All about the kanji, part 18: 事

This is the type of kanji you'll rarely see on its own, because it means 'business', 'matter', 'fact' or 'thing'. This is a typical combining kanji.
The on is じ or ず, the kun will look more familiar: こと or つか as the beginning of the つかう or つかえる. (I don't really get this part, because if you search for those words, you'll see other kanji.)
Here's how it combines with the kanji we know, and with kana:
時事 (じじ) = "time things", that is, events of the day or current affairs.
人事 (じんじ) = "person things", that is, personnel affair, human resources (HR).
大事 (だいじ) = "big thing", that is, serious matter or important, valuable.
事による (ことによる) = "due to" or, if written using only kana, "depending on circumstances"

All about the kanji, part 17: 政

Hatoyama Yukio (鳩山 由紀夫), the new Prime Minister of Japan (as of September 2009)
Because these kanji are ordered by frequency in newspapers, the kanji found are often of the type you'd expect to find in the news. 政, which means government or politics, is one of these. No wonder, then, that there's only compound with kanji from before: 国政 (こくせい): political situation, statecraft, the body politic.
政 has an incredibly long kun reading:　まつりごと, next to the shorter まん. The on readings are: じょう and せい.

All about the kanji, part 16: 時

This is our first really complicated kanji, which can be divided into parts. The left part is a narrower version of 日, which we know as 'day', and the other 'radicals' (parts of the kanji) are 土 (which means 'ground' as a kanji) and 寸 ('measurement'). Note that not all radicals are kanji in their own right.
The complex kanji that results from this, 時, means 'time' or 'hour'. It is the じ (on reading) that we put at the end of はちじ (8 o'clock) and also the とき (kun reading) we use when we say 'when' (literally, 'at the time that') and repeat in ときどき (sometimes).
同時 (どうじ) means 'simultaneous(ly)', 'at the same time'.
日時 (にちじ) means 'date and time'.
一時 (ひととき) means 'moment' or 'time'.
The following 3 are all similar:
時々 or 時時 (ときどき) is 'sometimes' as we saw already
時には (ときには) is 'at times', 'occasionally'
時として (ときとして) is 'in some cases', 'sometimes'
All other compounds I found also convey this sense of 'time' or 'occasion'.

All about the kanji, part 15: 同

Two shapes inside each other that are pretty similar; that's your best bet for memorizing the kanji for 'the same, equal, agree'.
The kun reading is どう, the on is おなじ (that is, 同じ).
Here are combinations of this kanji with one of the previously learned kanji:

• 一同 (いちどう) means 'all present', 'all concerned', or 'all of us'; while 同一 (どういつ) means identity, sameness, similarity, equality or fairness
• 大同 (だいどう) means 'largely the same'
• some easy ones: 同国 (どうこく) means 'the same country' or 'said country'; 同日 (どうじつ --note the rare じつ reading of 日) is 'the same day' and 同年 (どうねん) is 'the same year'
• 同人 is 'the same person', also colleague, comrade, 'said person', clique or fraternity.

All about the kanji, part 14: 三

Great, an easy one to draw and remember. It means 'three' of course, and the readings should be familiar: み-, みっつ, and the first syllable of みつ (these are the kun) are all related to counters. You can remember the default counter みっつ easily by remembering the logo of the みっつびし (Mitsubishi) company: three diamond shapes.
The on readings are さん and one I've never seen, ぞう.
The great thing about this kanji is that its meaning never changes. It can be combined with some of the kanji from previous posts, but never in an unexpected way. So apart from the readings, there's nothing to remember!

All about the kanji, part 13: 出

出 has an unusually high number of readings: it's the first syllable in いだす, いでる, だす, and でる (all kun readings), and its on readings are しゅつ　and すい.
Just on its own, pronounced で, it can mean 'coming out, going out', 'start', 'origins, background'.
The number of compounds using this kanji is also higher than most.
Even worse, the two most important meanings 出る　（でる） and 出来る (できる), each have a number of different meanings: 出る means 'to go out, to leave', but also 'to appear', 'to be published', and 'to answer (phone or door)'. 出来る, on the other hand, can mean 'to be able to', but that reading is actually often written using hiragana. This is not the case for the other meanings, which include 'to be ready/completed', 'to be made/built', 'to be good at', 'to be permitted (to do)'.
And that's not all, there's also a verb 出す (だす), which again means a bunch of things like 'to go out', 'to put out', 'to show', 'to turn in (e.g. homework)', 'to publish', 'to begin'.
No wonder it ranks so high.
Here's how 出 combines with hiragana, and with the kanji we already know:

• 出会い (であい) - encounter
• 出会う (であう) - to meet by chance; to have a date
• 人出 (ひとで) - crowd, turnout
• 日の出 (ひので) or 日出 (にっしゅつ, note the completely different pronunciation!) - sunrise
• 出国 (しゅうこく) - leaving a country

All about the kanji, part 12: 長

Some kanji have different meanings that seem completely unrelated to us. 長 is such a kanji: it means both 'chief, head' (the on reading ちょう) and 'long' as 長い, using the kun reading ながい.
Looking at the 'chief' reading first, we learned a few of these in class, such as 首長 (しゅちょう), head of an organization, and 課長 (かちょう), section manager.
The なが reading has two forms: 長い is long; 長さ is length.
Here's how this new kanji combines with the previous ones:

• 長年 (ながねん) - a long time, many years, but:
• 年長 (ねんちょう) - seniority
• 会長 (かいちょう) - president of a society, chairman
• 長大 (ちょうだい) - very long, great length

All about the kanji, part 11: 中

Among these most frequent kanji, there are still many whose shape suggests its meaning. 中 (on:　ちゅう, kun: あた, うち or なか) means 'middle' or 'inside'. But just as in English, the word can be used in many ways:

• 人中 (ひとなか) means 'society, company, the world'
• 中でも (なかでも) means 'among others' or 'above all else'
• 中国 (ちゅうごく) means China, remember?
• 中日 (ちゅうにち) is a frequent abbrevation for 'China and Japan', while 日中 (にっちゅう) means 'during the day'
• 中年 (ねんじゅう) means middle age, midlife

Check back in the previous posts for a few more compounds using 中.

All about the kanji, part 10: 本

One reason that 本 ranks so high on the frequency list of kanji is because it appears so often next to 日 to make 日本, Japan. But even on its own, it has many readings, both in its on reading of ほん (where it means 'book', but also 'main, head, real' and serves as a counter for long cylindrical things, such as bottles, glasses, and scrolls of paper) and in its kun reading, もと (origin, source, base, foundation, cause, and a number of more obscure meanings).
This is why a simple compound like 一本 (いっぽん) can mean 'one cylindrical thing', or 'a certain book', or even, for some unfathomable reason, 'an experienced geisha'.
Repeating the kanji twice, written as 本本 or 本々 (々 means 'repeat previous kanji') is pronounced もともと and means 'originally'. 本国 (ほんごく) means 'one's own country'; 本人 (ほんにん) is 'the person himself'; and perhaps surprisingly, it's also the first half of 本当 (ほんとう), meaning 'truth, reality' (and so 本当に means 'in truth' or 'really').
Some more combos with kanji we know already:

• 本日 (ほんじつ) is another word for 'today'
• 本年 (ほんねん) is 'this year'.
• A three-kanji compound is 日本一 (にほんいち), meaning 'Japan's best, number one in Japan'.
• And finally we have all 3 parts to make 日本人 (にほんじん), a Japanese person.

There are tons more compounds, so it's best to leave those until we find the kanji 本 combines with.

All about the kanji, part 9: 二

Another easy one. We know the kun, ふたつ, as well as the on, に. In fact, in katakana, the character for the sound 'ni' is the same as this kanji: ニ　and 二. There are very few compounds with this kanji in which its meaning is not obviously 'two'.

• 一二 (いちに)= the first and second; a few
• 二見 (ふたみ) = forked (road, river) 見 means to see

All about the kanji, part 8: 十

Some kanji are easy to write, easy to understand, and don't change their meaning in combination with other kanji. These are the kanji to treasure and cherish.
十 is such a kanji. We know its two main pronunciations とう (the default counter) and じゅう; it's hard to imagine a character that's easy to write; and it means '10' wherever you see it.
Well, maybe not. Of the relatively small number of compounds with 十, there are a few idioms.

• 三十日, when pronounced みそか, means 'the last day of the month';
• 十字, pronounced じゅうじ, means cross or cross shape (字 means letter or character, don't confuse it with 学, learning or study);
• 十分 (じゅうぶん) means enough, satisfactory, also: perfectly,fully (分 has meanings as diverse as 'a minute' and 'to understand'), while 十二分 means more than enough.

And finally, a cultural idiom: 四十七士 (しじゅうしちし)　means 'the 47 ronin'. These ronin (a ronin is a samurai without a master) are the stuff of legend, famously plotting revenge for the death of their master for a year, killing the culprit, one Lord Kira, and then committing せっぷく, ritual suicide. The picture at the top of the post shows the ronin, though perhaps not all 47 (I didn't count them).

All about the kanji, part 7: 大

Image: giant jellyfish off the coast of Japan.
If 人　is a person, then as 大, he or she has outstretched arms, indicating a big size. That is why 大 means big. kun reading is おおー or おおきい (also the adjective); on reading is たい　or だい (the beginning of 大学 or　だいがく, 'big school', that is, university.
Some compounds with kanji we already know:

• 大人 = おとな, adult;
• 国大 = こくだい, national university (here 大 is short for 大学)
• 大国 = たいこく, large country (duh) but also 'the great powers'
• 大会 = たいかい, mass meeting, rally, convention

What's very unusual (maybe even unique) about the adjective derived from this kanji is that there are two:

• 大きい (おおきい), an i-adjective; and
• 大きな (おおきな), a na-adjective

Both mean the same thing and can, as far as I know, be used interchangeably.

All about the kanji, part 6: 年

Illustration: Beans being thrown at an oni, a demon, for good luck in the Lunar New Year.
This kanji means 'year' and so it's often found wherever a date appears, e.g. 2009年10月12日. Note that the Japanese use both the Common Era (CE) year, which is currently 2009, and the year of the reign of the current Japanese emperor, which is now 平成21年, or the 21st year of the 平成 (pronounced へいせい) era. 平成 is not the name of the Emperor, though, that would be Akihito. This year is also the Year of the Cow.
We know two pronunciations for 年: the kun reading とし (as e.g. in ことし　(今年), meaning 'this year') and the on reading　ねん (as e.g. in らいねん (来年), 'next year'; it's also the counter word for years). Note that さい, as in 'years old', is a completely different kanji, and that 年 rarely means something else than 'year'.
Some interesting compounds are 一昨年 (pronounced おととし) and 昨年 (pronounced さくねん), meaning 'the year before last' and 'last year', respectively. The kanji 昨 is the same one used with the first kanji we learned, and in the same way.
Combined with the kanji we already know, we get the following combinations:

• 一年中 (いちねんじゅう), 'all year round', analogous with 一日中 (いちにちじゅう) 'throughout the day'
• 年会 (ねんかい), conference or annual convention

All about the kanji, part 5: 人

Understanding what 人 means is easy. The various readings should also be familiar: ひと is the standalone word 'person', and にん　and じん are common endings, にん as a counter (3人 = さんにん = three people) and じん as a nationality suffix (日本人　＝　にほんじん = Japanese person) or occupation suffix. I have yet to see the readings -と and -り in the wild.
When you combine it with the kanji from previous posts, you get some fairly logical results:

• 国人, pronounced くにびと (note how the ひ changes into a び), means 'indigenous person; inhabitant of a country'.
• 一人, 'one person', has the irregular pronunciation ひとり (I guess that's the -り reading) and is often followed by で to mean 'alone' (lit. 'with one person')
• 人日, not surprisingly, means 'person-day', as used in the office to estimate an amount of work

Other familiar words using this kanji are:

• 人気 (にんき）, 'popular', where 気 is a fairly vague word meaning 'spirit', 'mind', 'energy' etc.
• 外人 (がいじん), 'foreigner', which is marked (sens) for 'sensitive' because it can have a negative undertone.
• 主人 (しゅじん) meaning '(my) husband' or, with the honorary prefix ご-, ご主人 meaning '(someone else's) husband'　（主 means chief, lord, or master; they're no feminists, then).

News headline

I was at the airport today. I came very early by taxi to drop someone off, and had to wait for a long time to get the first train back. So I hung around the newsstand, which was just opening up, and noticed they had a copy of the Morning Sun Newspaper, or as the Japanese call it, 朝日新聞 (あさひ　しんぶん). So I bought one, hoping to impress people around me by pretending to read it. I couldn't, of course, but I did recognize a kanji here and there.
The main headline on the front page (which was at the back, since they flip pages from right to left), says the following:

オバマ氏ノーベル平和賞

I definitely needed help with this one, but if you fill in ノーベル平和賞 in the dictionary, you get one result.
Also, with my limited kanji knowledge, I could read this sentence without having to consult a dictionary:

父はケニア人、母は白人米国人。

父 is father, 母 is mother, 白 means white, 米国 we just learned. So "His father is a Kenyan, his mother a white American." Note the following interesting facts:

• That sentence contains no verb, even though it's not a headline.
• The newspaper apparently finds it necessary and important to tell Japanese readers this fact about Obama.

All about the kanji, part 4: 会

This is one of those kanji with a pretty vague set of meanings: association, party, join, meet. The on reading is え or かい, and the kun reading is あう or あつます or あわせる.
If that doesn't sound familiar, here's some words we learned that contain this kanji:

• かいぎ (meeting), 会議 in kanji, uses the on reading;
• 会う, pronounced あう, is the dictionary form of あいます, to meet.

On its own, it means 'party', 'club', or some 'official' getting together. In combination with the last kanji we learned, for example, we get 国会 (こっかい), which means National Diet (the parliament in Japan), or just generally parliament or congress.
To show that the order of kanji can make a big difference, consider 社会 (しゃかい) meaning 'society', 'public', versus 会社 (かいしゃ), which you may remember as 'company', 'corporation' (a かいしゃいん is an office worker). 社 means 'association', 'company', 'firm' or 'office'. There's a whole bunch of compounds like these ones, all conveying some sense of a get-together or group. Most make sense if you look at the meaning of the other kanji.

All about the kanji, part 3: 国

The third most popular kanji in newspapers means 'country' or 'my country', which in turn typically implies 'Japan'. The kun reading is くに and the on reading is こく.
(If you're wondering what the difference between kun and on readings are, by the way, this Web page explains it clearly and succinctly, and, more importantly, this Web page does a decent job explaining when to use which.)
The picture showing the stroke order introduces a general set of rules about drawing kanji:

1. always draw from left to right or from top to bottom, never straight to the left or up.
2. always draw a box shape by drawing the left side first (up-down of course, see 1), then the top and right side in one stroke, and the bottom last.
3. If there's something in your box, draw the inside just before you draw the bottom.

You'll be happy that this kanji, whether alone or in combination with other kanji, almost always means 'country', 'national' or something obviously related with a country.
Also note that the kanji is, as far as I can tell, always pronounced こく or くに, although こく, in certain contexts, may of course become ごく.
I said 'almost always'. Here are the few exceptions where you might need help even if you know the other kanji:

• 一国 = いっこく = whole country, but also stubborn, hotheaded (I wonder what that says about Japanese national consciousness)
• 米国 = べいこく = the United States, but 米 means 'rice' (I found an explanation for it, but it's too boring to tell and has nothing to do with the meaning)
• 中国 = ちゅうごく = China, 'Middle Country', which is also how China writes itself.

All about the kanji, part 2: 一

一 is the easiest kanji of them all, both to draw and to remember the meaning of. The kun reading is ひと- or ひとつ (the default counter) and the on reading is the familiar いち. So far, no surprises.
But here are some unexpected uses or pronunciations of this kanji:

• 一日中 = いちにちじゅう, which means 'throughout the day', even though the individual kanji mean one, day, and inside or middle.
• 一緒に = いっしょに, which means 'together'. The kanji 緒 can mean strap, cord or even thong, so it literally reads 'in one strap', which I guess is 'bound together'.
• 一昨日 = おととい, meaning the day before yesterday, where 昨日 means yesterday
• 一から = いちから means 'from the beginning', 'from the top' (literally 'from one').
• 一生懸命 = いっしょうけんめい, 'with utmost effort', where the next kanji mean life/birth, suspend/depend/hang, and destiny/fate.

