I recently began reading articles in the news (キッズニュース) to get some reading experience as I near the end of RTK1 (almost there!). I very quickly came to the realization that 条 {298} has the meaning "article" which made me curious as to why Heisig chose the keyword "twig." In fact, looking through some dictionaries really quickly came up with 0 (yes, zero) references to twigs of any size or shape. Am I missing something obvious? Is the reference to twig more thoughtful than literal? Perhaps Heisig was just mistaken? Any thoughts on this character's real meaning? Thanks, all

dat5h Wrote:I recently began reading articles in the news (キッズニュース) to get some reading experience as I near the end of RTK1 (almost there!). I very quickly came to the realization that 条 has the meaning "article" which made me curious as to why Heisig chose the keyword "twig." In fact, looking through some dictionaries really quickly came up with 0 (yes, zero) references to twigs of any size or shape. Am I missing something obvious? Is the reference to twig more thoughtful than literal? Perhaps Heisig was just mistaken? Any thoughts on this character's real meaning? Thanks, all

Well in Chinese it means a counter for long slender things (among other things), for example: 一条香蕉 (1 banana) but then again, for long hard/stiff thin objects we use 支 as in: 一支棍 (1 stick/rod). A twig is long and slender though...
Btw, 树枝 is twig which still uses 枝(same counter as 支) instead of 条.

But then, in Japanese a turkey is 七面鳥(seven-faced-bird?!) and Chinese uses 火鸡(fire-chicken! although a turkey is kinda chicken-ish and you do roast it on fire) so it can be anything and wouldn't be weird that 条 means twig in Japanese hehe.

For what ever reason, it is easy to see walking legs stepping on a wooden twig in the forest. This kanji is used in street names in Kyoto. 二条、三条...

Well, Heisig does choose unusual meanings for the kanji from time to time. Another good example would be 乙.
Maybe he thought it would be easier to remember 条 as a twig than as an article.

Lionel Wrote:Well, Heisig does choose unusual meanings for the kanji from time to time. Another good example would be 乙.
Maybe he thought it would be easier to remember 条 as a twig than as an article.

What meaning would that 乙 be? (I'm actually not using RTK to study)

It has several meanings, and one of them is "twig" or "branch" in English. 柳条 (りゅうじょう) is a compound that means willow branches; 柳 is "willow" and 条 "twig"

It can be a counter for long and narrow things such as rivers, rays of light and so on. 一条の光 is an oft-used word for a shaft of light.

条 can also mean articles of the Constitution, items on a list etc.

柳条 is all I could find, along with a small number of plant biology terms, in WWWJDIC.

However, the Yahoo! dictionary entry for this kanji has this as the first meaning: 「木の細い枝」, citing 枝条 and 柳条 as (apparently uncommon) examples. The meanings that follow show a reasonably logical progression: A thin branch of a tree => line or line shaped object => regularly delimited or subdivided street => carefully laid out path of logic => a logically argued document.

So this is clearly considered, from a scholarly standpoint, to be the fundamental, or at least original, meaning of the kanji. Unfortunately for us here in the modern age, it's not a very useful meaning. "article" might be a reasonable alternative, as it's not a keyword yet. Personally, having spent the effort figuring all this out, I'm going to hold on to "twig" ^_^

Incidentally えだ is one of the name readings for this kanji, which might be the only real practical application of the Heisig keyword.

Edit: posted simultaneously with magamo.

:lol: "fire-chicken"

I decided to look up the character in my electronic dictionary. According to the dictionary, the meaning/thought comes from えだ(twig/branch [I think it says this comes from Chinese songs?])、すじ(line that is written eg. article)、ながい(long) among others including discipline and being at peace. I guess it comes from an articles thin slender appearance that the meaning article came about.

Now I see shaydwyrm and magamo have one-upped me, darn

shaydwyrm Wrote:柳条 is all I could find, along with a small number of plant biology terms, in WWWJDIC.

However, the Yahoo! dictionary entry for this kanji has this as the first meaning: 「木の細い枝」, citing 枝条 and 柳条 as (apparently uncommon) examples. The meanings that follow show a reasonably logical progression: A thin branch of a tree => line or line shaped object => regularly delimited or subdivided street => carefully laid out path of logic => a logically argued document.

So this is clearly considered, from a scholarly standpoint, to be the fundamental, or at least original, meaning of the kanji. Unfortunately for us here in the modern age, it's not a very useful meaning. "article" might be a reasonable alternative, as it's not a keyword yet. Personally, having spent the effort figuring all this out, I'm going to hold on to "twig" ^_^

Incidentally えだ is one of the name readings for this kanji, which might be the only real practical application of the Heisig keyword.

Edit: posted simultaneously with magamo.

条 means an article as in "the Article of War" and "the ninth article of the Constitution." So each article of the Articles of Confederation is sort of 条, though it is translated as 規約 for some reason. But it doesn't mean, for example, news articles.

Edit: It might be easier to grasp the sense of 条 if you see it as a mixture of "branch" and "each item."

