The “science” of Kanji, part 3: same word, different kanji!

Here’s a fun lesson that will give you a headache to all you Japanese-language students. >:)

I noticed a while back that when my wife would explain what a word meant, she would sometimes reply “that’s the same word, but different kanji”. This really confused me at first, because I always assumed that each word had a certain kanji to it. A one-to-one relationship, but that’s not entirely true.

Take for example, the word for hot, or あつい. There’s different kinds of “hot” apparently, all with the same pronunciation:

• 暑い – Hot as in weather.
• 熱い – Hot as in an object.
• 厚い – Warm, kind-hearted, thick, deep.

Or with a similar word, あたたかい, which means “warm”:

• 温かい – Warm as in food
• 暖かい – Warm as in weather

You can see how everything is the same, and the meanings are very similar, but the different kanji give slightly different nuances to the word. This is also true of verbs too. The word for “take”, とる, has many nuances and kanji, all with the same pronunciation:

• 取る – to take an object (generic)
• 採る – to take something personal (e.g. blood, fingerprints), or to pick a flower
• 撮る – to take a photograph
• 捕る – to take or capture, or to go fish
• …and so on.

Or, a favorite example of mine is the word “to cut”, きる:

• 切る – to cut (generic)
• 斬る – to cut with a sword (i.e. to kill). Very commonly used in samurai movies (e.g. おまえを斬るぞ！).
• 伐る – to cut down a tree

So, while in spoken language, you will probably not notice a difference, it’s interesting how different kanji can provide different nuances to the same word. As a student of Japanese, there’s not much you can do to help this, other than to take the time to learn the subtle differences, and read enough literature so that you can see it in practice. As I’ve said many times, the best way to learn language is through exposure.

Good luck!

P.S. Previous lessons: one and two.

P.P.S. If you need help reading above, check out Tae Kim’s information on hiragana and katakana.