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If you had to draw “violent,” what images would you use? Maybe you’d think back to the board game Clue: Colonel Mustard committed the murder in the billiard room with a rope, whereas Mrs. Peacock used a lead pipe in the conservatory. Or maybe your mind would turn to machine guns, bombs, and other tools of warfare.

Here’s something you may not have considered: water. Water! It’s all around us, but I’ve long neglected to use it as a weapon! And yet, as I’ve learned from one kanji, water leads to violence. So much for washing away one’s sins!

I’ve overlooked not only the violence inherent in water but also the water () inherent in violence:

激 (GEKI, hage(shii): violent, intense, agitated, sudden)

If you’re picturing a glass of water, you might be puzzled about water’s aggressive nature. But consider these watery words:

激流 (gekiryū: raging stream; rapids)     violent + stream

激浪 (gekirō: raging sea)     violent + waves

The second kanji breaks down as water + good! Or “good and wet”! It has the kun-yomi of nami, but it’s not the second part of tsunami (津波: harbor + wave), as you might be thinking.

On 浪 …

So that’s the type of water we’re talking about here! Not the tame, faucet-fed kind but the sort that can demolish cliff walls and buildings (as is happening right now in my disaster-prone corner of the world).

Read the rest of this entry »

凩…この漢字を見たことがありますか？　何と読むのでしょうか。
ヒントは、冬に関係のある漢字であること。さらに、字形をよく見てください。「風」という漢字に似ていますね。

答えは「こがらし」。一般的には「木枯し」と書き表します。
「こがらし」とは、冬の初めに木々の葉を払い落としながら吹く、冷たく強い北風のことです。「凩」の字は「国字（こくじ）」に分類され、中国で作られた漢字にならって、日本で新たに生み出された漢字です。要するに、和製漢字ですね。こがらしとは、「木を枯らすように吹く風（几）」なので「凩」という字形が考え出されたのです。

正月の遊びに使う「凧（たこ）」も国字です。「風（几）」の中にある「巾」は「布」という意味です（「布」という漢字の中にもしっかりと「巾」が含まれていますね）。「風を受けて舞い上がる布」＝「凧」なのです。

では、「風が止まる」と書く「凪」という漢字はどう読むのでしょうか？　これは「なぎ」と読みます。朝夕に風が止まる状態や時間帯を「朝凪（あさなぎ）」「夕凪（ゆうなぎ）」と呼びます。

このように、ことば遊びや連想ゲームにも似た感覚で作り出された国字。友人に、「この漢字、読める？」と教えてあげるのも楽しいですね。
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Have you ever seen the character 凩? How do you read it.
A hint: it’s a kanji related to winter. Also, please look closely at the character’s formation. It looks like the character 風 (kaze), “wind”, doesn’t it?

The answer is こがらし(kogarashi). It’s generally written 木枯し.
こがらし means a cold north wind that blows at the beginning of winter, shaking the leaves from the trees.
The character 凩 is classified as 国字　（こくじ）, or characters newly created in Japan which imitate Chinese kanji. In short, they’re 和製漢字　（わせいかんじ）, or “Japanese-made kanji”. こがらし　is “a wind (几) which blows cold enough to kill the trees”, so hence the character 凩 was devised.

A character used when talking about New Year games, 凧 (tako）, is also Japanese-made. The radical 巾 which can be seen in the centre of 風（几）is equivalent to 布, which means “cloth” (you can also see 巾 in the centre of 布, can’t you?). “Cloth that soars on the wind” = a kite (凧）.

So, how would we read the character meaning “the wind ceasing” (凪）? It’s read なぎ (nagi). A state or period of time in which the wind does not blow from morning to night is called 朝凪（asa nagi), “morning calm” and 夕凪（yuu nagi), “evening calm”.

So as you can see, native Japanese kanji were created in a way that is almost similar to wordplay and word association games. It’s also fun to ask your friends “Can you read this kanji?”, and then teach them how.

In today’s All About Japanese lesson, we’ll share some background about Japan and its native language and boil it down to bring you the top five reasons to learn Japanese-not the least of which is the fact that Japan is the world’s second largest economy!

