Going to Extremes: Part 1
Friday, April 24th, 2009
| Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary |
First off, there’s some housekeeping to attend to; I promised that today I would provide answers to the most recent contest and make the winners famous. The top three contestants did a great job. They also happened to be the only contestants! Congratulations to the following people:
Devon Bartlett
Naveh Mazenko
Alberto Sanz (again!)
You’ll find answers and explanations at the link.
Famous Sayings: Answers and Explanations …
These three people deserve credit not only for terrific research but also for feeling motivated enough to do extra work for no material gains. That is, they acted in the following way:
積極的 (sekkyokuteki: assertive, positive, active, willing)
to accumulate + to go to extremes + adjectival suffix
And being motivated is the opposite of this:
消極的 (shōkyokuteki: negative, half-hearted, passive,
unmotivated) negative + to go to extremes + adjectival suffix
I’m so impressed that I feel like doing this:
口を極めて誉める (kuchi o kiwamete homeru: to be lavish with praise) words + extremely + to honor
We’ll come back to these expressions next week. But for now, I want to look at the one kanji they all share: 極.
Compare Yourself to a Penguin!
Here’s a closer look at this crazy concoction and its particulars:
極 (KYOKU, GOKU, kiwa(meru): extreme, pole)
We actually saw this character once before and investigated its etymology. But I didn’t remember that (or any of the other times I’ve encountered this kanji) when I went to New Zealand over the New Year. At the International Antarctic Centre in Christchurch, I saw 極 in the following sign:
I needed to go all the way to New Zealand to notice this character! That means I had to go to extremes—and to a simulated South Pole. That’s quite appropriate for a kanji that means “extreme,” “to go to extremes,” and “pole”!
The sign referred to cardboard cutouts of penguins, not real ones. But Little Blue penguins do live at the Antarctic Centre:
Here’s the text in the sign again, along with a breakdown:
ペンギンと背比べ！南極に生息する4種類のペンギンの脇に立ち、あなたの身長と比較してみて下さい。
Pengin to seikurabe! Nankyoku ni seisoku suru 4 shurui no pengin no waki ni tachi, anata no shinchō to hikaku shite mite kudasai.
Stand beside the four Antarctic penguin species and see how tall they are compared to you!背比べ (seikurabe: comparing heights)
back + to compare
南極 (nankyoku: South Pole) south + pole
生息 (seisoku: inhabiting; living) life + to liveAlthough 息 usually means “breath,” this use of it means “to live.”
種類 (shurui: kind, type) kind + kind
脇 (waki: side)
立 (ta(tsu): to stand)
身長 (shinchō: height) body + lengthHeight is the length of one’s body!
比較 (hikaku: comparison) to compare + to compare
下 (kuda(sai): please do for me)
Extreme Positions
In coming weeks, we’ll look at many of these characters and compounds more closely. Until then, I won’t tell you anything further about those plans. That is, they’ll be as follows:
極秘 (gokuhi: top secret) extremely + secret
As the breakdown shows, 極 can mean “extremely.” Some more examples:
極少ない (goku sukunai: extremely few) extremely + few
極小さい (goku chiisai: very small) extremely + small
極最近 (goku saikin: very recently) very + most + recent
極月 (gokugetsu: last month of the year, December)
extreme + month
Inversions Change Everything! …
In all those words, 極 was the first kanji, suggesting that it’s a prefix that means “extreme.” No, this character can still mean “extreme” when it’s not in the first position:
至極 (shigoku: very, most, exceedingly, extremely)
utmost + extreme
Just to be on the safe side, let’s put it in both positions:
極々(gokugoku: extremely) extreme + extreme
If repetitions and rhymes give you a thrill, try this word, which shifts us away from one on-yomi, GOKU, and back to KYOKU, which played a role in the Antarctic sign:
極力 (kyokuryoku: to the utmost, to the best of one’s power)
to reach the extreme + powerBe sure not to mix this up with 記憶力 (kiokuryoku: ability to remember, to remember + recollection + ability)!
Time for your Verbal Logic Quiz!
Posted by Eve Kushner in Kanji Curiosity |
April 25th, 2009 at 1:22 am
An announcement for any readers in the San Francisco Bay Area: This Sun. (Apr. 26), San Jose will hold its annual Nikkei Matsuri (Japanese-American festival), http://www.nikkeimatsuri.org. Every year, they feature one author who has written about Japan’s culture, and they let that author sit in the info. booth, selling and signing books. This year, I get to be that person! I’d love for someone to come chat with me, as I’ll be sitting there for 6.5 hours (9:30-4)!
