Wumbology 101!

Howdy, folks! It's Jacob here with another day of Japanese education! I'm supposed to make up for all of the posting I missed over the weekend tonight, but I've come up with a better idea. I'll post more during my off-period tomorrow, while I'm able to post more. But let's focus on what I learned today!

Today, I studied a little bit of Kanji for a bit! If you refer back to my previous post, you'll see that I posted the kanji for "forest" and "tree". It's a good start to be able to recognize kanji from the start. It makes things simpler for sure. 

Kanji is definitely rough, but if you have the mindset to absorb it, it absolutely helps. I actually learned couple more kanji meanings today, too: like "大" (pronounced "Ō"), which means big, large, or Wumbo, having my PhD in Wumbology! All jokes aside, it's a rather easy kanji to remember. Two more I remember are 日(pronounced "Hi") and 月 (pronounced "Tsuki"), which mean Sun and Moon respectively. Being kanji, they have alternative meanings, Hi also meaning "day", and Tsuki additionally meaning "month". They look very similar when written, and are easy to remember because they are total opposite.

Finally, I learned about the name of the country in which these symbols are used! That's right, Japan~! It's kanji is 日本, which is pronounced "Ni-hon" (or "Ni-pon", depending on the time period). It boggles my mind how, based on the word, the pronunciation of one kanji can change. What's also interesting is that "本" (hon), the second kanji of the term "Japan", means "book"! So what, does Japan mean "sun book"? Nah. Kanji's meaning changes with different words too. While I'm not exactly sure what it DOES mean, I'm sure I'll figure it out soon.

Tons of people HATE learning kanji, but so far I'm having a blast! I hope you are too, if you're learning along with me! :)

That's it for tonight! Nighty night! I'm tired, so peace! <3