I recently realized that I could not remember well all the kanji about compass directions. And, since they are usually among the basic kanji (asked in jplt n5), I decided to create a simple graphic post to remember them. Hope it can help you, too!
晴れ 【はれ】(hare): clear weather, fine weather 女 【おみな】(onna): woman, female
I found this word watching Weathering with you. One of the main character of the anime is Hina, a ‘sunshine girl’ with the power of bringing sunny weather. 晴れ女 can be literally translated 'sunshine girl’, or 'sunny weather woman’.
雨女 literally means 'rain girl’ or 'rainy weather woman’. 雨女 (Ameonna) is also a legendary female spirit, described as a goddess from China’s Mount Wushan, who is a cloud in the morning and rain in the evening.
Fun fact: I found this kanji in the fantasy series Avatar, the last airbender. You can usually see it in the opening credits, associated with the element air and the air nomads, a nation of wise monks.
Background photo by Nicki Eliza Schinow on Unsplash. Words and translation: Jisho.org
巫女 【みこ】 (miko): a shrine maiden in shintoist temples, a sorceress, a shamaness. The second kanji 女is not read, but it means “woman”. The overall meaning is “shrine maiden, shamaness”.
I recently learned about the existence of this fascinating figure, the miko. Miko are the young women working in shintoist temples in Japan. In ages past they also had the role of shamanesses and prophetesses.
Thinking about it, I had already seen this figure in one famous anime, Your Name (kimi no na wa). In the movie, in fact, we see the main character, Mitsuha, performing ritual dances in a shrine with her sister, while wearing the traditional mikodress.
I found the miko fascinating. Think about it: in the morning you have these girls as your normal classmates, and at evening you see them at the temple, working in the shrine and performing ritual dances. Maybe for us westerners it just gives a weird and beautiful impression to see the sacred in everyday life, especially in young people.
The kanji for “storm, tempest” is a very interesting one - It’s actually made by two kanji, one on top of the other: the kanji above means “mountain”, the one below means“wind”.
Mountains are often a forge of storms: this is why it’s always good to check the weather forecasts before go hiking on mountaineous terrains. Thunderstorms may form over the peaks, as warm, moist air rises along the slopes and condenses in thunderclouds, also creating strong wind gusts.
Furthermore, strong windstorms often happen downwind of mountain ridges. In fact, mountains are responsible for “downslope windstorms”.
Of course, this is just my interpretation of the kanji shape. It helps remember it, though!
This word can also be interpreted in a metaphorical way as “uproar”or“winds of change”.
天下(tianxia) is a Chinese phrase with the meaning “All under Heaven”, “All under the Sky”. It is an ancient Chinese cultural concept, originally denoting the geographical world or the metaphysical realm of mortals. The term becam later associated with political sovereignty, being tianxia all the space, land and area divinely appointed to the Emperor of China (called 天子, tianzi, “the Son of Heaven”).
In Japanese, 天下 is read てんか, てんが or てんげ (tenka, tenga, tenge); another form of this word is 天の下, あめのした (ame-no-shita) which also means “all under heaven”: it indicates the whole word or country, and also takes on the more political meaning of “ruling power”.
Kanji meaning:
天 : heavens, sky, imperial
下 : under, down, below
天 has different readings in Japanese. Usually the on'yomi reading is ten(テン), but the kun'yomi reading is ame, ama- (あめ、あま-).
Interesting enough, ame is also the kun'yomi reading for “rain” (雨).
I’m always trying to find new and interesting ways to learn Japanese. However, I’m just a beginner, an adventurer of language! If you spot an error, feel free to point it out, I will try to correct it as soon as possible!
I’m always trying to find new and interesting ways to learn Japanese. However, I’m just a beginner, an adventurer of language! If you spot an error, feel free to point it out, I will try to correct it as soon as possible!
Let’s learn some vocabulary about the sea, by looking at the beautiful lyrics of Sayonara no Natsu from “From Up on Poppy Hill”. The first part of the post introduces some vocabulary (kana only), the second part focuses on one word (kanji).
I grew up on a hill with a view on the sea. From my hometown, during clear days, I could see a line at the horizon, bluer than the sky, and a shining city below it.
What a beautiful city. I am especially fond of the harbour area: a row of low, brightly colored houses on one side, and a forest of floating masts on the other. The lighthouse standing out against the summer sky, the air filled with the echoes of seagulls and the gentle blows of the water on the ships’ flanks. The kiss of the sun; the salt on the breeze.
Maybe this is one possible reason why I love “From up on Poppy Hill” so much: the beautiful world in which the story is set remembers me so much of my little world by the sea.
Some Sea Side Vocabulary! (Kana only)
The beauty of that world is well captured, in my opinion, in the song Sayonara no Natsu(さよならの夏,The Summer of Goodbyes). Down here I wrote some “sea side” vocabulary I learned from the song and from my japanese course. In this first part I only use hiragana and katakana alphabets and no kanji: at the moment, in fact, I’m more focused on learning the “sound” of the language.
うみ(umi): the sea, the ocean. うみなり(uminari) is the rumble/roar of the sea, from the verb なる (naru), “to sound, to roar, to rumble”. Another verb to use with umi?ひかる (hikaru), “to shine, to glitter, to be bright”;
ふね (fune): ship, boat, vessel, seaplane. こぶね(kobune) also appears in the lyrics: it’s a compound of ko(which means small) and fune (which is turned to bune in this case) and thus it means “small boat”;
なみ (nami): wave. It appears in the famous word tsunami(つなみ), where tsu means “port, harbor”. A tsunami is a wave that attacks the harbor;
カモメ (kamome): gull, seagull. I found it written in katakana, so it’s probably a loanword, although I’m not sure which origins it could have;
さかな (sakana): fish.
Kanji of the day!
