学校 is not a pleonasm. You're basically just confused about how kanji work. Kanji don't really have a specific meaning on their own, they just have a tendancy to be used in words that have certain meanings. Both 学 and 校 are often used in words that mean school, or have to do with learning or education. But neither of them MEAN school. 学校, on the other hand, is a word and not just a kanji, and means school.
Don't think of kanji as if they are words. Some kanji can be used by themselves as words, and some can't. Even the kanji that can be used as stand-alone words are not words when they become part of a compound. In that case, they are symbols which come together to make a word. This is what's happening in something like 学校.
Posted by Anonymous on Jul 15th, 2010 at 12:06 am.
学校 is not a pleonasm. You're
学校 is not a pleonasm. You're basically just confused about how kanji work. Kanji don't really have a specific meaning on their own, they just have a tendancy to be used in words that have certain meanings. Both 学 and 校 are often used in words that mean school, or have to do with learning or education. But neither of them MEAN school. 学校, on the other hand, is a word and not just a kanji, and means school.
Don't think of kanji as if they are words. Some kanji can be used by themselves as words, and some can't. Even the kanji that can be used as stand-alone words are not words when they become part of a compound. In that case, they are symbols which come together to make a word. This is what's happening in something like 学校.