And let's not forget the recently learned いちばん, literally 'number one', which is used to say that something is the fastest, coolest, slowest etc.
一 is also very often pronounced as just い or いっ when used in combination with a specific counter, such as　いっぱい, one cupful (of, say, beer).

All about the kanji, part 1: 日

I thought it would be a good idea to start talking about kanji. And what better way to start than just writing about the most common of them all?

That would be 日.

This is a 4-stroke kanji and you write it like this:


日 has several kun readings: -か、 ひ and -び. The -か is a counter for days of the month e.g. 七日, pronounced なのか, means 'the seventh day of the month'... and also 'seven days'. -び is a typical ending for げつようび (monday),　たんじょうび (birthday) etc.
日 also has two on readings: one is にち, which we know from 毎日　（まいにち） or 'every day'. The other is じつ and I don't remember seeing it anywhere.

Important: The expression こんにちは, even though it contains the sound にち, is written using hiragana and doesn't use this kanji.

The meaning of 日 is 'sun' or 'day', and it usually means one of the two in combination with other kanji, except of course in the most common use, 日本 (にほん), Japan.

On its own, it's pronounced ひ. In combination with the days of the week (see above) it changes to び. The best one in the list is Sunday, 日曜日, which contains the same kanji twice, pronounced differently each time にちようび.

And in the words for tomorrow, yesterday etc, it's impossible to tell which part of the sound it is:
今日 = きょう = today
明日 = あした　= tomorrow, also pronounced あす.
昨日 = きのう = yesterday
明後日 = あさって = day after tomorrow
一昨日 = おととい = day before yesterday
This shows, more than anything, that you shouldn't think of kanji as sounds.
And here are some more combos:
日程 = にってい = schedule, program
生日 = たんじょうび = birthday
毎日 = まいにち = every day
日記 = にっき = diary

Unfortunately...

One member of the SHK team noticed a strange construction in a piece of text written by our teacher. The sentence actually has more interesting things in it. It runs:

In kanji: 美味しい 食事を　食べ過ぎて　少し太って　しまいました。
In hiragana: おいしい　しょくじを　たべすぎて　すこし　ふとって　しまいました。
The beginning is easy: delicious meal [OBJ]. The next word, たべすぎて, comes from たべすぎる, which means 'to overeat'. This may sound and look like some weird derivation from たべます, to eat, and in fact, the kanji 食 at the beginning is the same as for 'to eat' (and also the same as for 食事, meal). But the word たべすぎる is separately listed in the dictionary, and, say, the made-up のみすぎる ('to drink too much'), is not. So it looks like a separate word.
So it's "we ate too much of the delicious food and..."
少し (すこし) is known as 'a little'.
Then two verbs: 太って (ふとって), the -TE form of 太る (ふとる),'to gain weight', and しまいました, the polite past tense of しまう, listed as 'to finish', 'to put away'. This one is a puzzler, but internet to the rescue, pointing out that ~て　しまいます (or ~て　しまいました if talking about the past) is used to express regret.
So the whole sentence reads: "We ate too much of the delicious food and regrettably gained a little weight."

Our daruma challenges us

In our last Japanese lesson, we learned the word だるま (the dictionary thankfully tells us that this word is 'usually written using kana alone'!), the thing you see pictured here. The daruma is a representation of Bodhidharma, the Indian Buddhist who is said to be the founder of Zen. Some stories say that the daruma doll has no hands and feet because Bodhidharma spent many years staring at a wall in meditation, causing his limbs to atrophy.
The Japanese use the daruma to express a wish, and also to set themselves a challenge: they paint a pupil in the right eye when they decide to accomplish some goal. The daruma is there to remind us of our goal. When we have accomplished it, we paint the other pupil black, and then dispose of the daruma (there should not be more than one in a home at any time).
So, what challenge should we set ourselves?