Read Japanese Today. Len Walsh

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fingers took too much time, so the Chinese abstracted the form of the hand and drew it . Squaring this to fit the kanji square, they wrote the final form 力, meaning strength or power. When used as a word by itself it is pronounced CHIKARA, and when it is used in compound words it is pronounced RYOKU or RIKI.

      The Chinese added power 力 to a field 田 and formed the new kanji 男, meaning man. This signifies the male half of the human species “man” and not the species itself. When this character is used as a word by itself it is pronounced OTOKO, and when it is used in compound words it is pronounced DAN. 男 appears on all the doors where only males should enter.

      A woman the Chinese pictured as a pregnant lady, seated with her arms outstretched . This was later written and finally 女. It is pronounced ONNA when it is used to form a word itself, and JO when it is used in compound words. 女 appears on all the doors where only females enter.

      The Chinese put together the kanji for woman 女 with the kanji for immature 未 to make a new kanji 妹, meaning younger sister. Used as a word by itself it is pronounced IMŌTO. In compound words 妹 is pronounced MAI.

      Mother to the Chinese was a woman 女 with her breasts drawn in. To the character for woman 女 they added breasts , and topped her with a hat to shade her eyes . The final form of this character is 母. Used as a kanji by itself it is generally pronounced (with the addition of several kana to indicate words of respect) OKĀSAN. This is the most popular spoken-Japanese word for mother, but to be understood it must be pronounced with a distinctly long Ā, as in OKAAASAN, to distinguish it from OKASAN, which means Mr. Oka. 母 can also be pronounced HAHA when it forms a word by itself. When used with other kanji in compound words it is pronounced BO.

      Person, which refers to the species “human being,” means either man or woman. The Chinese pictured person as the human form in general . In final form they drew it 人. It is pronounced HITO when it makes a word itself, and pronounced NIN or JIN in compound words. A Japanese person is a 日本人, pronounced NIHONJIN or NIPPONJIN. A person from America is an AMERIKAJIN. There are no kanji for the word “America” so the AMERIKA in AMERIKAJIN is written in phonetic (kana) letters, and the written word looks like this アメリカ人.

      Since every person 人 had a mother 母, the Chinese combined these two kanji into a new composite kanji 毎 with the meaning every. They wanted to add the pictograph for person 人 to the pictograph for mother 母 in the most aesthetic way so that the new kanji would be easy to read and write and would fit proportionately within the kanji square. Putting 人 and 母 side by side would make the new kanji too wide, and putting one above the other would make it too high. Instead, they decided to modify slightly the shape of one of the elements, in this case the element for person 人, to , and wrote the new kanji for every 毎.

      毎 is rarely used as a word by itself. In compound words, where two or more kanji form a word, 毎 is pronounced MAI or GOTO, depending mainly on whether it is the first or second kanji in the compound. For example, the compound word 毎日, every day, which incidentally is the name of a leading Japanese daily newspaper, is pronounced MAINICHI. The compound word 日毎 uses the same two kanji but in reverse order. It also means daily, but in a more formal sense, with an emphasis on each-and-every-day. 日毎 is pronounced HIGOTO.

      The Chinese pictograph for resting was a person 人 beside a tree 木. They first put it together as . Then, as with the kanji 毎 MAI, above, they decided that the person 人 had to change its shape to blend with the other element in the kanji square. In the composite kanji every 毎, the element for mother 母 was rather short and wide, so the element for person 人 was added at the top of the square instead of beside the mother 母. In the kanji for resting, the element for tree 木 was tall and thin, so the element for person 人 had to be added at the left-hand side of the square instead of at the top. The Chinese changed the shape of person to fit the left-hand side and drew it 亻. They wrote the new kanji 休. It means rest, or take a break, or take a holiday. Used as a word by itself it is pronounced YASUMU (with kana at the end to show the grammar). Used in compound words it is pronounced KYŪ. A 休 日 KYŪJITSU, rest-day, is a holiday or a day off.

      The Chinese combined the kanji 本, meaning root or origin, with the kanji 人, meaning person, into a new composite kanji symbolizing the root of a person 体, meaning the human body. The shape of person 人 was changed, as it was in the kanji 休 meaning rest, to fit into the left-hand side of the kanji square. When 体 is used as a word by itself it is pronounced KARADA. When used in compound words it is pronounced TAI. 体 could also mean the body of an animal, so the technical term 人体 JINTAI, human-body, is often used to indicate specifically the human body.

      For the character for child, the Chinese drew a picture of a swaddled baby . It soon was drawn , then squared off to the final form 子. It is pronounced KO when used as a kanji by itself, or used in proper names, and SHI when used in compound words. An 男の 子 OTOKO-no-KO, male-child, is a boy, and an 女の子 ONNA-no-KO, woman-child, is a girl. In both these examples, no is a grammatical particle and is written in kana. 男 OTOKO, 女 ONNA, and 子 KO are all essentially used as stand-alone kanji, words by themselves (linked by the grammatical particle no の, indicating the possessive tense) and are not compound words.

      OTOKO-no-KO 男の子 can be written 男子 without the particle no, but in this case it becomes a compound word and is pronounced DANSHI. It still means boy. In the same way, ONNA-no-KO 女の子, when written without the particle no, 女子, is pronounced JOSHI and means girl. The forms JOSHI and DANSHI are used more in writing, and OTOKO-no-KO and ONNA-no-KO are used more in speech.

      A woman 女 and a 子 child together signified love and goodness to the Chinese. They combined these two separate pictographs, each a kanji on its own, into one new composite kanji written 好, meaning love, like, or goodness. It is pronounced SUKI, SUKU, or KONOMU when it is used as a word by itself (the kanji 好 is the SU or the KO part; the rest has to be written in kana, expressing the grammatical endings). Used in compound words, 好 is pronounced KŌ. A 好男子 KŌDANSHI, good-man-child, is a handsome young man.

      A man standing with his arms stretched out as far as he can manage was what the Chinese saw as “big.” Their early writings show it drawn as . Now it is drawn 大 and means big. When used by itself it is pronounced ŌKII (like many Japanese words when used by themselves, it needs grammatical endings which must be written in kana; the kanji 大 only provides the Ō sound; the KI sound and the I sound— two separate sounds needing two separate kana—have to be written in kana). When used

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