i was writing and compiling all the kanji i currently know with rikaichan and wakan's help... but when i place my cursor over the kanji 呂 this is what came out:
(1) bass range (in Japanese music), (2) six even-numbered notes of the ancient chromatic scale, (3) Japanese seven-tone gagaku scaleimilar to Mixolydian mode (corresponding to: re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do)

isn't it supposed to be spine? anyways i tried searching for spine in wakan and this is what came out 背(actually it said せぼる but i couldn't get the 2nd kanji to come out). so what does this 呂 spine really mean?

EDIT:
same thing with 昌(prosperous) with rikaichan the said reading was さかん i looked it up in wakan but さかん is not written like 昌 rather its is written like 盛ん. so which is which?

i'm thinking i should make this thread for all the mistakes i can find but for now i only saw those 2.

呂 does mean spine, but it also was used in traditional music and has the musical associations as well. Originally, in China, the character was used in the traditional music, and when the character was transferred to Japan it kept that meaning and use, as Japan used China's musical tone structure. Overtime, somehow in Japan it also gained the meaning of 'spine', while in Mandarin it still is just a musical tone and is used for a surname.

I don't really know why or how the character came to gain the meaning of 'spine'. The vast majority of words that use 呂 have to do with baths. A few words that use it involve music/sound, so I'd say that it's best to think of 呂 as the traditional meaning of music, rather than the newer meaning of spine.

Rikaichan gives definitions for words, so apparently 呂 by itself is a word read りょ. I think think there's a way to set it to give kanji info, but I don't know how.

I don't use Wakan, but JWPce gives the meaning of spine for 呂.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the lists of kanji readings that dictionaries like WWWJDIC(rikaichan, JWPce) give. They tend to give a lot of readings that aren't in use. Instead, I just look up what words use the kanji I'm looking up.

Interesting Just saw your edit question.

盛ん is the correct usage.
昌 also means prosperous, and one of its many 訓読み is indeed さかん, but it's never used in place of 盛ん. I suppose it's physically possible to use　意気昌だ as a variation of 意気盛んだ for example, but...I don't know, not many people will understand you clearly. It's technically correct, but not many people write it as 昌ん anymore, that's pretty arcane. It took me a few minutes before I could finally remember that さかん was one of the readings, and I think that unless you put the reading in brackets next to it, most people would just stare at it for a while and scratch their heads.

So yeah, definitely use 盛ん

昌 is used in words like 隆昌 which means "prosperity".

I don't know why 呂 is spine (other than its easy to remember it looks like a spine). 呂 is used in お風呂 which means "bath".

Don't expect all of Heisig's keywords to match directly to words in Japanese. A lot of the time the kanji aren't used by themselves.

vosmiura Wrote:Don't expect all of Heisig's keywords to match directly to words in Japanese. A lot of the time the kanji aren't used by themselves.

Don't expect all of Heisig's keywords to match directly to words in Japanese. A lot of the time the kanji aren't used by themselves.

That's important enough to say twice. The English Keywords are tools used to memorize the kanji and help you with the meaning when you learn Japanese. Not all kanji translate well. Just be ready to adjust your thinking when you come across the real meaning in Japanese.

I agree that you should focus on how the kanji is used in words and then how the word is used in sentences. I don't really focus on the individual kanji meanings.

For your example of 呂, the only time I have come across this is in the word for bath 風呂（ふろ） and furoshiki 風呂敷（ふろしき） the wrapping cloth used in Japan.

As for 昌, I don't think I have seen this much if at all. I think the only time I saw it was with people's names. I may be mistaken but I dont think its used in many words.

昌 is a pretty rare one. 繁昌 is a pretty common word (it can also be written 繁盛, which is another case where they can replace each other) and 昌平 and 隆昌 are both not too uncommon. But other than those words (I'm sure there's more obscure ones too) it's mostly just used in the names of things.

how did 風呂敷 become -> （ふろしき）
so is it like I should read the kanji by how its supposed to be read not by what it means individually? so a certain group of kanjis will be read according to how they are supposed to be read and they will form a word that's completely different form what the characters mean. is that it?

ore_wa_ecchi Wrote:how did 風呂敷 become -> （ふろしき）
so is it like I should read the kanji by how its supposed to be read not by what it means individually? so a certain group of kanjis will be read according to how they are supposed to be read and they will form a word that's completely different form what the characters mean. is that it?

Yup. But they're not all as bad as that example.

Aijin Wrote:呂 does mean spine

Can you give me a word using that kanji, where the meaning of spine is used?

If I remember correctly, in my Japanese keywords project, I wasn't able to find a single word like that.

yukamina Wrote:I don't use Wakan, but JWPce gives the meaning of spine for 呂.

That's because JWPce uses Jim Breen's dictionaries, which use Heisig's keywords. The first entry in the meaning part of kanjidic is always the Heisig keyword because that was what Jim first used.

welldone101 Wrote:That's important enough to say twice. The English Keywords are tools used to memorize the kanji and help you with the meaning when you learn Japanese. Not all kanji translate well. Just be ready to adjust your thinking when you come across the real meaning in Japanese.

