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「雨」という漢字は、空から雨が降ってくる様子を線で表現したもので、絵のような文字ですね。では、この「雨」に「下」という文字を書くとどのように読むのでしょうか。

答えは「しずく」。この読み方は日本独自のもので、中国では水のしたたりをこの漢字で表わしません。また、雨以外の水、たとえばシャワーや涙の「しずく」には「滴」（「水滴」の「滴」）」という文字を用います。一般的には、雨のしずくだけを「雫」で表します。

さて、「雲」という漢字は、どのように雨に関連しているのでしょうか。「雨」の下に書かれる「云」は「立ちのぼる湯気が天井のような場所につかえて、もやもやとこもった様子」を線で表現しています。つまり、「雲」は「もやもやと立ちこめた水蒸気」のことなのです。ちなみに、「魂（たましい）」という漢字にも「云」が見られますが、魂もこれというはっきりした形があるわけでなく、「なんとなくあるらしい」と信じられているもやもやとしたものですね。

ところで、「電」はどうでしょう。昔は「雨」の下に「申」という文字を書いていましたが、次第に変化して現在の字形になりました。「申」は稲妻が空から地上に長く伸びて（「伸」の漢字にも「申」が見られますね）光っている様子を表わしています。

さらに、「霧」という漢字を読めますか。これは「きり」と読みます。「雨」の下の「務」には「手探りして求める」という意味があり、霧の中では立ちこめる水蒸気で周囲が見えなくなるので、手探りして進まなければなりません。そんな状態を漢字で表わすと「霧」になります。

最後に、「霜」という漢字は「しも」と読みます。「相」という部分には「縦に向かい合う、別々に並び立つ」という意味があり、霜柱が縦に並んで立っている様子に着目して、「霜」という漢字ができたといわれています。

元来、「相」は「木」＋「目」で、木と向かい合って立ち、その木を目で見ることを表わしているのです。日本の国技である「相撲（すもう）」にも「相」の文字が見られますよ。二人の力士が向かい合って立って、勝負が始まりますものね。
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The kanji 雨 or “rain” is a representation of how rain falls from the sky, and is a character that looks like a drawing.  Now, if you write the character下 or “below” under 雨, how would you read the character?

The anwer is shizuku or drop.  This way of reading is particular to Japan, and this kanji does not represent water trickling in China.  Furthermore, the character 滴 or “drop” as in 水滴 or “water drop”,  is used for water other than rain, for example the “drops in shower water” or “tears”.  Generally, only rain drops are represented by the 雫 character.

Now, what do you think the kanji 雲 or “cloud” has to do with rain?  The 云 or “speak about” under 雨 represents “the rising vapors blocked in an area like a ceiling, and appears to be misty” with its lines.  In other words, “clouds” are “misty filling vapors.”  Additionally, 云 can be found in the kanji 魂 or “spirit”, since spirits are not something that have shape, but rather they’re this misty thing that is believed to “somehow or someway be there.”

By the way, what do you think of 電 or “electricity”?  A long time ago, the character 申 or “to report” was written under 雨, but gradually it changed to the character shape today.  申 represents the long stretch of lightning that stretches to the ground (申 can also be seen in the kanji 伸 or “stretch”).

Furthermore, can you read the kanji 霧 or “fog”? This is read as kiri.  The 務 or “task” under 雨 means “searching for by fumbling”,  since in a fog, the misty vapors block the surrounding view, one needs to feel their way through.  When this situation is represented in kanji,  it becomes霧.

Lastly, 霜 or “frost” is read as shimo.  The 相 or “together” portion means “vertically facing each other, separately standing in a line”, and is said that the kanji was made after seeing icicles lined vertically.

Originally, 相 is 木 or “tree” + 目 or “eye”,  and these are aligned facing each other, which describes looking at a tree with your eyes.  相 can also be found in the character for the national sport 相撲 or “sumo”. This is because the match starts with two wrestlers standing and facing each other.

This Japanese All About lesson will help you with your Japanese pronunciation skills. You’ll learn about the fourteen Japanese consonants and five vowels you’ll need to know and about how to handle words with multiple syllables-with no stress.

•  Sounds and Syllables
  • Compared with other languages, Japanese has a relatively small set of sounds, with only fourteen consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p) and five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). Japanese is made up of syllables, which are made up of a consonant and a vowel. The only exceptions are the vowels and the n sound, which stand alone.
    

