Japanese language: Much ado about nothing

I have a lot of half-finished posts right now sitting in my queue, but I am pretty swamped lately so all the good posts are going to have to wait. And, I am having a bit of writer’s block too. Lately, as I continue my struggles to learn Japanese for the upcoming JPLT certification, I have been rapidly expanding my vocabulary, and making heavy, heavy use of the excellent Anki service for daily practice (sometimes twice daily).* One of the interesting challenges of Japanese is the heavy use of homophones, which are words that sound the same. Even worse, these words almost have the same meaning.

Take for example the word toru, “to take”. There are actually at least 4 different kanji for toru and all mean “to take” in different ways:

• 取る – To take an item (generic)
• 採る – To take something important, like blood or fingerprints. Also means to gather fruit.
• 撮る – To take a photograph (or on film)
• 捕る – To take, as in “fishing”

Or, the word kiru, meaning to cut. There’s regular 切る, for cutting things, then there’s another word 伐る which means to cut down trees, and 斬る which means to cut (as in kill) with a sword.**

And one more example. 上る, or noboru, means to climb. 登る is also noboru and means to climb. The first one means to climb straight up, like a up a rope. The second means more like climbing a mountain.

This is not limited to verbs though. The words 外 and 他 are both read as hoka and both mean “other”. The first is for objects, the second is for people and abstract ideas.

So, when learning to read Japanese, it’s important to note the differences. In speaking, you usually wouldn’t notice a difference, and the context usually makes it obvious, but in reading and writing, things can be tricky if you don’t practice enough. Japanese kanji, as you can see, can be very specific and specialized, so much so, it feels like splitting hair sometimes. The solution? Practice, practice, practice!

P.S. I had another post earlier, but after some helpful feedback, I decided to retract that until I can make some edits. (For those who subscribe to this blog)

* – Seriously, if you’re willing to put some time into making some flash cards, and just keep adding vocab cards as you learn more Japanese, Anki can be very helpful. If you can, make a donation to Anki since he’s running a one-man effort to keeping the service up and running, and it’s a great tool.

** – You’ll hear that last one a lot in Samurai movies, including Twilight Samurai.