A short post today since real life is starting to be more demanding and clamoring for attention.<\/p>\n
Today, I learned a new word: \u3010\u6e96\u3048\u308b\u3011<\/p>\n
I’m always surprised to see a completely new word based on a Kanji that I’ve probably known for well over 6 years. \u300c\u6e96\u5099\u300d was probably one of the first few words I learned with Kanji (it helped that the same word in Korean sounds identical). I later picked up other words such as \u300c\u57fa\u6e96\u300d\u3001\u300c\u6c34\u6e96\u300d\u3001\u300c\u6a19\u6e96\u300d\u3001and \u300c\u6e96\u6c7a\u52dd\u300d. Later on, I even picked up more advanced vocabulary such as \u300c\u6e96\u3058\u308b\u300d and the older style: \u300c\u6e96\u305a\u308b\u300d. And now, after over 8 years since I started studying Japanese, I just learned a completely different word based on the same Kanji.<\/p>\n
Another similar example happened to me several years ago with \u300c\u96c6\u3046\u300d, which as far as I can tell is virtually identical to \u300c\u96c6\u307e\u308b\u300d except used like almost never. At that time, I came upon the word at a local community event at \u300c\u5ddd\u53e3\u5e02\u300d called \u300c\u65b0\u5e74\u306e\u96c6\u3044\u300d.<\/p>\n
The moral of the story is: don’t worry about learning everything about a given Kanji at once. Relax, give it time, and learn things in context as you go. And whatever you do, DO NOT try to remember all the readings at once. You’ll eventually get to all the various readings and associated vocabulary in time. It might take over 8 years but hey, I’ve been using Japanese happily all these years without knowing \u300c\u6e96\u3048\u308b\u300d precisely because it’s so rare to see it used anywhere.<\/p>\n
As an interesting aside, \u300c\u306a\u305a\u3089\u3048\u308b\u300d<\/a> seems to have 3 possible kanji: \u300c\u6e96\u3048\u308b\u30fb\u51c6\u3048\u308b\u30fb\u64ec\u3048\u308b\u300d but the \u300c\u306a\u305e\u3089\u3048\u308b\u300d<\/a> reading seems to only accept \u300c\u6e96\u3048\u308b\u300d. Probably a modern upgrade, as indicated by older usage of \u300c\u305a\u300d (similar to \u300c\u751f\u305a\u308b\u300d\u3001\u300c\u6e96\u305a\u308b\u300d\u3001etc).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A short post today since real life is starting to be more demanding and clamoring for attention. Today, I learned a new word: \u3010\u6e96\u3048\u308b\u3011 I’m always surprised to see a completely new word based on a Kanji that I’ve probably … Continue reading