+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The Japanese language (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-10.html)
+--- Thread: Use of "eventide" as keyword (/thread-2772.html)
Use of "eventide" as keyword - yuefou - 2009-03-20
I don't understand the use of "eventide" as a keyword. Heisig of course indicates that he knows it means evening, or as he says, "nightfall." But the kanji itself means no such thing according to JDIC, which lists the meaning for 汐 as follows: tide, current, saltwater, opportunity. This is even odder since "eventide" is such a very rarely used word in the first place. Any thoughts?
Use of "eventide" as keyword - Jarvik7 - 2009-03-20
yuefou Wrote:I don't understand the use of "eventide" as a keyword. Heisig of course indicates that he knows it means evening, or as he says, "nightfall." But the kanji itself means no such thing according to JDIC, which lists the meaning for 汐 as follows: tide, current, saltwater, opportunity. This is even odder since "eventide" is such a very rarely used word in the first place. Any thoughts?EDICT is not a reliable learning resource.
汐, as it says in Heisig, means the EVENING tide, with 潮 being the morning tide.
From the 学研漢和大辞典 entry for 潮:
Quote:太陽と月の引力によって生じる海水のみちひき。朝おこるのを潮といい、夕方おこるのを汐という。
Use of "eventide" as keyword - yuefou - 2009-03-20
Thanks Jarvik, but I still don't understand. Are you saying that 汐 can mean "evening"? Because in the example you gave, it seems to be saying that 汐 means tide. I could definitely be wrong about that. But if that kanji does not mean evening, and I, as a native English speaker, know that eventide does mean evening, in lieu of looking up that kanji, I would go on my merry way thinking that 汐 means evening when it does not. "Eventide" simply does not carry the meaning of tide at all.
Use of "eventide" as keyword - Jarvik7 - 2009-03-20
汐 carries the meaning of the evening tide, in fact that is the only direct meaning it carries, with the others being associated meanings (the water moving in the tide = salt water, and when the tide goes out there is opportunity to get shellfish stuck in the sand).
It is the tide that occurs in the evening. It doesn't MEAN evening. 夕 means evening. BTW that wasn't an example I quoted, it's the definition.
Heisig's keywords are just keywords, not definitions. Many of the keywords are only remotely related to the meanings of the kanji, if at all. In this case eventide looks enough like evening+tide that Heisig probably figured that it's good enough, or maybe he just got his etymology wrong (eventide = evening+time).
Part of the reason why KANJIDIC is completely useless is because it was based on Heisig keywords. There is no reason to use if if you have 漢字源 or 漢和大辞典. EDICT retains some usefulness as a translation-aid/gloss for rare terms & slang, but I'd never recommend learning from it or using it to disambiguate meanings.
Use of "eventide" as keyword - yuefou - 2009-03-20
He didn't get the etymology wrong because he says himself that "eventide" means nightfall. But I think you're right that most people will simply consider eventide to mean evening tide, and Heisig apparently doesn't see a problem with that. But it's odd, because all he had to do was make the keyword(s) "evening tide" rather than force some of us to take the extra step of remembering that eventide doesn't really mean eventide. I guess because I'm a fan of 19th century British literature it immediately jumped out at me.
Use of "eventide" as keyword - Katsuo - 2009-03-20
RTK1 no. 110 Wrote:...we have a perfect blend of picture and idea in this kanji to play on the English word for nightfall, eventide...Including the phrase "to play on" suggests to me that he is intentionally misinterpreting "eventide" to mean "evening tide".
He seems to prefer single-word keywords where possible. But "evening tide" would be more straightforward here.
Use of "eventide" as keyword - sethg - 2009-03-20
Yuefou,
Just a note: this is something you'll come across a lot. I mean, I'm only at 737 at the moment, but already I've been presented so many farfetched keywords that don't seem to make sense. Some of them, in fact, I've had to look up in an English dictionary. But I suggest just going with it and learning the supplied keyword without over-thinking it. Try to grasp the connotations of it, but don't over-think the kanji. There are too many odd ones and the time you'd spend over-thinking could be spent on learning more kanji
But, truly, the importance of the keyword is only to give you a gist. In some kanji compounds, the kanji keyword Heisig gives you won't make any sense at all... so it's best to just remember the keyword, but don't hold it sacred in your mind.Sorry if that wasn't very eloquent. I kinda just woke up and decided to get my kanji reviews done and over with early... so anything I post might be moderately incomprehensible.