Kanji 9 Flashcards
Stream
川 We have taken the image of a river stream over into English to describe things that fall down in straight lines, or ripple along in lines. All of this is more than evident in the kanji given here, a pictograph of a stream.
State, Province
州 Here we see drops of land (little islets) rising up out of a stream, creating a kind of sandbar or breakwater. Ever wonder how the state-line is drawn between states separated by a river? If there were little drops of land as in the kanji, there’d be nothing to it.
Obey
順 In primitive language, this character would read stream… head. And that turns out to be convenient for remembering its meaning of Obey. Either one obeys the person who is head of an organization or else obeys by following the stream of opinion (“current” practice, we call it). Both these senses come together in this kanji.
Water
水 This character, which looks a bit like a snowμake, is actually a pictograph of water—not any particular body of water or movement of water, but simply the generic name for water. Should you have any difficulty remembering it, simply think of a walking stick being dropped vertically into the water, sending droplets out in all four directions. Then all you need to learn is how to write it in proper order.
Icicle
氷 The appearance of the primitive for water in its full form tells us that we have something to do with water here. The extra drop to the left, added as a second stroke, changes the picture from a splash caused by a walking stick dropped into water to form an icicle. If you hold an icicle up to the light, you can usually see little crystallizations of five-pointed stars inside of it, which is the shape we have in this kanji.
Eternity
永 This kanji also uses the full form of water, though its meaning seems to have nothing at all to do with water. Remember what William Blake said about seeing “infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour”? Well, reading this character from top to bottom, we see “eternity in a drop of water.”
Spring
泉 Call to mind the image of a fresh, bubbling spring of water, and you will probably notice how the top of the spring you are thinking of, the part where the “bubbling” goes on, is all white. Happily, the white is just where it should be, at the top, and the water is at the bottom.
Meadow
原 Though the kanji is broad enough to embrace both meanings, the meadow you should imagine here is not a flatland plain but a mountain meadow in the Austrian Alps. (Perhaps the opening scene of “The Sound of Music” will help.) Simply think of little springs bubbling up across the meadow to form a sort of path that leads you right to the brink of a precipitous cliff. Now if you can see Schwester Maria skipping along merrily, dodging in and out of the springs, and then falling headlong over the cliff, you have a ridiculous story that should help fix this kanji in memory
Petition
願 A meadow and a head are all we are given to work with in the kanji for petition. Since the keyword already suggests something like a formal request made of some higher power, let us imagine a gigantic Wizard-of-Oz head located in the middle of the flowery meadow we used in the last frame. Then just picture people kneeling hopefully before it, petitioning for whatever it is they want. (The scarecrow wanted brains, the lion, courage, and the tin man a heart. What about you?)
Swim
泳 The primitive to the left, you will recall from frame 130, represents water. To the right, we see the kanji for eternity. Knowing how much children like swimming, what could be a better image of eternal bliss than an endless expanse of water to swim in without a care in the world?
Marsh
沼 Unlike the meadow with its cliffs, the marshlands are low and near a source of water that feeds them until they get soggy through and through. Why certain land becomes marshy is probably due to the fact that it felt thirsty, and so tried its best to seduce the water over to its side. But, like most inordinate seductions, the last state of the victim is worse than the first. Hence the slushy marsh.
Open Sea
沖 This kanji could hardly be simpler. The keyword open sea readily suggests being out in the middle of a great body of water. Thinking of it in this way should avoid confusion with the kanji for “open,” which we will meet later on.
Creek
江 Unlike the river, the ocean, the lake, and the pond, the creek is often no more than a dribble of water trickling down a small gully. While the geological history of the larger bodies of water is hard to surmise sometimes, all of us know from our childhood how creeks are made. You probably even dug one or two in your time. All you need to do is find a mainstream of water somewhere and dig a little path into dry land. The creek is thus a lesson in watercraft, as this kanji would agree.
Soup
汁 To make soup, one begins with water and then starts adding things to it, often leftovers from the icebox. This is how the thick soup or stew called “seven-in-one” is made. This kanji does it three better, giving us a ten-ingredient soup.
Tide
潮 Before we get to explaining this character, take a look at it and see if you can figure out the primitive elements on your own… On the left is the water—that much is easy. On the right we have only one primitive, the kanji for morning learned back in frame 52. See how an apparently complex kanji falls apart neatly into manageable pieces?
To get the meaning of the keyword tide, just think of it in connection with the character for eventide that we learned back in frame 110. Here we have the morning-tide, its complement.
By the way, if you missed the question about the number of primitives, it is probably because you forgot what we said earlier about kanji becoming primitives, independently of the pieces that make them up. As a rule, look for the largest kanji you can write and proceed from there to primitives stranded on their own.
