淡々 [たんたん] – disinterest; indifference

• 淡 [タン・あわい] – thin; pale; fleeting
• 々 – symbol that indicates repetition of the previous character

To me, the kanji 淡 is a great example of how understanding pieces parts can help you to both understand and remember characters.  It comprises 3 distinct radicals, 2 of which are repeated: 水 (water) + 火 (fire) + 火 (fire) = 淡.

Does it make sense that adding water to fire would make the fire appear fleeting or faint?  Does this give you a picture of how the Chinese may have thought of this concept when formulating this character?

When water is used as the 部首 [ぶしゅ] (radical of a kanji), it is called 水部 [すいぶ].  When it is in the left portion of a kanji and rendered as 氵, it is called さんずい.  It looks like 3 droplets of water, doesn’t it?

When fire is used as a radical, it is called 火部 [かぶ].  Often, it occurs in its full form (火) in the left or right portions of a character (偏旁 [へんぼう]).  However, when it shows up in the bottom–literally the “foot” (脚 [あし]) of a character–it is rendered as 灬.

As mentioned above, 々 is a symbol, not a character.  It indicates that you should pronounce the previous kanji again.  々 acts as a shortcut, making it so that you don’t have to write out the character twice.

See if you can use this information to help you crack open unfamiliar kanji!

I’ve just discovered a new Japanese TV show from ytv that is a great tool for advanced learners of Japanese called 「日本人の知らない日本語」 (“Japanese that the Japanese Don’t Know”).  It’s a comedy that plays on much of the confusion that many of us non-Japanese have felt while trying to learn about the language while living and studying in Japan.  It also shows a glimpse into the frustration that many Japanese must experience when confronted with questions about aspects of their own language that they, themselves, don’t know or understand.

The first episode tackles such topics as why Japanese definitions for certain Chinese characters are different from those in China (earning the teacher a scolding from one of the Chinese students and a demand that the Japanese stop doing this), the names for various kitchen tools, the system for counting different objects in Japanese, and how to refer to tea depending on when in the meal you drink it.  It also establishes the main characters and shows the how teacher character comes into her own and develops her own outside-the-box (for Japan) system for teaching her language students.

If you are an intermediate-to-advanced student of Japanese, or have a high tolerance for not understanding a lot of what is thrown at you, this show could be a fantastic learning tool.  It’s also pretty amusing.

Ironically, I had just ordered two comic-based language books last week from Amazon.JP that share the same title.  Apparently, the comics were the inspiration for the TV show.  So now I will have not only the show, but the books to go with it, despite not even knowing of the show’s existence when I ordered the books.

I’ve added the books to my store, but it doesn’t seem that Amazon will let you buy them directly.  There are, however, other options available once you click over to the main website.  Provided your Japanese is good enough, you always have the option to go straight to Amazon.JP to search for and order the books directly.  Warning: International shipping costs from Japan to the US can be quite steep.  If you’re going to do this, I recommend building up a number of books to ship at once, rather than ordering them one or two at a time.

The problem with はやい is that it’s a homophone.  Like so many other words in Japanese, there are multiple characters that are pronounced the same way, but have similar, yet slightly different meanings.  In some sense, this is a bit similar to—but doesn’t exactly parallel—how the Japanese ways of talking about “cold” can be confusing to English speakers.  Only, as was the case with “cold,” the similarities exist in English, not in Japanese.

はやい can be written two different ways.  速い (as we saw in the previous column) and 早い.  The confusing part comes in that some dictionaries translate both into English the same way:

速い – fast; quick; early in the day

早い – fast; quick; early in the day

So… they mean the same thing.  Right?  Then why have two completely different characters to represent the same idea?  Well, as it turns out, even some Japanese seem to have trouble knowing when to use which.

I found the following question in Yahoo! Japan’s 知恵袋 [ちえぶくろ], or “Bag of Knowledge,” a website equivalent to the English-language Yahoo! Answers:

速い・・・・と 早い・・・・の使い分けができません。 辞書で調べてはみたものの …

速い・・・・と
早い・・・・の使い分けができません。
辞書で調べてはみたものの
ピンとこないんです。
誰か あ！そうか～と思えるヒントください。

In English:

I can’t figure out the difference in usage between
速い… and
早い…
I looked in the dictionary
but it made absolutely no sense.
Can someone give me an “Oh yeah! That’s how it works” sorta hint?

One response read:

「早」は、夜明けを表す形象文字であり、転じて時刻が早いという意味。

「速」は… 速度が大きいという意味。

In English:

“早” is a character that represents daybreak, suggesting that the time (of day) is early.

“速” suggests that one’s speed (of movement) is high.

Another response added the following (red indicates words added by me):

頭の回転が速い – (lit.) “The turning of the head is rapid” (to be quick-witted)
車の速さ – the speed of a car
決断が速い – a decision is quick
ペースが速い – a fast pace
呼吸が速い – respiration is fast

遅かれ早かれ – (lit.) “late, early” (“sooner or later”)
気が早い – (lit.) “one’s ‘ki,’ or spirit/energy is early” (“hasty”)
素早い – fast; quick; nimble; agile
早起き – early rising (in the morning)
早送り – fast forward (audio/video)
理解が早い（速い）- quick to comprehend (which, apparently, can use either)

So… did that clear anything up? 

As a general rule of thumb, I recommend using 速 when talking about speed and 早 when talking about being early.  That should cover most cases well enough.

時計 [とけい] – watch; clock

• 時 [ジ・とき] – time; hour
• 計 [ケイ・はかる] – measure

A device that measures time is a clock.  Makes sense, eh?  If you want to specify a watch rather than a clock, prefix the word with the word for arm:  腕時計 [うでどけい].  Notice also that the pronunciation of 時計 changes from とけい to どけい.

The character 時 is a very cool one in my opinion; it makes it easy to see how (some) kanji are constructed.  If you take a good look at it, you can see that it is composed of two parts:  日 [ニチ・ひ] – day; sun, and 寺 [ジ・てら] – temple.

All throughout the world, in various cultures, temples have been used to measure time.  Imagine watching the sun through a slit in the temple wall and using that as a means of measuring the passage of time.  (Told ya it was cool.)