That's true. But Heisig could have done a much better job of choosing keywords in so many cases.

wrightak Wrote:

Aijin Wrote:呂 does mean spine

Can you give me a word using that kanji, where the meaning of spine is used?

If I remember correctly, in my Japanese keywords project, I wasn't able to find a single word like that.

There are no compounds where the character is used to mean spine. At least none that I am aware of. I've never thought of the character as spine, only as a musical meaning, but then again I've never thought about the meaning of that kanji much at all to be honest. It's used in too few words.

Aijin Wrote:There are no compounds where the character is used to mean spine. At least none that I am aware of. I've never thought of the character as spine, only as a musical meaning, but then again I've never thought about the meaning of that kanji much at all to be honest. It's used in too few words.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. If you've never thought of the character as spine, why did you say it means spine?

Are you talking about it from an etymology perspective?

yukamina Wrote:Rikaichan gives definitions for words, so apparently 呂 by itself is a word read りょ. I think think there's a way to set it to give kanji info, but I don't know how.

While looking at the popup, hit return. It goes from listing words of the individual kanji, to info on the kanji itself (which in this case is 'spine, backbone'). Hitting return again gives you a list of names whatever group of characters you're looking at can appear in.

Anyway, if you think 呂's stated meaning doesn't make any sense, try 慢 on for size...

okay i'm getting really confused right now... back to my question
how did 風呂敷 become -> （ふろしき）
vosmiura said that i read a group of kanji according to how they are supposed to be read not with their meanings... i'm getting confused since 呂 is read as (りょ)... but in the translation of 風呂敷 where did りょ go?...

btw wakan uses ZhongWen, WWWJDIC, UNIHAN, Ocrat, and KanjiProject as its resources...

If you hover over the kanji with rikai-chan and press enter it will display more detailed info on the kanji and it does indeed say "spine". By itself, it's also a word with different meaning.

ore_wa_ecchi Wrote:[...]
back to my question
how did 風呂敷 become -> （ふろしき）
vosmiura said that i read a group of kanji according to how they are supposed to be read not with their meanings... i'm getting confused since 呂 is read as (りょ)... but in the translation of 風呂敷 where did りょ go?
[...]

Some kanji have many different sounds, or ways of reading them. In the word 風呂敷 the 呂 kanji sounds different when you say it outloud than in the word 呂.

Most kanji have a sound when they appear as a single kanji (called kun-reading), and a sound for when they appear combined with another kanji (called on-reading). Some kanji have several of each, it depends on the word. That's why Heisig splits up learning the kanji shape and the kanji sounds. Because Japanese is silly.

i see... so when kanji are presented in a group i should use its on-reading... and the on reading for 呂 is [ろ].. i get it now... thank you kind sir...

welldone101 Wrote:That's why Heisig splits up learning the kanji shape and the kanji sounds. Because Japanese is silly.

I think English is even more silly to be honest

hmmm now i'm confused about the meaning... i still don't know how 呂 become spine... its on-reading is [ロ] and its kun-reading is [りょ]...

ore_wa_ecchi Wrote:i see... so when kanji are presented in a group i should use its on-reading... and the on reading for 呂 is [ろ].. i get it now... thank you kind sir...

That's a rule of thumb. Unfortunately it doesn't work in all situations, as there will always be patterns of words in which you'll use the 訓読み instead of the 音読み. And many characters have multiple of each, so that often you'll just have to memorize which reading is used in which words. Knowing all the readings of a kanji in no way means that you'll always know how to pronounce it in a given word: you'll still have to memorize which readings to use for which words.

As for why I said spine, this topic was actually the first I've ever heard of it meaning spine. I had to ask one of my friends on MSN actually if she was familiar with that meaning, and she said that the character evolved to mean 'spine' in Japan, while in Mandarin it still only means a musical note. I was simply giving her explanation
She could have been taught incorrectly, however, and the definition of 'spine' might be a misinformation. I'd have to check more official and reliable sources before I can say anything definite, but for now just think of it as a musical note. That, at least, is definitely correct

wrightak Wrote:

yukamina Wrote:I don't use Wakan, but JWPce gives the meaning of spine for 呂.

That's because JWPce uses Jim Breen's dictionaries, which use Heisig's keywords. The first entry in the meaning part of kanjidic is always the Heisig keyword because that was what Jim first used.

Oh yeah...I knew that.

I looked up 呂 on zhongwen(Hanzi dictionary site), and it simply says "Pictograph of vertebra" without any word examples or actual definitions. My bet is that it etymologically means spine, but it isn't used to mean that anymore. When I study hanzi on zhongwen, there are a lot of hanzi that have ancient meanings that are different from how they are today.

Quote:字源

* 象形。背骨を象ったもの。「ならんで続く」の意を有し、「侶」を派生。音声は「旅」と同系であり、「膂」は背骨の意を有する。

意義

1. （原義）背骨。
2. 音律。