2

My Kanji textbook mentions 田 to have the kunyomi た and the onyomi デン. デン is not mentioned in brackets so I conclude it is a very common reading.

But I hardly find any words that use デン. In an example in the book is a word 田水 written and it says its read でんすい, but there is no translation. I cannot find a translation of that word anywhere, but if I google the word I get たみず with explanation 田の水. Water on a rice field? That doesn't seem a common word at all! Can someone clarify this word and perhaps give examples of words where 田 is read als デン?

Thank you.

Improve this question
8
  • 2
    I usually discourage the use of edict, but... http://jisho.org/words?jap=*%E7%94%B0*&eng=&dict=edict&common=on
    – ssb
    Dec 8, 2014 at 0:36
  • 2
    Hmm... it sounds like a typo of 水田. I think that ssb's link makes an almost comprehensive list of common デン words. I'd add to it 田野, 田楽 and ガス田. 桑田(そうでん, not くわた) is rarely seen in its literal meaning, instead used in the proverb 滄海(変じて)桑田(となす) for "the world changes unimaginably".
    – broccoli forest
    Dec 8, 2014 at 2:53
  • @ssb: Why do you discourage the use of edict and what do you offer as an alternative?
    – Júda Ronén
    Dec 8, 2014 at 11:16
  • 1
    Regarding edict, it's just my opinion, but edict simply lists all possible translations for a given Japanese word or phrase, without explanations or usage examples. It is maintained by private persons. For example, the list of on-readings for each kanji lists many rare and obscure readings and should be revised, but that would require a lot of time. Also, it doesn't work well for English->Japanese. Sometimes, I feel some people are entering an English word in edict and post a question about the differences between all Japanese words they get.
    – blutorange
    Dec 8, 2014 at 14:59
  • 1
    Personally, I'm not using edict anymore at all, there are freely accessible monolingual and bilingual dictionaries available, eg. dic.search.yahoo.co.jp/. I suppose any further discussion on this topic should be done in chat
    – blutorange
    Dec 8, 2014 at 15:00

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

There are a few 田 words which use the デン reading. Each of them is a kind of field or plantation. 水田 is すいでん (paddy field) (でんすい sounds like a typo), 油田 is ゆでん (oil field) and 桑田 is そうでん (mulberry field). The 水 in 水田 is present because it's a water-filled (irrigated) paddy field.

Source - Both Google and Obenkyo (android app)

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Another word I've seen several times is 田園風景【でんえんふうけい】
    – blutorange
    Dec 9, 2014 at 14:41
0

塩田{えんでん} -　Google Image Search

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .