JapanesePod101.com Blog

Welcome to winter, a time of holiday hokeyness, excess consumption, darkness, coldness, and most of all sleep. A bear would put sleep first on that list. But you needn’t be a bear to think about hibernation. As the year draws to a close, you might take note of the compound 越年 (etsunen: to go beyond + year), which means both “ringing out the old year” and “hibernating”!

Actually, 冬眠 (tōmin: winter + sleep) is a much more common way to say “hibernation.” It’s a great compound but could introduce some confusion; if you already knew 寝, seeing 眠 would make you realize that there are two characters for “sleep”:

寝 (SHIN, ne(ru): to go to sleep)
眠 (MIN, nemu(ru): to sleep)

Their kun-yomi sound similar, and their on-yomi aren’t too far apart, either. But whereas 寝 can mean “to lie down,” 眠 cannot. Moreover, 寝 can refer to the process of falling asleep, as these words imply:

寝入る (ne-iru: to fall asleep)     sleep + to enter
寝際 (negiwa: on the verge of sleep; just after falling asleep)
     sleep + edge

This breakdown conjures up the wonderful image of sleep as a space or place with an edge.

寝掛け (negake: half-asleep)     sleep + to suspend, to hang

Also a neat idea—being suspended in the space between sleep and wakefulness.

Another Cool Word for Half-Asleep …

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