The Kanji Code
Page 6
RONRI
logic
論理的
RONRITEKI
logical
KL22 令 REI
order, command
Looks like: RE
hiragana れ
命令
MEIREI
order, command
法令
HOUREI
laws and ordinances
KL23 予 YO
prior, forecast
Looks like: YO hiragana よ
予定
YOTEI
plans, schedule
予防
YOBOU
prevention,
precaution
天気予報
TENKI YOHOU weather forecast
CHAPTER 2 – THE KANA CODE
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CHAPTER 3 – THE PHONETIC CODE
音符
の
一覧
CHAPTER 3 – THE PHONETIC CODE
CHAPTER 3 – THE PHONETIC CODE
TWO TYPES OF COMPONENTS
A kanji character is not a cluster of randomly arranged strokes and squiggles, but rather it is composed of smaller components that work together in a systematic way.
While the focus of this chapter is the phonetic components, we need to learn about both types of components: radicals (meaning components) and phonetics (sound components).
Radicals – meaning components
Radicals are components within a kanji character that give a hint to its meaning. While the term radical is entrenched in Japanese language education, the term meaning component might be more useful for students. You will find a list of the 214 radicals in most kanji dictionaries.
All characters are comprised of at least one radical, though many have more than one. The radicals represent objects and ideas that were relevant to daily life when the characters were invented, including animals, weapons, elements, numbers and verbs. Several of these objects or concepts repeat in different forms, making the total number lower than 214. Some radicals look like the object they represent.
目
eye
木
tree
⼉
human legs
With others, the original image has changed over time so it doesn’t at first glance resemble what it represents. However, once learnt it is quite easy to associate the image with what it represents.
⼼
heart
水
water
Other radicals represent a concept rather than a physical object.
小
small
We can better understand why the radicals look the way we do if we learn some kanji history.
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甲骨文字
Oracle bones script
koukotsu moji
The first known kanji characters appeared on turtle shel s and animal bones.
The majority that have been excavated are from the Shang Dynasty, from about 1200–1050 BCE. Kanji characters were carved onto the shell as part of a fortune telling ceremony for the Chinese emperor. A hot instrument was then applied to the shel , causing it to crack. The resulting lines were then interpreted, similar to the way tea-leaves are interpreted today. These ancient characters do not differ greatly from those we see today. The images appear simple because it was difficult to carve onto bone.
Below are examples of what mouth and sun looked like on the oracle bones, and the image they represent. Over time, the characters evolved as kanji characters were drawn on different materials. The names can vary but the historic phases are general y referred to as the Oracle Bone, Bronze, Great Seal and Traditional Scripts. Rounded objects like the sun were drawn square and over time became even more angular and geometric.
Oracle bones Bronze
Seal
Traditional Font
水 is the radical for water. While it doesn’t look that much like water, the narrow version of the radical clearly represents three drops of water.
This is simplified and narrowed so it can sit of the left side of a character.
水
water as a kanji
氵
water as a side radical
Put simply, the radical indicates the category or type of the kanji character.
So those that contain the water radical could be read as water-related.
Notice how it appears in all of these characters that are all water-related.
泳
swim
河
river
泡
bubble
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Another radical that bears a helpful resemblance to the object it represents is the grass radical 艸 or ⺾, in which two strands of grass poke up through the ground. When you see this radical on top of a character, you can be certain that the kanji relates to vegetation of some sort, or a quality of plants and flowers like fragrance.
花
flower
茎
stem
芳
fragrant
薬
medicine (think Chinese herbs)
Another way to think of radicals is as an abbreviation that appears after a word in a dictionary, for example n. for noun v. for verb. Except, the radical is a visual representation of the concept that appears within the word itself. You can find the radical of each kanji in the full index. Refer to the Radicals List to see the most common radicals and their meanings. While your eventual goal should be to learn the Japanese names, at first I think it is enough simply to memorise the meaning of each radical. Just think how many emojis you know. You know what each of those images stands for
– learning radicals is a similar task. While radicals are traditional y listed in stroke order, I have categorised them into 13 groups by subject-matter.
I think grouping them into smaller chunks like this makes them easier to learn. The groups are listed below with an example radical.
Category
Example radical
1
Nature
water
水 氵
2
Human Body
mouth
口
3
People
woman
女
4
Enclosures
cliff border
⼚
5
Verbs & Language
speech
言
6
Natural Materials
bamboo
竹
7
Math &
one
一
Measurement
8
Food
rice
米
9
Animals
horse
馬
1 0
Warfare
sword, knife 刀 刂
1 1
Man-made Tools
desk
几
12 Senses
sound
音
13 Supernatural demon
鬼
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Phonetics – sound components Phonetic components are elements within a kanji character that give a hint to its ON reading. There is no official list of the phonetics, but this chapter suggests 150 as a useful starting point. If a kanji character contains the SEI phonetic 青 there is a good chance that its ON reading will be SEI. Take the following five characters, which all contain it and have an ON reading of SEI.
Kanji
Meaning
ON reading
青
blue
清
clear
精
spirit SEI
請
ask
静
quiet
In cases like this, the
phonetic is an incredibly helpful tool for remembering the ON reading. Learn that 青 is read as SEI and you will essential y be reading these kanji characters phonetical y. It’s not obvious at first viewing how the character for blue, spirit and quiet are linked, and in terms of meaning, these characters are all quite different. That is because they are linked by the phonetic and all have a different radical.
Do phonetics work all the time?
Unfortunately, no. They’re not foolproof and there are many exceptions.
There are kanji characters that contain a certain phonetic but have a different ON reading to the phonetic. Moreover, there are others with the same ON reading that don’t contain that phonetic.
