and both are read according to the Sino-Japanese pronunciation. Another similar example is |
| Risa: 新茶 (shincha) |
| Micheal: which means "first tea of the season." The same prefix can be similarly added to other words, such as |
| Risa: 新社長 (shinshachō) |
| Michael: "new president" |
| Risa: 新発見 (shinhakken) |
| Michael: "new discovery." There are many other analogous Sino-Japanese prefixes that work similarly, such as |
| Risa: 第 (dai) |
| Michael: which is used to form ordinal numbers, such as |
| Risa: 第一、第二、第三 (daiichi, daini, daisan) |
| Michael: meaning "first, second, third." Another useful prefix is |
| Risa: 再 (sai) |
| Michael: meaning "again" or "anew," as in |
| Risa: 再出発 (saishuppatsu) |
| Michael: which means "restart." Many of these compound words are not essential, but knowing how they are formed will allow you to easily enlarge your vocabulary or guess their meanings easily. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that some words can get their meaning from a small unit attached in front of it. Prefixes in Japanese often have different pronunciations, depending on the words they're attached to, either indigenous Japanese words or Sino-Japanese words. |
| When the prefix is related to a kanji, even if you can't read it correctly, if you know that kanji, you'll very likely be able to guess the meaning of the word. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Risa: またね！ (Mata ne!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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