{"id":105,"date":"2006-05-08T21:58:15","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T12:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nihongo.3yen.com\/2006-02-01\/distinguishing-between-same-kanji\/"},"modified":"2014-01-13T15:19:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T20:19:57","slug":"distinguishing-between-same-kanji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/08\/distinguishing-between-same-kanji\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait, so it’s the same word but not? When does the madness end??"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a naive little student earnestly learning kanji with glee, I remember thinking, “Yeah, now that I learned \u300c\u898b\u308b\u300d, I now know the kanji for \u300c\u307f\u308b\u300d!” Ha ha, if Japanese was that easy, I would have spend all that extra time not studying on training to become a professional StarCraft player instead like all the cool Koreans. Actually, what you learn later on is that some words may have more than one kanji with slight differences in meaning such as, “This kanji means that you are feeling blue but this<\/em> kanji is used when you are feeling blue and<\/em> you want to sneeze but it just won’t come out. It also implies that your right index finger itches.” Ok, ok, now I’m just trying to be funny… or am I? (Waggles eyebrows) Let’s see by taking a look at some alternative kanji for some common words and when to use them. Hint: It’s when you want to look “cool” and “smart”. (Emphasis on the quotation marks) For example, let’s look at alternatives for \u300c\u898b\u308b\u300d (to see) and \u300c\u805e\u304f\u300d (to hear\/to ask).<\/p>\n

You can see it, my child, yes, but can you see<\/span> it?<\/h2>\n

While \u300c\u898b\u308b\u300d is fine for just regular “seeing” (whatever that means), you might see \u300c\u89b3\u308b\u300d instead for when you are watching things such as movies and plays. I have no idea what the exact distinction is but I can tell you that \u300c\u89b3\u308b\u300d uses the same kanji as the one for \u300c\u89b3\u5149\u300d, which means “sightseeing”. A coincidence? I think not. Actually, I can’t complain about this too much because it’s easier than trying to explain the difference between the words, “to watch” and “to see”. Why don’t we try?<\/p>\n

No, you can’t “see television”, you can only watch it. Yes, you can “see a movie”. Huh? Why, you ask? Hmm… I think it’s because native English speakers hate you. Yes, that sounds about right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moving on, if a doctor is examining you, you use \u300c\u8a3a\u308b\u300d instead, which uses the same kanji from \u300c\u8a3a\u65ad\u300d meaning “diagnosis”.<\/p>\n

Ask, hear, eh, what’s the difference?<\/h2>\n

In Japanese, \u300c\u805e\u304f\u300d can mean either “to ask” or “to hear”. (After all, they are so totally related.) But if you want to be specific, you can use \u300c\u8a0a\u304f\u300d, which only means “to ask” or more accurately, “to inquire”. Also, when you are listening to music, you might use \u300c\u8074\u304f\u300d instead. \u300c\u52b9\u304f\u300d is also another alternative to mean that something is “taking effect”. It is often used in the context of taking medicine (or rather “drinking” in Japanese).<\/p>\n

How do I figure out this madness??<\/h2>\n

So how do you figure this stuff out? Well, your best bet are Japanese-Japanese dictionaries such as \u5e83\u8f9e\u82d1 or \u5927\u8f9e\u6cc9. For instance, here is the definition for \u300c\u8074\u304f\u300d<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\uff12 \uff08\u8074\u304f\uff09\u6ce8\u610f\u3057\u3066\u8033\u306b\u3068\u3081\u308b\u3002\u8033\u3092\u50be\u3051\u308b\u3002\u300c\u540d\u66f2\u3092\u2015\u30fb\u304f\u300d\u300c\u6709\u6a29\u8005\u306e\u58f0\u3092\u2015\u30fb\u304f\u300d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or better yet, if you use the Windows IME, the kanji selection menu will have explanations of the differences… in Japanese.<\/p>\n

\"IME,<\/a>

IME, the only Microsoft software I know of that doesn't suck (until they build a vacuum).<\/p><\/div>\n

For bonus points, see if you can figure out the difference between:
\n1. \u901f\u3044 vs \u65e9\u3044
\n2. \u53d6\u308b vs \u64ae\u308b vs \u76d7\u308b
\n3. \u98db\u3076 vs \u8df3\u3076
\n4. \u71b1\u3044 vs \u6691\u3044
\n5. \u5f6b\u308b vs \u6398\u308b
\n6. \u9589\u3081\u308b vs \u7de0\u3081\u308b vs \u5360\u3081\u308b
\n7. “Japanese” vs “A tongue invented by the devil to prevent the spread of Christianity”.
\n8. \u6b62\u307e\u308b vs \u505c\u307e\u308b vs \u6cca\u307e\u308b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a naive little student earnestly learning kanji with glee, I remember thinking, “Yeah, now that I learned \u300c\u898b\u308b\u300d, I now know the kanji for \u300c\u307f\u308b\u300d!” Ha ha, if Japanese was that easy, I would have spend all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intermediate","category-kanji","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}