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”.
Japanese words via the West
Terebi - Sort of like ‘televi’ which is short for television.
Bideo - Video
Karaoke - Actually a mix of Japanese and borrowed English. Kara means open (as in karate, open hand) and oke, which is short for orchestra.
醜 Ugly
April 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under All, Higher Grades
The devil and a wine jar form the kanji for ugly. It also has meanings of unclean and shame.
刈 Reap
April 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under All, Higher Grades
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.
白 White
White is a sun with a ray of light. That’s how I see it. Some etymologies say it’s a mark pointing to the tip of a white fingernail.
O is for Ogre
Here’s a visual mnemonic for the the hiragana ‘O’. It’s important to know that this character is a syllabary that only conveys a sound. It does not mean Ogre. To me, it looks like an ogre which helps me remember its sound ‘O’.
Jitensha by Niceforo
A wonderful capture of found typography from Niceforo’s Flickr photostream.
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
米 Rice & America
* The kanji for rice lends its old phonetic reading of to mean America. It’s interesting to learn the kanji used to signify countries. I’ll create a post on this soon.
Kanji Wall Poster by White Rabbit Press
The White Rabbit Press Kanji Poster includes all the Joyo Kanji with readings in kana scripts. The kanji are color-coded by Japanese Language Proficiency Level and each character also includes the White Rabbit Press Kanji Flashcards reference number.
The White Rabbit Press Kanji Wall Poster features all the kanji you need to know in one comprehensive and color-coordinated poster.
Our kanji wall poster includes:
All the joyo kanji
Every kanji you need to know for all four levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)
All the characters’ on and kun readings
Plus, each character is numbered to coordinate with White Rabbit Press Kanji flashcards.
The characters are conveniently color-coordinated by level so you can even use it to review for the JLPT.
The White Rabbit Press Kanji Poster includes the 1926 kanji included on the JLPT’s list, plus the remaining 19 joyo kanji not included on the JLPT, for a grand total of all 1945 kanji designated as official general use characters (joyo kanji) by the Japanese government.
Dimensions: A0 (”A Zero”) size in landscape format (84 x 119 cm / 33 x 47 in)
Shipping: Ships from Japan in a tube (rolled, not folded.)