夏 Summer
How this came to mean summer isn't clear. Presumably summer was associated with a particular dance or festival. Remember as the shape of crossed legs.
温 Warm
Some scholars take warm to refer to an act of kindness in giving a prisoner a bowl of water. Suggest remembering as "Sun warms water in a bowl".
刈 Reap
The X comes from a pictograph of shears while the knife element was added to bring home the idea of reap. What surprises me about this entry is that it's number 1092 in the Jōyō list taught in Japanese schools. It's a higher level kanji meaning it's part of the higher grade levels beyond 6th grade. My point is that it's an easy-to-remember kanji. It has few strokes, a simple meaning, and easy mnemonic.
鬼 Devil
The devil and a wine jar form the kanji for ugly. It also has meanings of unclean and shame.
酒 Alcohol
This also means sake—the rice wine not sake the salmon sushi. I opted to make it a red wine, specifically a pinot noir with a hint of oak, blackberry, and spice.
郊 Suburbs
Associated meanings are outskirts and rural area. The flag-like element means village when on the right side of a character, as shown here, and hill when on the left. The left element is the kanji mix/exchange.
買 Buy
The bottom element started out as a picture of a shell but as an element means money. The top was once a pictograph of a net, which makes me think of having a net worth to buy stuff. What's interesting phonetically, is that it's on-yomi reading 'BAI' バイ matches the English pronunciation, 'buy'. Kanji Mnemonic 193
Kanji
暑 Hot
Hot is Sun and Person, acting phonetically to express burn. Read More →
夏 Summer
How this came to mean summer isn’t clear. Presumably summer was associated...
温 Warm
Some scholars take warm to refer to an act of kindness in giving a prisoner a bowl...
Read more from this categoryInsights
Japanese words via the West
Terebi - Sort of like ‘televi’ which is short for television. Bideo -...
English words born in Japan
Skosh : a little bit as in ‘I’ll have just a skosh of that pie…’ From...
Do Chinese and Japanese use the same characters?
Yes, and no. Japan borrowed their writing system from China long ago. China has taken...
More from this categoryCompound Words
面白 Interesting: Face + White
Interesting is an interesting word. It’s made of face and white. My first guess is that it has something to do with kabuki in which the actors paint their face white and perform interesting plays. Read More →
危機 Crisis: Danger + Opportunity
Crisis is a compound word made from the characters that mean ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. Danger shows a dangerous person looking at dead body and the base of cliff. The kanji for opportunity show someone at a wooden loom. Perhaps he’s started a business making nets to capitalize on the number of people ‘falling’... [Read more of this review]
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