Today’s kanji is:
海 (umi): the sea, the ocean.
(Interesting enough, Umi is also the name of the movie’s main character - which I find beautiful!)
I hope you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed learning some Japanese vocabulary about the sea! If you are interested, you can check this post on some vocabulary I learned by watching the movie “From up on Poppy Hill”.
Pictures (from the web): FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (2011), by Goro Miyazaki, STUDIO GHIBLI.
P.S.: I am just a beginner student of Japanese. If you are more experienced with the language and want to point out an error, feel free to let me know, and I will correct the error as soon as possible!
P.S.: I am just a student of Japanese, if you are more experienced with the language and want to point out an error, feel free to let me know, and I will correct the error as soon as possible!
Japanese with Studio Ghibli - From Up on Poppy Hill
From Up on Poppy Hill is one of the first Studio Ghibli movies I have ever seen, probably the second after The Secret World of Arrietty. It is a quiet, peaceful story of everyday’s life and romance, set in the beautiful scenery of Yokohama.
The movie’s title in Japanese is コクリコ坂から(Kokuriko-zaka kara, From the Hill of Poppies):
コクリコ(Kokuriko) means “poppies”. You may have noticed that it is written in katakana: that’s because it is a loanword, from the French word for poppy, Coquelicot. I don’t know if there’s a Japanese word for this flower, nor if the flower was already known in Japan before it came from Europe…
坂(zaka)means “Hill”. Interesting enough, the name “Poppy Hill” seems to come from the name of the boarding house where the main character Umi and her family live, Coquelicot Manor. I initially thought “Poppy Hill” was the name of a neighborhood in Yokohama :)
から means “from” when put at the end of a noun. This word is mantained in the English title From Up on Poppy Hill, while it is omitted in the Italian title (yep, Italian is my first language) La Collina dei Papaveri, “The Hill of Poppies”. Anyway, I like all of them :)
As I said, this movie shows glimpses of everyday’s life in Japan, therefore it is well suited to learn some common expressions, like the following:
ただいま!(Tadaima!) : “I’m home”
お帰りなさい / お帰り (Okaerinasai / okaeri) : “Welcome back (home)”. From what I’ve seen 帰る(kaeru) means something like “return, go back, go home”.
行ってきます(Ittekimasu): “I’m off, I’m leaving” (行is the kanji for “go”)
いただきます(itadakimasu): polite expression you use before starting a meal. It’s very difficult to translate (but many attempt to do it on the web, if you want to know more about this word)
This movie is also a good way to learn/review some vocabulary about the family, since families, and the relationship between parents and their children is a main theme of the story. Those are some of the words about family I recognized:
お母さん(okaasan): “mother, mum”
お父さん(otousan): “father, dad”
子(ko): “child” can be either son or daughter
息子(musuko): “son”
おねえちゃん(oneechan): “big sister”.
兄弟(kyoudai): “siblings, brothers”
Those are just a few examples, the words that I noticed either because often repeated throughout the movie or because I already heard them in my Japanese course. Anyway, if you have the chance to watch this movie, take it, and enjoy this sweet story while learning (or reviewing) Japanese vocabulary!
P.S.: I am learning Japanese as an amateur, by exploring this language and its culture and making new discoveries every day. This means that I am not fluent in Japanese, and that I can make a lot of errors! If you are a native speaker or a student already fluent in the language, feel free to point at errors in the post, and I will correct them as soon as possible!
Pictures:FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (2011), by Goro Miyazaki, STUDIO GHIBLI.
Omg I just noticed that the example sentence has こんこん in hiragana beside the kanji. When you copy and paste a sentence that has furigana above the kanji, it will put it as hiragana beside the kanji, and I forgot to go and delete that. /sigh. The correct example sentence is:
ゆき子が昏々と眠った。
Okedoke. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on to this word and its kanji.
昏
On-yomi: kon
Kun-yomi: kura.i, kure
Meaning: dark, evening, dusk
This kanji is made of two different parts: 氏 and 日. 氏 represents a person and 日 is the sun. The person is standing above the sun, and therefore this kanji is a pictograph of “the sun falling to a person’s footsteps,” which is a rather pretty way to describe the sun setting. And of course, after the sun sets, it becomes dark, which explains why this kanji means “dark.”
Now, why does the word “konkon” mean fast asleep? Well, most people tend to sleep at night haha. Of note, this kanji appears in the word for “coma,” which is 昏睡 konsui. So this kanji has nuances of a very deep sleep.
JLPT Level: Unlisted, but the kanji are N1 and N3 respectively.
Alright, this is a pretty interesting word that’s seen some changes in meaning and usage over the centuries.
滅
On-yomi: metsu
Kun-yomi: horo.biru, horo.bu, horo,bosu
Meaning: destroy, ruin, overthrow, perish
法
On-yomi: hou, ha, ho, furan
Kun-yomi: nori
Meaning: method, law, rule, principle, model, system
If we put the two together, we get “The Law of Destruction,” which could be a pretty rad metal song.
Originally, this was a Buddhist term used to refer to…something too hard for me to wrap my pea brain around haha. Really trying to remember everything I learned in that one Buddhist Philosophy course I took in uni back in the day.
Okay okay. Basically, all things in existence are divided into two categories:
Conditioned existence (a.k.a. things created by fate). This is known as saṃskṛta in Sanskrit.
Those that have transcended conditioned existence. This is known as asaṃskṛta in Sanskrit.
Meppou is the old Japanese Buddhist term for “things that have transcended conditioned existence.” This can mean that a thing has reached Nirvana, something that is “absolute.”
From that meaning, meppou came to mean something “extraordinary” or “terrible and intense” like a historic typhoon.
Most of the time, meppou is used in the phrase 滅法強い meppou tsuyoi, “terribly powerful.”