Background of the Japanese Language

• It ranks in the list of the top ten languages based on number of native speakers, with around 130 million people speaking Japanese as their native language.

• The most well-known dialect is Kansai-ben the “Kansai dialect,” which is spoken throughout the Kansai region of Japan. The Kansai region refers to an area in western Japan that includes major cities Osaka and Kyoto.

• The Japanese written language consists of three alphabets: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets, with the latter being used primarily for writing foreign words. Kanji is a system of characters of Chinese origin used to represent various ideas.

• The Japanese Ministry of Education has created a list of 1,945 jouyou kanji “common use kanji” made up of characters commonly used in everyday life. Japanese children will have studied all of these kanji by the time they graduate from junior high school.

Top Five Reasons to Learn Japanese

• To communicate with Japanese people! Over 130 million people throughout the world speak Japanese, placing it in the top ten languages spoken in the world.

• Japanese pronunciation is easy! Japanese is pronounced just the way it looks, so you can start speaking it right away.

• You will learn more than just a language. Learning Japanese will give you great insight into the world of Japanese culture you just can’t get any other way. By learning how the language works, you’ll learn more about how the culture works.

•  Japanese is fun! Japan has a lot to offer in the way of pop culture-fun and interesting movies, music, TV shows, comics, games-you name it! Learning Japanese will give you even greater access to the rich world of Japanese pop culture.

•  Learning Japanese makes you smarter! Learning a second language also increases your memory and makes you stay sharper, helps your attention span, and sharpens your critical thinking skills.
  

Many of our readers are probably familiar with Valentine’s Day, and even celebrate it in their home country. Valentine’s Day probably conjures up images of hearts, red roses, Valentine candy, and maybe even the cute little Valentine’s Day cards you used to exchange in elementary school.

 But do you know how Valentine’s Day works in Japan? The Japanese Valentine’s Day has its own set of unique customs and rules that set it apart from the holiday celebrated around the world.

 First of all, while in western countries it is common for both men and women to give gifts on Valentine’s Day, in Japan, the gift-giving is left strictly to the women. Girls and women give chocolate (either handmade or store-bought) to a significant other or someone they are interested in. Surprisingly, though, women do not give chocolate only to that special someone they are interested in romantically, which is known as 本命チョコ (honmei choko, “chocolate for someone special”). There is also a tradition of giving chocolate to platonic male friends, co-workers, and bosses. This chocolate is given out of obligation, which is reflected in the name, 義理チョコ (giri choko, “obligation chocolate”).

So, do the girls walk away with nothing, you may wonder? Not quite. Lately on Valentine’s Day, many women decide to give chocolate to their female friends, which is known as 友チョコ(tomo-choko, “friend chocolate”), or even buy chocolate for themselves, known as マイチョコ (mai-choko, “my chocolate”). The main event for women, however, takes place on March 14^th, one month after Valentine’s Day. This marks White Day, a day where men give chocolate back to the women they received chocolate from a month earlier. White Day was created by the Japanese National Confectionary Industry Association in 1980 as a way to sell more sweets such as candies. Surprisingly, gifts of flowers, non-chocolate candies, and dinner dates that are strongly associated with Valentine’s Day in Western countries are uncommon in Japan.

 What do you think about the Japanese way of celebrating Valentine’s Day? What kind of Valentine’s Day traditions do you celebrate in your country?

As you may know, 知恵 (chie: to know + wisdom) is “wisdom” or “intelligence.” And we’ve seen that 袋 (TAI, fukuro) can mean “bag.” Given that, what do you think the following represents?

知恵袋 (chiebukuro)     wisdom (1st 2 kanji) + bag

My cynical side takes over and imagines a wind bag who won’t shut up about everything he claims to know. Not at all. The first definition of “wisdom bag” is literally “bag full of wisdom,” and another meaning is “someone who devises a solution when others have no idea what to do”:

知恵袋 (chiebukuro: (1) bag full of wisdom; bag containing all the world’s wisdom; (2) person who is a fountain of wisdom; brains (of a company))     wisdom (1st 2 kanji) + bag

If it’s strange to imagine an experienced person as a bag, that’s probably no stranger than imagining a wise person as a fountain, as apparently we do in English!

