Nihongo wa muzukashii desu

Japanese is difficult (the title of today's blog) and is challenging my rusty mind. My grammar is getting better and I can make compound sentences now. I may have told you in the past that all Japanese take English in school but most are not very comfortable speaking it. More and more, I find that my Japanese may be better than the English of the person I am talking to when I am away from the office. I can have trivial conversations with people even.

I have also started trying to pick up some kanji again. One of the interesting things about kanji is that they can mean different things when combined. And some kanji are formed of "radicals" which have base meaning but form new words when combined. Here are some examples:

Separate Kanji

Fire + Mountain = Volcano
Fire + Flower = Fireworks
Study + Alive = Student
Big + Study = University

Radicals in the same Kanji

Woman + Child = Love
Power + Rice Field = Man
Tree + Tree + Tree = Woods

Some of the meanings sharing the same character are also revealing:

Day = Sun
Private = Me

People who read kanji "think" differently than when reading words. When you read kanji you see pictures and then fill in the grammar around it for detail. When you read an alphabetic language you read the detailed grammar and words, then form a picture. At least that is the way I figure it. There are a lot of things about Japanese that are linked to the written language so having some reading skills aids understanding the culture.

I only have about 1900 more kanji characters to go and I will have partially mastered it. At this rate it should only take another 40 years or so...

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