Visions of Kanji

Posted on 07. Feb, 2007 @ 2:24 pm by in Language Views: 276

Kanji is the bitter pill of learning Japanese.
Nobody (ok, so that’s not true) likes it, but it is certainly not something you can skip and expect to become skilled at Japanese.

Just the other day I came across a situation where knowing Kanji has helped me quickly grasp something I would have otherwise missed.

In class we were having a conversation about natural resources and power generation, and the word “KARYOKU” came up.

For those who are studying Japanese think for a minute about what a word pronounced KARYOKU could mean when used in the context of natural resources and power generation.

…

…

…

Done?

Okay, you may know that the word DENRYOKU 「電力」means “electrical power” in Japanese. The second character RYOKU literally means “power”, and the first character means “lightning, or electricity”. If you know a bit more Japanese you may also know that 「水力」SUIRYOKU, means “water power”.

Now, if you check the ever growing kanji dictionary in your head, you may know that the world FIRE, is 火, and 火 can be pronounced as HI, but also as KA, as in 「火曜日」for KAYOUBI, Tuesday.

So, you can guess that this new word, KARYOKU, may be written「火力」。Or, power from fire. Properly put, “Thermal Energy”.

So though I had never heard the phrase 火力 before in Japanese, because I know some Kanji, I was able to create an image of the characters in my head, and grasp the meaning that way.

This may seem a little far fetched, but I swear, it’s really how it works.

According to my Japanese teacher, when Japanese speakers talk to each other they are creating quick visual images of characters in their head as the conversation occurs. Of course, this isn’t something conscious, especially for simple conversation, but when topics become serious and include advanced vocabulary the process happens more frequently. In this way, Japanese can understand the meaning of words they may not use often, or possibly have never heard before.

Kanji in action! Gotta love it.

- Harvey

  • Anders

    I have had that feeling so many times, I remember the first time I heard aisha i.e beloved car, I quickly broke it down to its components ai and sha and voila! It’s a nice, revelatory experience when you first do it.

  • Grace

    Yeah, I felt like it was some kind of huge revelation when one of my Japanese teachers said something about how Japanese people think in kanji.

    Trying to learn kanji through Japanese sucks, though. It’s much easier with Chinese, where it’s sink or swim with writing.

  • J.

    I can copy that: had the same experience a few times. A spoken word had no meaning to me, but when I saw the kanji it was composed of I could understand what the meaning of the word was, what it was about. Of course this only works if you know the kanji and getting to know the kanji is the hurdle…

  • http://slashandburn.typepad.com Adam

    It’s true! I’ve just started studying kanji and already I’m seeing pictures in my head. I’ll bet you do it with English words too, you just don’t realize it.

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