The Japanese know how to put unusual things in bags:
Read the rest of this entry »

むまそうな　雪がふうはり　ふはり哉(かな)　　小林　一茶

本日、紹介するのは江戸時代後期に詠まれた冬の俳句です。

作者は、現在の長野県にあたる信濃の貧しい農家に生まれました。わずか三歳のときに母を亡くし、その後、継母がやってきますが母子関係はうまくいきませんでした。一茶は、子ども四人を授かるものの全員を幼くして亡くし、続いて妻にも先立たれてしまいます。二人目の妻とは結婚後半年で離婚。三番目の妻との間にやっと一人の女の子をもうけますが、その子の産声を聞くことなく、一茶はこの世を去りました。

このように家庭的な幸福に恵まれなかった一茶ですが、残された俳句には小さい生き物への愛情や四季の移り変わりが分かりやすく、素朴にうたいあげられています。

今回、選んだ俳句は冒頭に「むまそうな」とありますね。これは「うまそうな」つまり「おいしそうな」という意味。また、「ふうはり」と「ふはり」の「は」は「わ」と発音します。最後の「哉(かな)」は「～だなぁ」という意味。全体を解釈すると、「おいしそうな雪がふうわりふわりと降ってくるなぁ。」　子どもの頃、空から舞い落ちてくる雪を「おいしそう」と感じ、そっと口に含んだ思い出のある人には共感してもらえるのではないでしょうか。また、「ふうはり」と「ふはり」は擬態語で、雪がゆっくりと落ちてくる様子を表わしています。

大人になってもこんなふうにゆったりとした気分で雪を眺めたいものですね。

＝＝＝＝
むまそうな　雪がふうはり　ふはり哉(かな)　　小林　一茶
Succulent snow falls softly, softly.　　- Issa Kobayashi

Today I’m going to introduce a winter haiku poem composed in the latter Edo period.

The author was born into a poor farming family in Shinano, modern-day Nagano prefecture. When he was only three years old his mother died. A new stepmother came along after that, but their relationship was not a good one. Issa was blessed with four children, but they all died at a young age; his wife then also died, leaving him a widower. He and his second wife divorced just six months after being married. Finally, to his third wife a baby girl was born, but Issa died without even hearing the baby’s first cry.

So Issa was not blessed with familial happiness, but the haiku he left behind express simply and fully his love of small living things, as well as the nature of the changing seasons.

At the beginning of the poem I’ve chosen this time is the word むまそうな (”succulent”). This is equivalent to the modern うまそうな or おいしそうな and means “looks delicious”.  Also, the は　in the words ふうはり and ふはり are pronounced わ　(giving the modern ふうわり・ふわり, “softly, gently”). The final 哉（かな）is the same as ～だなぁ which means “I wonder” in modern Japanese.  So, to translate the entire poem literally: “A delicious-looking snow is falling gently and softly”.  Maybe those of you who remember when you were children thinking that the snow that came whirling down from the sky looked delicious, and then holding it for a moment in your mouth can empathize with the feelings of the writer.  Furthermore, the words ふうはり andふはり　are gitaigo, or mimetic words (ie. words that mimic things that do not actually make sound) and express the slow falling of snow.

Even when we grow up, we want to gaze at the snow just like this, in a relaxed, comfortable mood.

We start with Alberto’s haiku calendar for February, another beauty:

Wow, this haiku features some complex kanji! Alberto will tell us about the poem in the comments section. Meanwhile, here’s the scoop on the least familiar characters:

嶺 (RYŌ, REI, ne, mine: peak, summit)
且 (SHO, SHŌ, SO, ka(tsu): also, furthermore, moreover)
褐 (KATSU: brown)
蔽 (FUTSU, HEI, HETSU, ō(i), ō(u): to cover)

In this list, the first and last characters are non-Jōyō.

Let’s return to a kanji you’ve seen before. As you know from last week, 袋 (TAI, DAI, fukuro) often means “bag, pouch.” With that in mind, try to figure out what the following might represent: Read the rest of this entry »