Tiny but Meaningful Japanese Words
With a language background of English & Hindi, learning Japanese was astonishing for me. It surprised at times with peculiarities like onomatopoeia, softness. One more of them was having tiny words and still able to carry significant meaning.
Note: Character readings should be read the way you read english alphabets for e.g. read ‘e’ as ‘e’ in ‘elephant’ and not ‘e’ in ‘set’.
What this post is about?
Single lettered nouns in Japanese
The chinese writing system use pictographs for compaction. It has a lot of symbols where each symbol represents a concept. Japanese writing system has symbols inherited from the chinese and has similar kind of conceptual meaning. Like this symbol 森 represent a ‘forest’. Another fun moment was the realization of existence of one-phoneme words and still carrying meaning. For instance, you can just use ‘e’ for stomach(胃), ‘a’ for picture(絵), ‘mu’ for concept of nothingness(無). It contrasts greatly from english or hindi where most nouns are longer.
What are its consequences?
Harder to learn Japanese
Out of my (limited) personal experience, it is harder to parse words in speech especially for unseen words. Japanese learners face more difficulty in absorbing the language. Which is due to increase in complexity for resolution of words.
Why this might have happened?
Communication Efficiency
Believing that humans care about efficiency, we would need a efficient data compression scheme(huffman encoding is a good example) which should be dependent on following features
- How important is utterance of that word?
- If a word is uttered a lot of times, it should be important. Like ‘water’ seems more important than ‘dry ice’ as humans need water more often than dry ice.
- How fundamental a concept is?
Disclaimer
Most statements are assertions directly out of my head. I haven’t validated them so please dig more into them to verify for correctness or completeness.
Single lettered words in Japanese
| Reading | Word | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| い | 胃 | 胃が痛い |
| Stomach | Stomach pain | |
| 胃袋 いぶくろ | ||
| Belly | ||
| 医 | 医者、歯医者 | |
| Art/Science of Medicine | Doctor | |
| Doctor | 内科医 | |
| Physician | ||
| 井 | 井の中の蛙 | |
| Well | Frog in the well | |
| 井戸 いど | ||
| Water well | ||
| 井戸端会議 いどばたかいぎ | ||
| Housewives gossips | ||
| 意 | 意にまま | |
| Feeling, sensation | As thought | |
| 不意 | ||
| surprise | ||
| ー位 | 第1位 | |
| Counter for rank, place | 1st position | |
| 位置 | ||
| situated | ||
| え | 絵 | 絵の具 えのぐ |
| Picture | Colors | |
| 絵の勉強 | ||
| Study of painting | ||
| 下絵 したえ | ||
| Rough Image | ||
| 絵のよう | ||
| Picturesque | ||
| 柄 | フォークの柄 | |
| Shaft | Handle of the fork | |
| 金属製の柄 きんぞくせいのえ | ||
| Metal shaft | ||
| お | 尾 | 尾の長い猿 |
| Tail | Long tailed monkey | |
| か | 蚊 | 蚊に食われる かにくわれる |
| Mosquito | Bitten by mosquito | |
| 蚊に刺される かにさされる | ||
| Bitten by mosquito | ||
| 蚊の群れ かのむれ | ||
| Swarm of mosquitos | ||
| き | 木 | |
| Tree | ||
| 気 | ||
| Feeling/Emotion | ||
| 着 | ||
| Wear | ||
| 機 | ||
| Machine/Chance | ||
| く | 句 | この句 |
| Phrase | This phrase | |
| 苦 | 苦は楽の種 | |
| Pain | No pain, no gain | |
| け | 毛 | 巻き毛 まきげ |
| Hair, fur | Curly hair | |
