Ask Japanese learners what the hardest part of the language is, and one of the most common answers will be ‘kanji’ (sometimes accompanied by a thousand-yard stare). Anyone who’s attempted to master it will know that while it’s fascinating and beautiful, it’s also very challenging — why is there more than one pronunciation? Why do these […]
Category: kanji
For anyone interested in studying jinmeiyō kanji and wondering where to start, here’s a list of all of the jinmeiyō kanji found in one of the all-time classic Japanese novels: Botchan (坊っちゃん) by Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石). How many jinmeiyō kanji are these in Botchan? Good question! There are approximately 135 of them! And here […]
For quite a while now I’ve been trying to come up with an effective way to study non-jōyō kanji (technically known as jōyōgai kanji [常用外漢字] i.e. the kanji that are NOT within the 2,136 jōyō kanji), and although I’m still nowhere near achieving this goal, I recently had an interesting idea: obtain a book written […]
Wondering how to write furigana (those little hiragana characters you sometimes see above Japanese kanji) in WordPress? Here’s how: Step 1. Step 1 – You’re going to need to use the ‘Custom HTML’ WordPress Block (note: not sure what WordPress Blocks are? – here’s a quick YouTube video). Here’s how to find it: click the […]
Okurigana (送り仮名 – literally: “accompanying characters”) are characters that appear after a kanji character in a Japanese word. They are used to indicate the inflection or pronunciation of the kanji, and are typically written in hiragana. For example, in the word “読よめる” (yomu, meaning “can read”), the kanji is “読” and the okurigana are “め” […]
Come across the word Furigana in the context of Japanese kanji and wondering what it means? Furigana (振り仮名 – literally: “assigned characters”), also known as ruby text or ruby characters, are small kana characters that are written above or to the side of a kanji character in a Japanese word. They are used to indicate […]
To write furigana (振り仮名) in HTML, you can use the <ruby> element, which is a part of the HTML Ruby Extension. The <ruby> element is used to mark up ruby text, which is a type of small, annotated text that is used to provide pronunciation or other information about a character or word. Here’s an […]
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The Japanese Kanji for Crab (蟹)
The kanji 蟹 (かに(kani))is a logographic character that is used in the Japanese writing system. It is composed of four parts: the radical 虫 (くも), which means “insect” or “bug,” and the radical 角 (かど), which means “angle” or “corner”, the radical 刀 (とう), which means sword, and the radical 牛 (うし), which means cow. […]
There are several words for snow in Japanese, depending on the context and the type of snow being referred to. Some common words for snow include: In addition to these words, there are also many other words and expressions that can be used to describe snow in Japanese. The above are just a few of […]