This aspect is what makes phonetics difficult to teach, and a little difficult to learn. People might have been put off by the fact that phonetics aren’t 100% reliable. My view is that even though there are exceptions, there are enough that do follow the rule to make them worth learning.
English spelling and grammar rules are full of exceptions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t teach them. I learnt the rule ‘I before E except after C’
in about Year 3 and it became an internet meme because of all the other exceptions that exist. However, I still mental y check the rule when spelling words like ‘receive’. Phonetics could be thought of as a similar kind of reading aid. If a character contains the SEI phonetic 青 it is likely to be read as SEI, except when it’s read as SHOU. Nevertheless, the five times it is read as SEI surely make it worth your effort.
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Not all phonetics appear in so many kanji, and 青 is a particularly consistent case. I call it a power phonetic since it unlocks the ON readings of so many characters and words – they are indicated with the 力 (power) symbol. With this knowledge, you can read one-half of the 10 example words provided.
Many of the phonetics listed here only appear in two characters. Even so, at the very least you get two kanji readings for the price of one. Moreover, once you learn a few phonetics you will start to see them in all the texts you read, as well as on food products and street signs.
Your familiarity with the phonetics will make reading real Japanese texts like newspapers and magazines less intimidating, and the more at ease you feel with tackling authentic texts the quicker your reading will improve. Kanji will no longer seem a mass of unintelligible lines but, rather, a combination of recognisable components, each of which has a known purpose and function.
Sometimes, just being able to put a name on something makes it seem more familiar, and less overwhelming. When you can point to a component in a kanji character and know if it’s a radical or a phonetic, you will feel more confident in your kanji reading abilities.
Learn phonetics like you learnt kana
The phonetic components allow us to bypass rote learning of ON readings for a large number of characters. By memorising them you will have a great tool for guessing the ON readings of new kanji you encounter. You will also have a useful way of memorising and associating kanji characters that share the same component. To better understand how phonetics work, we need an overview of the four types of kanji character.
The four types of kanji characters
1 象形 SHOUKEI pictograph
Looks like
木 tree
what it signifies
人 person
2 指事 SHIJI
ideograph
Visual
上 up
representation
下 down
of a concept,
often spatial
3 会意 KEII
compound
Combination of
休 to rest
ideograph
pictographs or
a person
ideographs to
sitting
create a third
next to
meaning
a tree
4 形声 KEISEI
semasio-
Characters with
訪 visit
phonetic/
a radical that
清 clear
form-sound
denotes the
character
meaning category,
and a phonetic
component that
denotes the sound
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The kanji characters that get the most attention in beginner textbooks are pictographs, ideographs and compound ideographs. So it might surprise you to learn that 80% of kanji fall under the fourth category, keisei moji.
While Japanese school students are taught about keisei moji, non-native learners of Japanese are often unaware of them. The fact that there isn’t even a clear English translation of the word keisei just serves to underline how obscure they are.
The dictionary definition of a keisei moji is a semasio-phonetic character.
In other words, it is a combination of semantic (meaning) components and phonetic (sound) components. While this term may appeal to linguistics scholars, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. To find a plain English term, let’s break the kanji compound down into its constituent characters: 形
声
文
字
KEI SEI MO JI
form, shape, sound,
character
appearance voice
The name tel s you that these are characters in which the form, shape or appearance gives a clue to its sound. I call them form-sound characters.
How a form-sound character works
The radical tel s you the meaning category.
Radical meaning category
氵
water
泳
swim
河
river
泡
bubble
And the phonetic tel s you the pronunciation.
Phonetic ON reading
Let’s look at the phonetics of the three characters listed above and the ON sounds they represent.
Phonetic
ON reading
永
EI
可
KA
包
HOU
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If we compare this with the kanji themselves, we can see how the phonetic is telling us the ON reading.
Sound
Kanji
Phonetic phonetic
character
it contains
indicates
ON reading
泳
永
EI EI
河
可
KA KA
泡
包
HOU
HOU
When we put it all together, we can see that each of these characters has a clear meaning component, the radical, and a clear sound component, the phonetic.
Sound
Meaning
phonetic
ON
Kanji Radical
it indicates Meaning Phonetic indicates reading 泳
氵
water- swim
永
EI EI
related
河
氵
water- river
可
KA KA
related
泡
氵
water- bubble
包
HOU
HOU
related
Radical = water
Phonetic = EI
swim
Radical = water
Phonetic = KA
river
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Radical = water
Phonetic = HOU
bubble
The previous examples follow the classic form-sound character positioning, with the radical on the left and t
he phonetic on the right.
It is also common to see the radical on the top and the phonetic on the bottom.
Radical = grass
Phonetic = KA
flower
Or, the phonetic on the top and the radical on the bottom.
Radical = heart
Phonetic = SHI
intention
The phonetic can also be on the left or within an enclosure. However, I don’t think we should get too hung up on the position of the phonetic.
If you learn the phonetics listed here, you will recognise them when you see them, regardless of their position.
The dual function of phonetics
Just because the phonetic indicates sound, doesn’t mean that it does not contribute to the overall meaning of a kanji character. The phonetic often carries a meaning that relates to the meaning of the character as a whole.
In addition, since the majority of the phonetics I have chosen to include in this book are also kanji characters in their own right, or radicals, most of them do carry a meaning.
For example, the phonetic HOU 包 is also a kanji character that means wrapping. An ideograph, the two outer strokes seem to be wrapping around one another. It looks like a stylised picture of a rolled-up scroll within a tube, in profile.
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Radical = water
Phonetic = HOU
Water + wrapping = bubble
When we combine the meanings of the radical and the phonetic, we get ‘water wrapping’. Do you get it? A bubble is air wrapped in water.
The phonetic here is clearly contributing to the overall meaning of the character, as well as giving a hint to its reading.
The centre phonetic – a good example