Lets use an English example.

readable = read + able right? We both (should) know what those two words mean.

How about I just decide to make it read + my friend who is named Able. Able is literate, meaning he can read books. Thus, readable.

It might make sense, but it's still wrong. You created a mnemonic story that helps you to understand the jukugo, but it still has nothing to do with how the characters relate.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 February 05, 2:39 am)

morpheme + morpheme = compound word. It doesn't matter if it's a suffix or not. If you want to do it your way then fine, here is another example of what you were doing.

Firetruck: Fire a truck from a cannon. The truck lands on some flames smothering them and putting them out. Thus, a truck for putting out fires.

And what you are saying about an example sentence to explain the meaning of the word is fine, but we were talking about how kanji relate to each other in a jukugo. Your explanation falls apart when talking about other meanings of the word though. 遠慮 also means foresight. Using the correct 構成 explains both of the meanings. (The current main meaning of restraint is a development on "foresight/to think ahead").

Jarvik7 wrote:

morpheme + morpheme = compound word. It doesn't matter if it's a suffix or not. If you want to do it your way then fine, here is another example of what you were doing.

Firetruck: Fire a truck from a cannon. The truck lands on some flames smothering them and putting them out. Thus, a truck for putting out fires..

No. I've stated and restated this is not what I'm doing. Why do you keep saying it is?

And what you are saying about an example sentence to explain the meaning of the word is fine, but we were talking about how kanji relate to each other in a jukugo. Your explanation falls apart when talking about other meanings of the word though. 遠慮 also means foresight. Using the correct 構成 explains both of the meanings. (The current main meaning of restraint is a development on "foresight/to think ahead")

How does what I say fall apart when all I do is put them next to each and see how they relate to the meaning in front of me? I simple forgo the books and try to understand the relationship myself.

遠 -distant, far
慮 -prudence, thought, concern, consider, deliberate, fear.

So nothing here could possibly combine to make another meaning?

Far thought, think ahead?
Distant consider, foresight?
bad man, villain...huh...what!?

nestor wrote:

wrightak, kazelee, Jarvik7, I have no idea what you're all talking about now. Is somebody disagreeing with me? Should I be arguing with somebody??

I'm beginning to wonder myself....

Last edited by kazelee (2009 February 05, 3:28 am)

Rationalizing is not the same thing as explaining. 遠慮 has 5 meanings according to 広辞苑6, are you going to rationalize a new relationship for each one, instead of just using the correct one that fits for all?

Rationalizing doesn't even work when the relationship is not immediately obvious or follow the compound patterns we are used to in our native languages (opposite meaning ex:多少->many few->amount. same meaning ex:睡眠-> sleep sleep -> sleep). That was the original problem the OP had. If you want to figure out what the jukugo mean instead of just memorizing them as is, you're going to need to learn how to find the 構成.

You might say you're not doing what's in my firetruck or readable example, but it indeed is. It just seems silly because it's in your native language so you can see how wrong it is and where it goes wrong.

遠慮 = restraint or reserved (distant+ prudence). A reserved person is more "prudent" and/or keeps themselves at more of a "distance."

This works good enough to explain what (only) the main meaning of 遠慮 means (if you ignore that you're using it like an adjective etc). My explanation of firetruck also adequately explains that it's a truck for putting out fires. In both your and my example everything leading up to the end meaning is incorrect. You are using the wrong meaning of distant and I am using the wrong meaning of fire. We are both relating those mistaken words to the other word in mistaken ways.

Rationalizing something that makes sense might be enough for you to get by (like I said in my first post, 構成 is interesting but not mandatory), but it's still not correct. You do ultimately get a deeper understanding of the word if you do things correctly though.

and on that note I am going to get some 睡眠 sleep sleep.

手袋 and 泥棒 are good examples where RTK keywords can either throw you off (hand + bag) or have no relation (mud + stick). Still, like the firetruck example above, you have two ready made words to help make a connection to the third via a mnemonic IF you need it.

EnjukuBlack wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

Don't try to figure out how the kanji relate to each other in a jukugo based on the Heisig keywords. The keywords are keywords, not definitions.

This is a good point. Many (perhaps even most) of the kanji have an array of nuanced meanings that don't fit nicely into a single keyword. Take 伝, for example. One of its meanings is transmit, but it can also mean to (walk) along, to follow, and, most importantly for 伝統的, legend or tradition.

As you can see, you wouldn't get all this from Heisig's single keyword of 'transmit.'
.

I do agree that there are kanji that have multiple meanings that are not related to each, but I think the example you gave is not a good one. IMHO, all of those definitions are practically the same thing:

for "transmit" think of the words being transmitted as following a line from person A to B

for "walk along" think of the path you're walking as a wire and you are walking along a wire from point A to B

for "follow" think of an electrical signal following it's path on a wire from point A to B

for "tradition", you can think of people "following the path" of customs/beliefs handed down from generation to generation ("transmitting tradition down the thread that connects people to each other")

for "legend" think of the hero as "following the path" of the stereotypical hero (specific to that country)

Even though those meanings are seeemingly unrelated, they all identify to the same conecpt of something traveling for point A to B (people to people, place to place, time to time, etc) along some path.

In the case of legend, the legend's story is being sent from person-to-person and generation-to-generation via word of mouth. The people who hear the story are connected(by the experience of hearing the legend) and those connections form a line (or path) spanning lifetimes.

IMHO kanji represent concepts and NOT words per se. The concepts are manifested and come to life with the usage of words. But in some cases, some words just fit better than others (even if they have the same underlying concept like "transmit" "walk along" and "follow").

But yes, I still do agree that there are some words that have completely unrelated definitions for the same characters.

Last edited by chamcham (2009 February 05, 5:53 pm)

EnjukuBlack wrote:

I mean, be honest, if you read the word 'transmit,' with no other examples or contexts, would 'tradition' or 'go along' immediately leap to mind? Once you think about it, yes, you can see how they are related, but I don't see how looking at a piece of paper with the word 'transmit' printed on it would immediately get you thinking about 'tradition.'

Yes it's possible... Assuming you know Chinese or Vietnamese (truyền thống (truye^`n tho^'ng) - tradition). (truye^`n) - to transmit.

And I certainly did not use any kind of technique to learn that, but I could have learned it more efficiently.  Now, after reading this thread, I'm starting to get interested in learning jukugo more formally to give me a boost in both languages ;>

This 構成 stuff seems like exactly what I wanted to find out.  I find these sorts of explanations, like for 遠慮 better than arbitrary stories, simply because I find logical explanations easier to remember.  However, is there really a 構成 explanation for every character?  It seems like, as another poster pointed out, stuff like 泥棒 doesn't really rely on any sort of logical connection at all.

Also, which DS software are you referring to that has 構成?  I have the sonomama rakubiki jiten for DS, but I don't think it has that stuff.

Considering the entire English language was composed by 3 blind guys randomly picking words and phrases from a German dictionary and having a 4th blind guy write them down, I think any method works for any learning any language.

Whatever floats your boats and rubs your rhubarb at the same time.

It is a plant

Or you could, not, over-analyze the joke. Lighten up a bit. Just a little tinyweeny bit...

woodwojr wrote:

hich is something that rubbed me the wrong way about one of the recent AJATT posts where Khatzumoto pulls out a big hideous name and compares it to some kanji to indicate that the latter is accessible to the layperson: the "English" name isn't English in any meaningful sense of the word, it's transliterated Greek.

Yeah, the problem is cultural instead of with the English language. We could say apeman just as easily as the Japanese say 猿人.