Comments on: The Kanji That Look Like Their Meanings

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:31:00 +0000

I’ve always liked how sand 砂 is stone 石 plus little 少. Little rocks = sand!
River 川 looks like a flowing river,
big 大 is a guy standing with his arms and legs stretched out as big as he can,
dog 犬 is the same thing but with his teensy little dog behind him,
bright 明 is the sun and the moon (the two chief sources of light in the natural world),
division 分 is a sword that has just cut through a horizontal line and divides it into two pieces,
come out 出 looks like a mountain coming out the top of another mountain,
goods 品 looks like a few crates or boxes of goods stacked up in a warehouse someplace, and so on.
Much cooler is sleep, 寝, which I memorised by rationalising that it looks like a scene: it’s a house (the roof is up the top) with a guy on the right sleeping on his bed (you can see the two legs which support the mattress covered by a blanket), and a fire on the left keeping him warm. I thought it was a silly far-fetched little story until I looked it up one day and it turned out to be correct!

By: Diachrom

Diachrom — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:50:00 +0000

I was expecting to see my favourite pictograph kanji – egg, たまご, 卵

By: Kazeatari

Kazeatari — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 22:17:00 +0000

All the nonsense makes sense if you study etimology. Buy Henshall’s book. It’s a good start and you’ll love it.
Yasu.i is a chauvinist kanji in a certain way, more than kashimashii.
Basically is a woman at home, she should be left alone, in PEACE, so she can get CALM and so she won’t give anyone cause of concern …while she has her period.
From the idea of giving no cause of concerns comes the meaning “cheap” (it’s cheap, so it’s not a problem).

By: ケイリーたん

ケイリーたん — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:08:00 +0000

六本木？

By: Alex Napoli

Alex Napoli — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 02:35:00 +0000

I forgot what it was called…it was from the 1990s though.

By: Luciie

Luciie — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 15:13:00 +0000

蛍 is a curious and easy kanji too, a bug with light.