Today's kanji lessons begin. 20 down, 2,022 to go.

Today I'm taking a break from  Rosetta Stone because I had a mentally exhausting day at work and I don't have the patience to focus on it. I might give it a shot here in a bit if I suddenly get more energy. Instead, I started my Kanji lessons. I'm using Remember the Kanji and starting with lesson 1. As the intro to the lesson suggests, I already knew most of these. 一,二,三,四,五,六,七,,九 and 十are the numbers 1-10. I have actually been acquainted with these since I was a child as we had to call them out and write them for karate (It pays to have had a Japanophile 先生). But, I like the way the book shows how to memorize 四 as a mouth meeting with 2 animal legs.

Which brings me to the next set. 口 is a mouth. It's a wide open hole. 日and 月I know from Rosetta Stone as being the sun and moon respectively. 田 I had already learned as a radical, but I guess I just don't understand how important a rice field will be in the grand scheme of things. 目for eye is... odd. You have to think of the center block as an iris/pupil and the outside blocks as the whites of the eye. I can see it.

古 for old is kind of morbid and awesome. Think of a tombstone.. the book says to think of old text on the tombstone, but I'm just going to imagine it marking where an old person is burried.


吾 as I. Hmm... I can't seem to translate it that way. I'm guessing that when it is mixed with stuff it it will have the usage of I. But there are 5 mouths/holes in your head.　(Figured it out, me/oneself is a better translation than I, but I will keep using what the book tells me to).


冒as risk is fun. an eye looking up at the sun is risky bidness fo sho.

朋 two moons is companion. I actually couldn't get this translated properly, but I found it is とも　as in ともだち「友達」. that makes sense... except for the complete lack of 朋 in the kanji for friend. In any case, i;m going to remember it as the moon finding a friend in its reflection.
¯\(°_o)/¯

明 as bright. The sun shining on the moon is bright.

That's 20. I went a little further in the book, but the flash cards for today are only the first 20. So, now I have to reevaluate how many kanji I really know. In addition to these 20, I'm fairly sure I can recognize close to 50 more. I guess my initial guess was modest. It wasn't until I actually started counting that I realized I knew so many. But, I officially only know 20. I think I will be able to continue these with the rest of my studies for now. In future posts I wont be listing every kanji, just the ones I found interesting or difficult.