I think it's interesting that none of the english dictionaries that I looked through had any reference to this. However, this was basically first in the list among entries in Japanese dictionaries.

dat5h Wrote:I think it's interesting that none of the english dictionaries that I looked through had any reference to this. However, this was basically first in the list among entries in Japanese dictionaries.

Try looking it up in Chinese dictionaries, sometimes it just helps to get a better understanding where the Japanese meaning comes from.
This one is quite good: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chin...ionary.php

magamo Wrote:条 means an article as in "the Article of War" and "the ninth article of the Constitution." So each article of the Articles of Confederation is sort of 条, though it is translated as 規約 for some reason. But it doesn't mean, for example, news articles.

Edit: It might be easier to grasp the sense of 条 if you see it as a mixture of "branch" and "each item."

Ah okay, I'm starting to understand better what is meant by 一筋ずつ書き並べた文。(this was one of the meanings from 大辞泉) I think my understanding of 筋 is still a bit vague, and the usage of 条 is narrower than I thought. Would you consider a mathematical proof 条 then, or does it have to be a section of something larger?

shaydwyrm Wrote:

magamo Wrote:条 means an article as in "the Article of War" and "the ninth article of the Constitution." So each article of the Articles of Confederation is sort of 条, though it is translated as 規約 for some reason. But it doesn't mean, for example, news articles.

Edit: It might be easier to grasp the sense of 条 if you see it as a mixture of "branch" and "each item."

Ah okay, I'm starting to understand better what is meant by 一筋ずつ書き並べた文。(this was one of the meanings from 大辞泉) I think my understanding of 筋 is still a bit vague, and the usage of 条 is narrower than I thought. Would you consider a mathematical proof 条 then, or does it have to be a section of something larger?

一筋ずつ書き並べた文 is something like this:

1. XXX
2. YYY
3. ZZZ

This style of itemizing is called 箇条書き (かじょうがき) in Japanese. A to-do list is a typical example of the style; each item is usually one or two sentences.

Neither mathematical proofs nor sections in your essay is 条. It's "article" in the sense of "each item of law," i.e., a law. You know what the Articles of Confederation is, right? It's the first constitution of the thirteen United States of America, and each item is an article. This sense of "article" is very similar to 条.

Edit: Ah, I got it! Probably the difference between the Japanese Constitution and the Unite States Constitution confused you. Look at the Japanese Constitution. It's written in the 箇条書き style. I think it illustrates why each law is called 条 and often translated as "article" in this sense.

One advice I'd like to give to those who are going through RTK now is to not care about the choice of keywords at all. They are very, very unimportant, and you will have to forget them very soon.
Think of it this way: even if the keyword does describe correctly one of the meanings of the kanji, it leaves you completely blank regarding all the other meanings. This shows that the keywords are not supposed to teach you what the kanji mean in any case.
So as crazy and nonsense as they may sound, as long as they are easy to remember for you, go ahead and use them, then through them away when you start studying the language.

magamo Wrote:一筋ずつ書き並べた文 is something like this:

1. XXX
2. YYY
3. ZZZ

This style of itemizing is called 箇条書き (かじょうがき) in Japanese. A to-do list is a typical example of the style; each item is usually one or two sentences.

Neither mathematical proofs nor sections in your essay is 条. It's "article" in the sense of "each item of law," i.e., a law. You know what the Articles of Confederation is, right? It's the first constitution of the thirteen United States of America, and each item is an article. This sense of "article" is very similar to 条.

Yeah, despite having forgotten quite a lot of it I do remember that bit from US history back in high school

What I was struggling with is relating 一筋ずつ書き並べた文 to "articles of law". It seems like a mathematical proof (which I often see written in the "itemized list" format you outlined above) would fit the definition 一筋ずつ書き並べた文, but it is not 条. So I guess what I'm left wondering is, 1) did I interpret 「一筋ずつ書き並べた文」 correctly, or does the 文 refer to individual items on the list rather than the list itself?

Edit: there was a 2), but I can't remember what it was...

Edit 2: I didn't see your edit before I posted o.O It's all starting to come together... So it seems to me that the individual statements of my hypothetical proof would fit the definition 一筋ずつ書き並べた文, although they may not be 条, and the proof as a whole does not fit the definition. Am I overthinking this?

shaydwyrm Wrote:Yeah, despite having forgotten quite a lot of it I do remember that bit from US history back in high school

What I was struggling with is relating 一筋ずつ書き並べた文 to "articles of law". It seems like a mathematical proof (which I often see written in the "itemized list" format you outlined above) would fit the definition 一筋ずつ書き並べた文, but it is not 条. So I guess what I'm left wondering is, 1) did I interpret 「一筋ずつ書き並べた文」 correctly, or does the 文 refer to individual items on the list rather than the list itself?

Edit: there was a 2), but I can't remember what it was...

