![]() The key is to NOT study by rote memorization. And if you create a vivid mnemonic story building from these parts, even the scariest kanji won't look too bad. Once you learn the basic kanji such as 心 or 日 or 土, you will begin to see how the more advanced kanji are built. That was a little complicated for a beginner, but I hope you get the point. Think of the line in the middle as a sunspot. Since there are very few curvy kanji, the character for "sun" or "day" is 日. In other words, it represented "an old man." Think of an old man slashing the dirt to create a dust storm to shield him from the blistering. Originally, this kanji part 耂 showed a bent-over figure with long hair.Think of the crucifixion: a cross in the earth The top kanji part is 土 (earth dirt) with a slash through it 耂.My point is, within this single character, we have three important kanji:Īnd now, let's tear apart 者 which means "someone" or "a person": So the 忍 in 忍者 is a "blade to the heart" and this means to "endure.".What about 心? Can't you see the coronary arteries coming from the 心 (L-shaped heart)?.刃 is made up of 刀 (sword katana-the sword of the samurai!) and a short line representing a blade.įor 刀, imagine in your mind the hilt of a sword or perhaps this is after a battle and the sword cut through a person leaving him with only his hips and legs - whatever story you create, visualize it vividly as you look at the character.įor 刃, think of a samurai using his katana against something hard, leaving a line on the blade.A blade above the heart = "endure" or "spy." To endure as a spy, you must be willing to endure even a blade against your heart.As I just said, this means "endure conceal spy" and is itself made up of two kanji parts: Yep, that the kanji characters for NINJA!įollow this progression and see if you can remember it: A simple example is 大 dai which means "big" or "great" and 好き suki which means "like." if you had never heard of daisuki, you can imagine the two kanji in your head and get a sense of the meaning: "big like" or "love." Sometimes, you can imagine the kanji for the sounds you hear and deduce the meaning of a new word. In some cases, by thinking in kanji, you can understand vocabulary words you have never heard. In some cases, Japanese people will air-draw kanji to illustrate which homophone they mean-and this is real conversational Japanese. Kanji makes it clear what the intended meaning is. 3) Japanese has a limited number of sounds.īecause of this, there are a remarkable number of homophones, words that are pronounced the same but have a different meaning. Kanji helps break that up while instantly conveying meaning. With no spaces between words, long texts only in hiragana is a challenge. This makes skimming text easier in Japanese-if you know kanji. 2) The primary function of kanji is to convey meaning at a glance. #Gewnk ikanji tvSigns, menus, newspapers, novels, and TV shows all have kanji in your face. It is also written, and if you have ever been to Japan, kanji is written everywhere. 1) Japanese isn't just spoken or heard while watching Anime. Well, yes, but you will be severely hampered. Before we go any further, why even bother with kanji? It is certainly the most challenging part of learning Japanese, and can't people just concentrate on conversational Japanese? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |