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KANJI EXPLAINED

Introduction

This book is designed to offer the reader clues for remembering and making sense of kanji—the Japanese characters of Chinese origin. It contains many of my attempts to create stories on the spot for kanji after kanji on my classroom whiteboard. The drawings and brief descriptions I use may draw from historical meanings, or they may vary wildly from their roots, but they are designed to act as mnemonic devices to help my students memorize those kanji. Those drawings and stories are captured in this book.

To better understand kanji, it is helpful to know some history. Chinese characters are considered one of the oldest consistently used writing systems in the world. Though we know that the ancient Chinese have been using characters to write with for more than 3,000 years, these symbols were only codified into an orderly writing system by the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi after he came to power in 221 B.C. In the 5^th century C.E., through religious and trade missions, this writing system arrived in Japan, along with other imports, such as Buddhism. As Buddhism became more popular and methods of dissemination were needed, the Japanese began to modify and adapt Chinese characters to develop their own written language.

The Japanese Writing System

Adapting Chinese characters to suit the Japanese language has resulted in a writing system that many consider difficult and cumbersome, yet it is rich in beauty and expressive possibilities. The three types of Japanese character each serve a specific purpose.

Kanji are characters that come from China and are used to express the key meanings of words. Each character usually has several different pronunciations, determined by context. While somewhat daunting in number and complexity, studying the kanji in the context of their original meanings or the mnemonic drawings found in this book can be fun and entertaining.

Hiragana are phonetic characters derived from kanji. For example, the hiragana character あ is a simplification of the Chinese character 安. Each hiragana has one sound and, unlike kanji, has no inherent meaning. Hiragana is used when there is no Chinese character for a Japanese word, and for verb endings and grammatical particles. It is possible to write Japanese using only hiragana. By doing so, however, much of the richness and poetry of kanji is lost.

Katakana, like hiragana, are phonetic characters derived from kanji, each having one sound. There are the same number of katakana characters as hiragana, and they replicate the hiragana sounds. But katakana is generally used to write words of foreign origin, onomatopoetic expressions, scientific or technical terms, and sometimes the names of Japanese companies.

Hiragana and katakana are referred to collectively as “kana.” A kana chart, along with mnemonic illustrations and stories to aid memorization can be found on pages 8–13.

The Building Blocks of Kanji

Kanji can be broken down into smaller components referred to as “radicals,” which are linked to either the pronunciation or the meaning of the kanji. Radicals come in various sizes and shapes. For example, the entire kanji can be a radical: 山 (yama – mountain) is both a kanji in and of itself, and a radical. Radicals can also be incorporated into more complicated kanji and can appear in different positions in each kanji—all or part of the top, bottom, left, or right portions of a kanji. Each kanji has one “core” radical from which its meaning or pronunciation is derived and by which it can be classified. Here are some examples of one radical and the many kanji in which it is found:

山 YAMA, meaning mountain (entire kanji)

島 SHIMA, meaning island (bottom left)

岸 GAN, as in , meaning beach (top)

仙 SEN, meaning hermit (right); also found in the name of a northern city,

The kanji 山 is clearly a pictograph representing “mountain.” Some kanji, however, though they may have been meaningful pictographs thousands of years ago, are less relevant today. In this book, I have taken the liberty of giving some more obscure kanji “new” meanings so that they can be more easily memorized.

How To Use This Book

The kanji in this book are roughly grouped by similar radical or meaning. Each kanji is illustrated with a drawing to help you visually remember some distinctive part of that kanji. A story accompanies each illustration as a further aid to memorization. The elements of each illustration and the accompanying information are broken down and explained on page 14.

The accompanying provides native speaker pronuniciation of the readings of every kanji in the book, along with models of the sample vocabulary words that are given for each kanji. Each vocabulary word is followed by a pause in the recording to allow you to repeat the word yourself.

The index at the back of the book lists all the basic meanings that are given for the kanji at the head of each entry.

Whether you bought Japanese Kanji Made Easy because you are simply curious, or whether you are formally studying Japanese and its writing system, this book has been designed to be entertaining. I sincerely hope that you enjoy looking at, reading, and learning with this book as much as I enjoyed creating it. It is my further hope that these drawings and descriptions inspire you to create your own mnemonic hints, in a fun and abstract way. Think creatively and enjoy the experience of learning more about kanji and the Japanese writing system.

Michael L. Kluemper