| 卦が柔らかい | ||
| Soft fur | ||
| 卦 | 良い卦が出た | |
| Sign | A good sign has appeared | |
| こ | 子 | かわいい子 |
| Child, boy/girl | Cute baby/girl | |
| さ | 差 | 差をつける |
| Difference/ | Make a distinction | |
| Remainder | 差がある | |
| し | 死 | 死の恐怖 死のきょうふ |
| Death | Fear of death | |
| 詩 | 詩の才能 しのさいのう | |
| Poem | Poetic talent | |
| ミルトンの詩 | ||
| Poem from milton | ||
| 師 | 師と仰がれ しとあおがれ | |
| Mentor/Master | Respected as a mentor | |
| す | 巣 | 鳥の巣 |
| Nest/hive | Bird’s nest | |
| 巣を作る | ||
| Making a nest | ||
| 酢 | 野菜を酢につける | |
| Vinegar | Pickle vegetables in vinegar | |
| 素 | 素の自分 | |
| Pure | True oneself | |
| せ | 背 | 椅子の背 いすのせ |
| Back | Back of chair | |
| 背中 | ||
| one’s back | ||
| 窓に背を向ける まどにせをむける | ||
| Turn one’s back to the window | ||
| 瀬 | 年の瀬 | |
| Rapids, shallows | Year end | |
| そ | 祖 | 英詩の祖 |
| Ancestor/Father | Father of english poetry | |
| ち | 血 | 血を採る ちをとる |
| Blood | Draw blood(for a test) | |
| 血が出てる | ||
| Blood is coming out | ||
| 知 | 知の巨人 | |
| Wisdom | A superior intellectual person | |
| 地 | 天と地 | |
| Place/ground | Heaven and earth | |
| 地に足がついてる ちにあしがついてる | ||
| Realistic | ||
| て | 手 | つるつるした手 |
| Hand/arm/palm | Smooth hand | |
| と | 戸 | 戸を開ける |
| door | Opening the door | |
| 徒 | 学問のと | |
| Set | Scholars | |
| 無頼のと | ||
| Group of outlaws | ||
| な | 菜 | 菜の花 |
| Vegetables | Rape blossoms | |
| 名 | 名のない | |
| Name | nameless | |
| に | 荷 | 軽い荷 |
| Load | Light weigh luggage | |
| ぬ | ||
| ね | 根 | 根が優しい |
| Root | Kind at heart | |
| の | 野 | 野の花 |
| plain/wild | Wild Flower | |
| は | 歯 | 歯が痛い |
| Tooth | Aching Tooth | |
| 葉 | 木の葉が赤い | |
| Leaves | Red Leaves | |
| 派 | ナイフの刃が鋭い | |
| edge | Keen-edged knife | |
| ひ | 火 | 火をつける |
| Fire | Set fire to house | |
| 日 | 日が当たらない | |
| Sunlight | Doesn’t get sun | |
| 日 | 父の日 | |
| Day | Father’s day | |
| 費 | ||
| expense | ||
| ふ | ||
| へ | ||
| ほ | 帆 | 帆に向かう |
| Sail | Against the sails | |
| 穂 | 稲の穂 | |
| Head | Tip of rice-plant | |
| 歩 | 歩を速める | |
| step | Quicken the steps | |
| ま | 間 | 間に合う |
| time space | arrive in time | |
| 魔 | 魔を払う | |
| demon | drive out demon | |
| 真 | 真に受ける | |
| truth | to believe somebody | |
| み | 実 | |
| fruit/content | ||
| 身 | ||
| oneself | ||
| む | 無 | 無の境地 |
| nothingness | State of nothingness | |
| め | 目 | |
| eye/vision | ||
| 芽 | ||
| sprout | ||
| も | 喪 | |
| mourning | ||
| 藻 | ||
| algae, seaweed | ||
| や | 矢 | 矢を作る |
| arrow/wedge | making an arrow | |
| ゆ | 湯 | 湯を入れる |
| hot bath/spring | putting hot water | |
| よ | 世 | 世の中 |
| world | Accross the world | |
| り | 理 | |
| reason/principle | ||
| 利 | ||
| advantage/profit | ||
| 里 | ||
| unit of area | ||
| ろ | 炉 | |
| furnace | ||
| わ | 輪 | チームの和 |
| ring/loop/wheel | Team Harmony | |
| 和 | ||
| peace/japan-style/sum |
How-to
- The above table was generated using jisho.org looking up each word and ‘usage’ part autocompletion from search sometimes
- This tool was used to help in formatting
Takeaway
Checkout the list of japanese nouns made from just one character. It is good to expand your japanese vocabulary.
Feedback
- All comments are appreciated.
- Especially if you feel something can be improved, please add your suggestion in comments below or leave me a message.