well, today i thought i would let you know that japan's nickname, the "land of the rising sun," is actually a pretty good reading of the kanji for "japan." here's what it looks like:
日本
にほん
japan
にほん
japan
the characters used in "japan" are extraordinarily common words by themselves: 日 (nichi, the sun, day) and 本 (hon, book, origin, main, current). the ni from nihon is just another way of reading 日 (it has many). so, if you put them together, you have "sun" and "origin": the origin of the sun, or, the land of the rising sun. pretty cool, huh? if you were a lousy translator, though, you could get "book day" or "main sun" from nihon, but then you'd just be stupid.
now, when you switch those two kanji around, you get a different word, with an entirely different meaning and a different reading, too. it becomes 本日, honjitsu, which means "today." but it makes sense, at least a little, because one of the meanings of hon is "current," so together the kanji couple births "current day" - "today." there will be a test, so please write that down.
i was watching tv the other day, and on came the japanese version of "who wants to be a millionaire," simply called クイズ＄ミリオネア (quiz $ millionaire). the top prize is 1 million yen, which amounts to a paltry $86,000. suckers. there have been 20 winners; the american version has had 11. i advise you to check out the other countries that have variants of the program here. anyhow, one of the last questions was:
what language did the word "japan" come from?
a. dutch
b. french
c. chinese
d. portuguese
the answer is c, chinese. turns out the chinese version of "japan" also means "origin of the sun." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!
now, when you switch those two kanji around, you get a different word, with an entirely different meaning and a different reading, too. it becomes 本日, honjitsu, which means "today." but it makes sense, at least a little, because one of the meanings of hon is "current," so together the kanji couple births "current day" - "today." there will be a test, so please write that down.
i was watching tv the other day, and on came the japanese version of "who wants to be a millionaire," simply called クイズ＄ミリオネア (quiz $ millionaire). the top prize is 1 million yen, which amounts to a paltry $86,000. suckers. there have been 20 winners; the american version has had 11. i advise you to check out the other countries that have variants of the program here. anyhow, one of the last questions was:
what language did the word "japan" come from?
a. dutch
b. french
c. chinese
d. portuguese
the answer is c, chinese. turns out the chinese version of "japan" also means "origin of the sun." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!
4 comments:
I just finished a fantastic book by David Morell (you know, the guy who wrote "First Blood", "Rambo[First Blood Two]", "Rambo 3", etc...). It was called "The 5th Profession".
(The fifth profession is that of the bodyguard.fyi)
Anyway, it talked a lot about Japan (in fact half of the book happened there) and there was a right-wing faction trying to return Japan to the shogunate. They wanted the emperor to return and to, once again, be an isolated country. And, of course, there was some sweet samurai action.
unfortunately, samurai are just romanticized symbols nowadays. but there are tons of tv shows and movies still being made about them. there is a part of japanese society, though, that does kind of want to be isolated again. i think i would want to be isolated, too, given the current n. korea business. japan still has a very closed view of itself, but i don't think we're going to see any samurai topknots dancing around the halls of government any time soon.
it's wednesday...where is our new post?
must post now!
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