Edit 2: I didn't see your edit before I posted o.O It's all starting to come together... So it seems to me that the individual statements of my hypothetical proof would fit the definition 一筋ずつ書き並べた文, although they may not be 条, and the proof as a whole does not fit the definition. Am I overthinking this?

一筋ずつ書き並べた文 is really hard to translate in English... It's not "a series of sentences listed in a row." It's more like "one of sentences listed in a row," but still there is something not quite right... Also, each 一筋ずつ書き並べた文 has to start in a new line. So you push a return key when you start writing a second 条. A to-do list is a good example of 条s (though we don't call each item in a to-do list 条 for reasons I don't know). A bullet point is similar to this concept.

Anyway, I think 条 implies certain independence between each item (and this independence is hard to explain). A mathematical proof is usually like:

"Q: Prove B is not always C by using the fact that A is never D.

Your proof: Assume to the contrary that B is always C. By Awesome Mathematician's theorem, we have A = B. Since B is C by assumption, A is C. However, by Another Awesome Mathematician's lemma, we have C = D and hence A is D, a contradiction. Q.E.D."

Obviously these sentences are logically connected, so it's not 条s.

magamo Wrote:Obviously these sentences are logically connected, so it's not 条s.

So, if I may ask, every 条 in a list would be connected in an overall schema but logically distinct from each other (ie. no particular ordering required).

to, nac_est, I mostly agree with what you are saying ... mostly. However, I found this discussion quite interesting and full of useful information (eg. vocab, Japanese constitution, etc..). Basically, having this discussion made the Heisig keyword (albeit alien in direct English) actually make some sense and opens a window into the mind of the Japanese.

Also, thanks, musashi, for the dictionary

dat5h Wrote:

magamo Wrote:Obviously these sentences are logically connected, so it's not 条s.

So, if I may ask, every 条 in a list would be connected in an overall schema but logically distinct from each other (ie. no particular ordering required).

I learned the concept of 条 through observing tons of words and notions the kanji is used in, but it seems to be almost impossible to precisely describe it.

Usually you use the 箇条書き style when you list something. Ordering may or may not be required. For example, your to-do list may be in order of importance. 条 is often used when numbering laws, and the second 条 may be like "The first 条 does not apply to X if X is Y." So there can be certain logical connections between 条s. But items you listed do not form an argument.

When you prove a mathematical theorem, you're not listing a bunch of evidence supporting the statement of the theorem. Your proof as a whole verifies it. If your proof is full of logical flaws, some leprechaun might list errors:

・ Just because A is B doesn't mean B is A,
・ The variable a is not necessarily an integer,
・ 11 squared is 121, not 122,
・ Your argument sucks. learn2reductio-ad-absurdum.

And this is in the 箇条書き style.

dat5h Wrote:to, nac_est, I mostly agree with what you are saying ... mostly. However, I found this discussion quite interesting and full of useful information (eg. vocab, Japanese constitution, etc..). Basically, having this discussion made the Heisig keyword (albeit alien in direct English) actually make some sense and opens a window into the mind of the Japanese.

Yes, I might have expressed myself poorly. I didn't mean to say that this discussion is useless or uninteresting. I just wanted to reassure those worried about weird keywords

magamo Wrote:一筋ずつ書き並べた文 is really hard to translate in English... It's not "a series of sentences listed in a row." It's more like "one of sentences listed in a row," but still there is something not quite right... Also, each 一筋ずつ書き並べた文 has to start in a new line. So you push a return key when you start writing a second 条. A to-do list is a good example of 条s (though we don't call each item in a to-do list 条 for reasons I don't know). A bullet point is similar to this concept.

Anyway, I think 条 implies certain independence between each item (and this independence is hard to explain). A mathematical proof is usually like:

"Q: Prove B is not always C by using the fact that A is never D.

Your proof: Assume to the contrary that B is always C. By Awesome Mathematician's theorem, we have A = B. Since B is C by assumption, A is C. However, by Another Awesome Mathematician's lemma, we have C = D and hence A is D, a contradiction. Q.E.D."

Obviously these sentences are logically connected, so it's not 条s.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I get it now Thanks for bearing with me, it was an interesting lesson!

It's a twig people (Ah, well, maybe). Not rocket science!
Imagine being a hunter in the forest and your walking legs step on a wooden twig . Damn it! The deer ran away

I always love this kinda stuff.... thats why I bought the "guide to remember japanese characters" ... I liked the history that was behind all the kanji. ^_^ This is what it had to say about 条. It has the english words for it as being "clause, item, and line"

"Formally (ummm take 条 and put the first radical in this kanji 修 in front of it ^^) showing, wood/trees 木 and hand striking with a stick (rest of the kanji minus tree.... I wish I could get it to come up and make it less confusing). Thus wooden stick/branch for striking. On the one hand stick led to the idea of something straight and thus line, including in the figurative sense of a line of argument, and on the other branch led to the idea of something small broken off from the main part, and thus acquired connotations of small part and hence item/detail. The two meanings overlapped to give a detailed line of argument, leading to clause"

*wonders if this helps at all*