KANA/KANJI Lesson Four - Noses and Radicals

[Starry Starry Fright]

To start this lesson, we're going to have to talk about kanji radicals.

What is a radical? Well, back in ancient China, the Chinese realized that it would be a pain in the a** to have to draw a brand new picture for every word. Instead, they decided that they would draw simple pictures and then combine them to make different words. Those smaller pictures are radicals.

So why noses and radicals? I am giving a culture lesson and a kanji lesson here. If someone were to call your name, and you wanted to confirm that it was you they were talking to, you'd probably point at your chest. In our culture, we tend to orient ourselves around our hearts. We put our hands over our hearts to make vows, we use heart images in our poetry, etc.

The Japanese place no significance on the heart. They don't even have a native word for heart. To the Japanese, everything is centered around the nose. If you were to call out a Japanese person's name and they weren't sure if you were talking to them, they would point to their noses and ask "watashi?"

This centralization around the nose can be seen in a lot of their kanji. This lesson will be focused on kanji that contain common radicals.

THE RADICALS

These are the radicals to look for:

Tree - 木 - this is simply supposed to look like a tree. See the branches?

Two - 二 We have been over this. Two lines. Two.

Mouth - 口 Also fairly straightforward. It looks like a simple mouth.

Water - 水 - This is derived from the kanji for river (川) When the sides of a river bend in and meet, water pools and becomes still water. Thus... water.

The nose radical is no longer a kanji by itself... it has been phased out over time and is therefore not in my Japanese language pack. It can be interpreted as "self" or "secretive/personal".

THE KANJI

1. I/Me (watashi)
私
The left half of the kanji is the radical for "rice plant" - a kanji that contains the radical for tree - and the right half of the kanji depicts a nose. So it is yourself standing next to a rice plant; this came to mean I or me.

2. Spacious (hiro)
広
Look! It's a nose again! This time the nose, or you, is under a roof (that roof is also a radical). This became the kanji for spacious.

3. Origin (gen)
元
This is a number two with legs attached. Every human originates from two pairs of legs... you know the rest.

4. Speak (hanashimasu)
話
See the mouths? Look at the left half of the kanji. That is a mouth with lines, which represent sounds, coming out. The right half is a mouth with the character for one thousand. One thousand mouths (right half) making sound (left half) make up a language.

5. Sea (umi)
海
See those three lines on the side? That is the water radical, which tell us this kanji has to do with water. The right half contains the radical for mother and together with the line over top of it means "every"... so this kanji literally means "the place where every drop of water comes from".

Practice writing these, and remember that the readings next to the English words are not the only possible readings of the kanji... they are simply the most common.  

[x Falsi]

I wonder why it's the nose though. o.o
& Thank you for pointing it out, I never really noticed anything to do with the nose. whee  

[this little secret]

Interesting, I'll write this down. I wonder about the nose part also.  

[miruuku]

The nose, wow, never saw it that way.  

[Rihanna Bae]

i thought kokoro was heart?  

[Starry Starry Fright]

Kinukio

i thought kokoro was heart?

It can mean "heart", but it can also be taken to mean emotions, feelings, etc....  

[Nana Shinu Ai]

Very interesting like how it is formatted. Sea is like Umi. i will practice with them more get more familiar or get used to it. How do we say starfish in Kanji? Since Sea is Umi , Speak is Hanashimasu, and Origin is gen.  

[I Am EarthBound]

If there's no real word for heart then what would they say is they had a heart problem and they want to tell a doctor?I know it's a weird question but I'm curious. sweatdrop  

[Kai Shi]

Kim Vana

If there's no real word for heart then what would they say is they had a heart problem and they want to tell a doctor?I know it's a weird question but I'm curious. sweatdrop

I'm not sure what Starry was getting at with the heart reference, but there's a number of words for heart in Japanese. As far as how to talk about heart conditions, here's one example:

彼は心臓が悪い。 (かれはしんぞうがわるい/kare wa shinzou ga warui)

So in that sentence they are using shinzou for heart, a fairly commonly used word. And the translation is: He has a bad heart.

Some other heart related words:

心臓発作 /しんぞうほっさ/shinzouhossa = heart attack (again using the same shinzou for heart and then hossa means fit/spasm)

心/こころ/kokoro This means heart/spirit/mind. This is probable the first term I heard for heart (and is used quite commonly in anime I believe). If you look closely, you'll notice that it is the same kanji as the first half of shinzou.  

[Starry Starry Fright]

Kai Shi

Kim Vana

If there's no real word for heart then what would they say is they had a heart problem and they want to tell a doctor?I know it's a weird question but I'm curious. sweatdrop

I'm not sure what Starry was getting at with the heart reference, but there's a number of words for heart in Japanese. As far as how to talk about heart conditions, here's one example:

彼は心臓が悪い。 (かれはしんぞうがわるい/kare wa shinzou ga warui)

So in that sentence they are using shinzou for heart, a fairly commonly used word. And the translation is: He has a bad heart.

Some other heart related words:

心臓発作 /しんぞうほっさ/shinzouhossa = heart attack (again using the same shinzou for heart and then hossa means fit/spasm)

心/こころ/kokoro This means heart/spirit/mind. This is probable the first term I heard for heart (and is used quite commonly in anime I believe). If you look closely, you'll notice that it is the same kanji as the first half of shinzou.

Ahh, this is an old lesson, from back when I had a terrible Japanese teacher. He told us that "shinzou" referred to the entire chest cavity.  

[Kai Shi]

Starry Starry Fright

Kai Shi

Kim Vana

If there's no real word for heart then what would they say is they had a heart problem and they want to tell a doctor?I know it's a weird question but I'm curious. sweatdrop

I'm not sure what Starry was getting at with the heart reference, but there's a number of words for heart in Japanese. As far as how to talk about heart conditions, here's one example:

彼は心臓が悪い。 (かれはしんぞうがわるい/kare wa shinzou ga warui)

So in that sentence they are using shinzou for heart, a fairly commonly used word. And the translation is: He has a bad heart.

Some other heart related words:

心臓発作 /しんぞうほっさ/shinzouhossa = heart attack (again using the same shinzou for heart and then hossa means fit/spasm)

心/こころ/kokoro This means heart/spirit/mind. This is probable the first term I heard for heart (and is used quite commonly in anime I believe). If you look closely, you'll notice that it is the same kanji as the first half of shinzou.

Ahh, this is an old lesson, from back when I had a terrible Japanese teacher. He told us that "shinzou" referred to the entire chest cavity.

It's probably one of those context things...Maybe it means both? I have no idea...  

[Nana Shinu Ai]

Okay. Thanks for posting it.  

[agito 657]

doesn't 話 just say hana and you add します seprately  

[Kai Shi]

agito 657

doesn't 話 just say hana and you add します seprately

Yep 3nodding  

[Nana Shinu Ai]

is it same thing when you say Hani you add it separate with Kanji. just to make sure.