April 25th, 2009 at 1:26 am
In other matters, I wanted to share something exciting with you. I’ve been a huge fan of Donald Richie for years. He’s an American who has lived in Japan for 60+ years and has spent all that time writing beautifully and insightfully about the country. He’s a major reason that I’ve become such a Japanophile. And on Tues. night, he did an event here in Berkeley, and I finally got to meet him! I introduced myself to him before the event … and, I must say it didn’t go all that well! He said he was glad he’d influenced me, and then he said, “If you’ll excuse me….” Took no interest in me whatsoever. I can’t think of the last time I underwhelmed someone to that extent!!! Anyway, the event (a Q&A with the founder of the Telluride Film Festival) was wonderful, and Richie sounded almost exactly as he does on the page.
He took my question (tho. that was touch-and-go, as they almost decided they’d run out of time, then figured they could take 3 more questions). I said it seemed as if he’d learned Japanese effortlessly, and it also seemed (at least from his early writings) as if he couldn’t read kanji. I was about to ask what it’s like to be such a literate person and then to be illiterate in his adopted country, but the moderator cut me off mid-sentence. Anyway, Richie was funny about learning Jp–said he’d learned at a school taught by 2 elderly women born in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), so he learned to speak an old-fashioned, female version of the language. Then, re. kanji, he said quite bluntly, “I was dumb not to learn it. If I had to do it over again, I would learn to read and write.” The teachers at the school had told him that no foreigner could handle kanji. Anyway, he told me, it’s really easy to speak Jp and very difficult to read and write it. (Ha! Not even close to my experience!) He added that none of the great Western translators of the past could read or write the language to any great degree.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I am glad to know you are sitting in the booth of Nikkei Matsuri. I wish I could
go to San Jose to meet you.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:54 am
You’re so sweet! Well, I hear airfare is low right now! You still have 2 days!
April 27th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Thanks Eve! I just got back from vacation and saw these posts! I’m happy with my new found celebrity! Haha.
I’m also glad you got to put a face to my name. Find me on facebook and friend me!
Thanks also for letting me know about Richie, despite the first cold face-to-face you had with him, I’m always interested in finding more authors that write about Japan!
April 27th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Hi Eve!
How was your book-day? Incidentally we also had in Bilbao a Basque-Japanese festivity…however, being the “FIRST” was quite OK. The best part was the exhibitions (karate, aikido, Iai-dō…and sushi-master from one of Tokyo’s famous restaurants)…we even had a lecture from a Japanese Basque expert! http://www.euskonews.com/0461zbk/elkar_es.html (sorry link is in Spanish/Basque) just for your curiosity
April 28th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Devon: Hope you had a good vacation w/o having strangers mob you for autographs! I should have mentioned, re. Richie, that there’s a new Wikipedia page on him listing all the books he’s written. I can make recommendations, if anyone’s interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Richie
Alberto: Glad your Basque-Jp event was so much fun! I took a look at the link you provided; did the guy do the interview in Euskara, and then someone translated it into Spanish? Or was it in Spanish from the get-go? Anyway–I can’t get over the fact that someone in Japan is such an expert in the Basque region and language!
The Nikkei Matsuri was great, thanks! Enjoyed being in a Jp atmosphere: taiko drumming, beautiful Jp pottery and fabrics, etc. Met lots of very nice Jp-Americans, including a woman interned as a child. One of the best conversations was with a guy from Osaka whose English is perfect. He’s 38 and has been in the U.S. for 15 yrs. He’s a software engineer, but as a hobby (?), he works with Americans who are trying to learn Jp. His tip for language learning: once you get to a certain level, don’t just study the grammar, vocab, etc. Instead, read texts in that language about your favorite topics. You’ll be much more motivated to understand what you’re reading. His fluency was all it took to convince me that he must be right!
April 28th, 2009 at 3:18 am
Matt Treyvaud, who writes the popular blog No-Sword, blogged about Crazy for Kanji and tried to whip up some controversy about the best way to learn kanji. Would be interesting to see if any JPodjin weigh in on it by leaving comments on his blog:
http://no-sword.jp/blog/2009/04/kanji_as_argo.html