Category Archives: 620 NCEA Kanji Level 1

620 NCEA Kanji Level 1, Kanji

Let’s have another look at kanji

Leave a comment
Let’s have another look at kanji. 

It seems to fascinate most people about Japanese. On other pages there is more explanation about origin and significance, about pronunciation and about usage. This page is more about lay-out of individual kanji. It may come as a surprise, but there is a pattern in all these kanji. Here are the main patterns without bothering you with complicated words that show native usage, (i.e. ‘hen‘ and ‘tsukuri‘ etc.)

This kanji means gold and it is therefore associated with Gold Day, our Friday. Maybe Friday was pay-day (joke). It is one compact picture, which fits into one square.


Not so difficult to recognise the similarities with the shape of stacked gold bars. The empire must have been rich.



The following kanji, to learn, is broken up into two boxes: an upper smaller and a lower larger one. The upper one shows the divine gifts on the roof.(skull?) Let’s settle for school building, while the lower one is the child.

These two boxes signify one large square, of course.




The following one is quite unusual in that it is divided into three sections. In effect it is iku, to go, split by ‘dotted katakana ho‘, which signifies precious “something you are going for?” Difficult to say. One would need to look in an etymological kanji dictionary. Anyway, the three-way split is unusual.

These three boxes signify one large square, of course.



The next one means ‘sea’. It is broken up into three sections. There is mother, roof and water. ‘Roof’ and ‘mother’ together signify “each”, or ‘every”. Chauvinistic times hadn’t been invented yet, so being ‘under the roof’ happened to all good mothers.(No comment) That combined with water meant all the water = sea.

These three boxes signify one large square, of course.




This kanji also consists of three sections, but laid out slightly differently. It means “what?”: nani?



These nine squares signify one large square, of course.









Let’s have a look at a couple of kanji a little closer. To wait consists of three sections, each with a distinct meaning. These sub-elements can be found in other kanji as subsections too. In any case, let’s look at ‘matsu‘.


These three boxes signify one large square, of course.





On the left hand side is the person waiting. It is irrelevant, if it is a man or a woman. That doesn’t matter. The right hand side is more interesting. ‘Earth’ and ‘inch’.


Earth and inch is the sundial, the symbol of time keeping, which was done by the priests in the temple. So the right hand side means temple. The combination ‘person’ and ‘temple’ means ‘samurai’ – a person of integrity, associated with the temple. Nice thought： 侍. One could also see that the samurai under the roof would be waiting.




 

The last kanji on this page is language. It consists of four separate parts.

 


These two boxes signify one large square, of course.





It needs to be remembered when writing kanji, that most people don’t think about the origin of the kanji – they just use them. 

We do not think about the origin of our letters either. No-one thinks that the letter D comes from the Egyptian river Nile. That would be ridiculous. Of course, the letter D  does come from the river Nile (through the Greek word “delta” for River Nile Delta), but some PhD-person figured that one out. All ‘normal’ people just use the letter to write words. So it is with kanji. People use them and no-one really thinks about them.

When students want to learn Japanese writing, they need some help as they are not surrounded by these pictographs. 

Our pictures are merely our simplified explanations, or easy ways to remember. Once you remember them, you don’t need to think about them anymore. Good luck!

More information on kanji