•  Stress
  • In Japanese, each syllable is held the same length of time and given equal stress. Stressing only certain syllables will sound unnatural, so keep this in mind when pronouncing Japanese.
  • Let’s take a look at a word in Japanese and compare how it is pronounced in both Japanese and English. Let’s take the word teriyaki, the name of a cooking technique where meat is marinated.
    • English pronunciation: [ ter-uh-YAH-kee ] Note how the third syllable is stressed.
    • Japanese pronunciation: [teh-ree-yah-kee ] In Japanese, each syllable receives the same amount of stress.

人間の身体は約60％が水分である、と言われています。私たちは水がないと生きていけず、水が豊かな場所に文明が発達したことは言うまでもありませんね。

漢字にも、「水」に関係した文字がたくさんありますよ。部首では「さんずい」と呼ばれる「
氵」が、漢字の左側に見られるものは、一般的な漢和辞典に載っているだけで642もの多数にのぼります。その中で、日常生活にしばしば用いられる漢字を紹介しましょう。

「洗」の文字に見られる「先」は、「足＋人」で、人間の足先を表わしています。爪先は、指と指の間に隙間があいて離れていますね。その隙間に水を通してきれいにするのが「洗う」という行為です。

「洗濯」のように「洗」に組み合わされる「濯」にも「さんずい」が見られますよ。右側は「羽＋隹」。「隹」の部分は、他の漢字でもよく見かけませんか？　「隹」は「とり」と読み、「鳥」を表わしています。字形が似ていますものね。木の上に鳥がたくさんいると「集」という文字になり、「あつまる」と読みます。また、「焦」は「こがす、こげる」と読み、鳥を火であぶってちりちりと焦がす様子が漢字になっています。鳥がすいすいと飛んで前に進むから「進」という文字には「隹」がいますね。

話題を戻すと、「濯」の文字には、鳥が羽根を高く上げた様子が含まれ、水で洗ったものをさっと持ち上げ、また水につけて洗って持ち上げて…と洗濯の動作を表わす漢字の組み合わせになっているのです。

さて、「沈」はどうでしょう。「
冘」は「牛＋川」で、牛を川の中に沈める儀式を表わし、「枕（まくら）」も頭も下に沈める寝具なので、「木＋
冘」と書きます。

「沈」と反対の意味の漢字は「浮」。これはどうでしょう。右側は、「爪＋子」で、「爪」は手の爪を表わしています。幼い子どもを手で大切にかばう様子を文字にすると「孚」となり、水を大切に抱えるようにしてうつぶせに浮かぶ様子が「浮」になりました。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

It is said that a person’s body is 60% water. We cannot survive without water, and it is needless to say that civilizations have grown in areas where there’s water.

There are also many kanji that relate to 水 or “water”.  The radical 氵 called sanzui seen on the left of a kanji, has as many as 642 references in even a standard Japanese dictionary.  Among them, let me introduce you to a few kanji that are frequently used in our everyday lives.

The 先 or “point” that is found in 洗,  is 足＋人 or “leg + person”,  and represents the tip of your feet. Between each toe, there’s some space. The act of washing between these spaces is 洗う or “to wash”.

In 洗濯 or “laundry” the 濯 that is constructed with 洗 also has a sanzui. The right side is 羽 or “wing”＋隹.
Do you see the 隹 part in other kanji?  隹 is read as tori and represents a 鳥 or “bird”.  The shape of the characters look alike.  If there are many birds on a tree, you get the character 集 which is read as atsumaru or “gather”.  Also, 焦 is read as kogasu, kogeru or “burn”, and it’s a kanji that represents a chicken if you roast it over a fire and burn it.  進 or “advance” contains隹 because a bird smoothly flies forward.

Going back to the topic, 濯 contains the image of a bird raising its wings high, by quickly raising the things being washed, then putting them back in water, then raising them again… and in this image the formation of the kanji represents the movement of the washing.

Now, how about 沈 or “sink”.
冘 is 牛＋川 or “cow + river”, and it represents the ritual of sinking a cow in a river. Also, since 枕 or “pillow” is a piece of bedding to sink your head into, that’s why you write木 or “wood”＋
冘.

