this week's neat japanese word

every wednesday i'll give you a little introduction to a cool japanese word. you might feel like you've learned something.

散歩
さんぽ
sanpo
a walk/stroll

sanpo is cool because of the kanji (chinese characters) it uses. the first character, 散 (pronounced san), comes from the verb chirasu, which means "to scatter." the second character, 歩 (pronounced po, in this case), comes from the verb aruku, which means "to walk." alone, 歩 means "step." so, putting these two kanji together gives you "scattered steps," which i think is quite a poetic way of describing "a walk."

i thought of posting this today during my daily walk. i wonder how that happened.