JapanesePod101.com Blog

Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman’s uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles.

Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman’s system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first six years of school in Japan (~1,000 Kanji). Each week we’ll be releasing a new flash movie introducing 6-12 new Kanjis.

Last week’s animation was about the sun. This week’s animation is all about the moon!

In the movie Atonement, there’s a scene between a detective and a girl who claims to have witnessed a man’s crime. The detective asks her pointedly, “Did you see him with your own eyes?”

She replies deliberately, “Yes, I saw him with my own eyes.”

Whose eyes might she have used instead? I was so distracted by the weird phrasing that I missed much of the ensuing conversation. I must have heard this expression before, but it’s as if I heard it with new ears (my own, by the way).

Have English speakers really made use of this redundant expression? Do we still say it regularly, or was this more a quaint turn of phrase from the British World War II period (the setting for the film)?

It’s Not Just English Speakers …

It makes sense that the detective emphasized the importance of seeing the crime, but information can obviously filter into our minds in many other ways. Case in point: Some Japanese words about fact-finding or truth-telling combine the kanji for “fact” or “truth” (実, as we’ve seen over past weeks) with characters for body parts. Here’s an example:

実聞 (jitsubun: to hear with one’s own ears)     reality + to hear

Breen defines this rare compound as “to hear with one’s own ears.” This sort of oddity really must be a part of our language!

Hearing with Someone Else’s Ears …

Going with the pattern, what would you expect 口実 to mean? Saying something with your own mouth? Well, that’s kind of true and kind of not:

口実 (kōjitsu: excuse, pretext)     mouth + contents, substance

On the Breakdown of 口実 …

When you make an excuse, you appear to be the one speaking. But you’re not speaking authentically (that is, truthfully, sincerely, and from a place deep inside yourself), so it’s as if it isn’t really you who’s talking. You’re using a type of ventriloquism, only you’re the puppet … and the puppetmaster! (How did this get so confusing?!)

If we inject a kanji into the middle of that compound, everything changes:

口忠実 (kuchimame: talkative)     mouth + loyalty + faithfulness

There’s quite a lot going on here. First, how do mouth + loyalty + faithfulness add up to mean “talkative”?! Second, look how different the yomi of kuchimame is from kōjitsu, just above. The on-yomi KŌ turned into the kun-yomi kuchi. Well, OK. That happens. But 実 can’t have the yomi of me. Likewise, the middle kanji 忠 (CHŪ, tada, tadashi) can’t have the yomi of ma, as one might think from this word. So kuchimame appears to be an instance of ateji.

Variations on Kuchimame …

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Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman’s uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles.

Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman’s system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first six years of school in Japan (~1,000 Kanji). Each week we’ll be releasing a new flash movie introducing 6-12 new Kanjis.

This week’s animation is all about the sun!

My cousin Lois has a useful motto: Start with the truth. No matter how difficult a situation is, you won’t get anywhere by lying to yourself about the facts.

My husband has also taught me something about the truth: Whenever someone says “Frankly, …” you should be on guard. The person might as well have said, “What I’m about to say will be tactless and cruel.”

In Japanese, starting with the truth means starting with 実, the kanji we investigated last week. This character works its way into all manner of expressions related to truth and reality, including this sampling:

実は (jitsu wa: in fact, as a matter of fact, by the way)

Merely combining the kanji with the subject marker は yields a useful phrase.

実のところ (jitsu no tokoro: as a matter of fact; to tell the truth)

I like to think that since tokoro means “place” (or an abstract state), this expression puts you in the place where truth lies. You can use 実のところ exactly the same way as 実は.

Sample Sentences with
実は and 実のところ …

実際 (jissai: truth, reality, actual, real, practical)
     reality + occasion, time

Sample Sentences with 実際 …

事実 (jijitsu: fact, truth, reality)     fact + reality

Untruths …

真実 (shinjitsu: truth)     truth + reality

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Winter is a time of harshness. In spring, as trees explode with fragrant blossoms, we’re full of hope. In summer, we can delude ourselves that peaches will always be in season and that sunny, warm days will keep coming for a good six months. In fall, colorful leaves and crisp air fill us with optimism. And then it’s winter, and we can’t fool ourselves any longer.

Haiku About Harsh Realities …

But facing reality isn’t all bad. Check out this cool compound:

実験 (jikken: experiment)     reality + to test

As the breakdown indicates, an experiment allows one to test reality. That is, an experiment is a reality check!

Well, here’s one reality check. Although 実 (JITSU, mi, mino(ru)) often means “reality,” Halpern defines it as “real” in the context of 実験. But I much prefer reality + to test, and I’m putting my head back in the sand on that one!

Another Type of Reality Check …

If 実 has a tenuous connection to reality (only sometimes having that meaning), the following compound gives a much stronger dose of reality:

現実 (genjitsu: reality)     actual + reality

Sample 現実 Sentences from Breen …

Reality Inside Out …

With reality + feeling, what do you think you get? Cries of agony? A sharp sense of awakening? Feelings of disgust over the reality TV craze? Facing reality can be quite painful, but that’s not the nuance of the next word:

現実感 (genjitsukan: sense of reality)
     reality (1st 2 chars.) + sense, feeling

More on Feelings and Reality …

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Back in November, Dr. Matt Wachsman contacted us about his mnemonic system for learning Kanji using captivating and enjoyable flash movies. Unlike any other system out there, Dr. Wachsman’s uses advanced mnemonics features that involve multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, reinforcing memory linkage while at the same time appealing to people with a variety of learning styles.

Mnemonics is the way of tying information together in a way the the brain likes to receive it. There are a large number of ways to do this. The most basic one is putting information into a story. Dr. Wachsman’s system uses short Flash movies that tell a story using visual associations, humor and rhymes. His system covers all the Kanji taught in the first six years of school in Japan (~1,000 Kanji). Each week we’ll be releasing a new flash movie introducing 6-12 new Kanjis.

Last week, Dr. Matt Wachsman’s theme was Heavenly. This week it is worldly!

Mina-san,

As always, thank you for your support; we could never have come this far without you. We recently received an e-mail from JapanPodcasters.com informing us that we, our language learning community, were awarded the 2008 Japan Podcaster Award Winner in the category of Language Study Excellence Award.

We would like to thank our new friends at JapanPodcasters.com, a Japan podcast directory, for recoginizing our language learning community, and thank you, the listeners, for making this possible.
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!
Team JapanesePod101.com

Kanji-induced dementia (KID) strikes again! Although I believed I’d never seen 追 until the fateful encounters mentioned two weeks ago, I was quite wrong. No surprise there; even when one has stumbled across certain characters thirty-five times before, KID makes them seem fresh and new.

One of my Japanese language partners had used 追 twice before in emails, referring both times to my never-ending workload:

締め切りに追われていませんか？
Shimekiri ni owarete imasen ka?
Aren’t you chased by deadlines?

きっと最後の追い込みをしているのでしょうね。
Kitto saigo no oikomi o shite iru no deshō ne.
By now you must surely be in the final stages.

Kanji Breakdown #1…

The second sentence contains 追い込み (oikomi), which means “final stages” or “last spurt” and derives from the following verb:

追い込む (oikomu: to herd, to drive into; to strike inward (a disease); to make an extra effort at the end)
     to pursue + to drive inward

The last definition, “to make an extra effort at the end,” seems the most relevant in terms of her sentence.

Because of words such as 追い込み, it’s easy to associate 追 with hard work. The character can have the connotation of an intense effort (e.g., pursuing or chasing someone away). This sense of extreme effort comes through in the following sample 追い込む sentences from Jim Breen:

私のパンチは彼をロープに追い込んだ。
Watashi no panchi wa kare o rōpu ni oikonda.
My punch sent him reeling into the rope.

僕は追い込まれると一番仕事をする。
Boku wa oikomareru to ichiban shigoto o suru.
I work best under pressure.

Kanji Breakdown #2 …

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