The opposite kanji for the meaning of sink is 浮 or “float”.  Now, how about this. On the right, you have 爪＋子 or child, and 爪 represents the nails on your hand.    When you represent the image of protecting a young child with your hand it looks like this, 孚 or “nourish”, and the image of floating face down as if you’re dearly holding the water has become 浮.

This Japanese All About lesson will help you navigate your way through Japanese grammar conventions. We will talk a little bit about how Japanese sentence order differs from that in English, how easy it is to form questions in Japanese, and all the other rules of English grammar you can throw out the window.

Japanese is what’s called an SOV language. This means the subject comes first, followed by the object, and then the verb. Remember that: the verb comes last. This is one of the biggest differences between English and Japanese grammar and one of the most important aspects to keep in mind!

• Tense

• • Japanese only has two tenses: past and non-past. It’s called non-past because Japanese uses the same tense for the present and future.

• • By adding a word like “tomorrow” or “next week” that indicates some point in the future, our present tense turns into the future tense without even changing the verb.

• Conjugation

• • Japanese only has two verbs that conjugate irregularly. The rest follow the same patterns, so they’re easy to get the hang of! Japanese verbs are divided up into three different groups according to how they conjugate, which we will refer to as Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 later on.

• • in Japanese it doesn’t matter who is doing the action, the verb will not change.

• Singulars and Plurals

• • Japanese words almost never change to reflect plurals. Nezumi, the word for “mouse,” could refer to one mouse or ten mice!
    

• Forming Questions

• • In Japanese, it’s extremely easy to create questions. By simply putting ka at the end of a sentence, you can turn it into a question!
    

• Formal and Informal Speech

• • Japanese uses entirely different grammar structures when it comes to polite speech. There are three politeness levels in spoken Japanese: informal, formal, and honorific.
    

• Counters

• • Japanese has a long list of counters, or words that we use to count specific items. The corresponding counter depends on the appearance or makeup of the item. For example, there are different counters for sheets of paper and bottles because they differ in shape.
    

• Omission

• • In Japanese, the writer often omits the subject from the sentence when it’s understood who is doing the action. In fact, stating the subject every time will actually make your Japanese sound unnatural. The key is to only state the subject when it’s absolutely necessary.
    

梅一輪　一輪ほどの　暖かさ　　　　服部嵐雪

厳しい寒さの続く日は、春の暖かさが待ち遠しいものです。そんな気持ちを表わした俳句を紹介しましょう。 Read the rest of this entry »

This Japanese All About lesson will teach you about the three types of artistic scripts that make up the written Japanese language, kanji, hiragana, and katakana, and the roles they play in putting together sentences.

The Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, known separately as hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ) and collectively as kana (かな), as well as thousands of Chinese characters known as kanji (漢字). Each script serves a different function.

• Hiragana: grammatical elements and for words that do not use kanji (or for words where the author doesn’t know the kanji).
  • We use the hiragana syllabary for two types of words; okurigana (送り仮名), which are inflected verb and adjective endings; and for grammatical elements called “particles.” Hiragana is also used to write furigana (ふりがな), small symbols placed above or to the side of a kanji character that indicate how it is read.

• Katakana to write borrowed words of foreign origin and onomatopoeic sound effects.
  • We use the katakana syllabary for gairaigo (外来語), words of foreign origin, onomatopoeic words that indicate sounds, scientific names, and also for emphasis, much like how italics are used in English.

There are forty-six characters in the hiragana and katakana scripts, for a total of ninety-two characters in all. These characters represent specific syllables which are made up of a consonant plus a vowel or just one vowel sound.

In Japanese, there are five vowels (a, i, u, e, and o) and fourteen basic consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p).

Kanji is used for words of both Japanese and Chinese origin as well as many Japanese names.]

Kanji are made up of smaller parts known as radicals. Many characters have been combined with others to create new ones. When written on the page, each character is given exactly the same amount of space, no matter how complex it is. In written Japanese, there are no spaces between characters.

Most kanji have at least two different kinds of readings: kun yomi (訓読み), which is the Japanese reading, and on yomi (音読み), which is the original Chinese reading.

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.
  

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.

今、あなたの財布にはいくらお金が入っていますか？

給料やこづかいをもらって財布に入れておいたはずなのに、いつの間に遣ったのか気づくと残りのお金が少なくなっていた…こんな経験を誰もが味わったことがあるのではないでしょうか？

お金はまるで生き物のように、足でも生えていて勝手に出て行ってしまうようです。 Read the rest of this entry »