Questions tagged [compounds]
複合語. Words formed by putting two or more words or other elements together.
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A question about the usage of なるべく
I'm currently studying on my Intermediate Japanese book and I stumbled upon the usage of なるべく, with the meaning of as ~ as possible. The book gives me two examples and with the first one there's no ...
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Abbreviating sets of compounds with leading characters in common
I recently asked a question about on- and kun-yomi and in building the title guessed at how the two compounds involved could be contracted; landing on 「音・訓読み」.
Is this indeed the correct way of ...
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What does かけ mean in こわれかけのオルゴール?
If こわれかけのオルゴール was 壊れかけのオルゴール, 壊れ would be the stem of 壊れる, and かけ would probably be a noun. Since I'm just learning Japanese, I don't understand where かけ comes from. What meaning does かけ have in ...
user9296
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Is 翻す a former compound verb that merged into its current form?
The verb ひるがえす feels like it is made of two part ひる and かえす but I could not find any references backing this interpretation. And I can't figure out what would be ひる.
@snailboat also mentioned くつがえす ...
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Is it correct to say 複雑な波長?
My friend heard this in an anime. I can understand 複雑な波長パターン or something along these lines, but just 複雑な波長? Like, you wouldn't say "complex mass" or "complex speed", right? (unless maybe complex ...
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Why is it 悪魔 and not 悪の魔?
Shouldn't there be の to signify that 悪 modifies 魔? It seems to be a one word and not a phrase, how do we know if a double kanji is such a single word and not two separate ones when reading a text?
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What is the max number of kanji a jukugo can be made of?
So far I haven't seen any jukugo with more than 4 kanji. Is this a limit? Or some of them are made of more than 4 kanji?
Also, I've seen jukugo made of other jukugo. Like 高速道路 is composed with two ...
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What does モンスター娘のいる日常 mean? [duplicate]
I can understand モンスター娘 and 日常, but I can't understand モンスター娘のいる.
user9296
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How do I read 初商業誌?
I searched google, jisho, and yahoo. I couldn't find a proper pronunciation for 初商業誌.
user9296
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What is the meaning of 店頭分?
I visited a shopping website, and I read 予約を含め在庫がなくなった場合、店頭分をご用意できない場合がございますことを予めご了承ください。I couldn't understand 店頭分 properly. What does it mean?
user9296
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What are the pitch-accent rules for compound nouns?
I've been trying to learn the pitch-accent of standard Japanese, but this is more difficult as it should be as it's hard to find good learning resources that provide proper descriptions of how the ...
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Difference between 俺物語 and 俺の物語
There is an anime/manga called 俺物語!! which is translated as "My Story!!" or "My Love Story!!" depending on which site you visit. The way I have learned it, it should be "...
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How to read 資格外活動許可?
I know 資格 is しかく, 活動 is かつどう and 許可 is きょか, but the 外 puzzles me here. Is it just がい？
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Why isn't 日本料理 written as 日本の料理?
Both 日本 and 料理{りょうり} are nouns but why aren't they concatenated with の? I think it should be written as 日本の料理 rather than 日本料理.
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Are there kanji which are NOT words by themselves (written standalone)?
In other words, are there kanji, which can only be used as a part of a kanji compound and/or with okurigana?
For example:
見 - standalone kanji, a word which means "view", "outlook"
見物 - kanji ...
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Explaning the phrase 「注{ちゅう}目{もく}特{とく}集{しゅう}」
I want to know exactly what the phrase 「注目特集」 means. Part 「注目～」 means "attention, focus" and 「～特集」 - "feature, special issue". I can understand the meaning, but how can I combine them - what is the ...
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Difference between 「にかかわらず」 and 「にもかかわらず」
I would like to know the difference between 「にかかわらず」 and 「にもかかわらず」 with regard to the semantics of the predicate-argument relation.
Do they express the same semantic relation (non-causality?)? or ...
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What is the difference between 思【おも】い付【つ】く and 思【おも】い浮【う】かぶ?
The words 思い付く and 思い浮かぶ both mean something along the lines of "to come to mind". But I'm not actually sure about the details of when to use one versus the other. Yet, at the same time, they don't ...
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the omission of an implied "の" creates the appearance of a 四字熟語{よじじゅくご}?
I believe that www.yojijukugo.com has a pretty thorough list of 四字熟語? Is there a better site?
However, I know that I've seen a lot of 4, or more, adjacent kanji that are not listed as 熟語。An example ...
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Compound words with 漢字 and カタカナ? (例えば：新メニュー）
Today, a magazine about restaurants in my area arrived in my mailbox. It proudly proclaimed :
１０月の新メニュー！
I am quite curious as to the following points:
How is this pronounced ? I would have gone ...
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Can kanji compounds be formed arbitrarily?
I will take 客 as an example:
Can 客 form a compound with 席, 娟, and all the other thousands of Japanese 漢字?
If I put 席客, but not 客席, will the meaning be different? Or will it just have no meaning? Or ...
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Using the stem form of a verb like the て form, as in 燃えゆく or 飲みほして
What is the significance of sometimes using the stem form of a verb like how the て form would be? For example:
燃えゆく (from HANABI)
飲みほして (from Ambiguous)
It's something I hear now and again, but ...
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How to parse "あけぐち"?
I'm working out my Japanese by trying to read everything around me, including food packages.
On my milk carton written inside a large arrow pointing to the spout is "あけぐち" in hiragana.
Obviously ...
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The difference between 辞書 and 字引
My dictionary lists both 辞書{じしょ} and 字引{じびき} as simply, "Dictionary."
On tatoeba.org I can only find example sentences of 字引 where it is used in the phrase:
生き字引 = A walking dictionary
Example:
...
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Does 数独{すうどく} really mean "single number"?
I've never actually played a sudoku puzzle (I know, I live in a cave!).
I just saw the word written in kanji somewhere, which rekindled my interest.
Wikipedia states:
The puzzle was popularized ...
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You can use 「押し開ける」 to say "to push open", but can you say 「押し閉める」 to mean "to push closed"?
For example, consider the following sentences:
ドアを押し開ける。 I pushed the door open.
ドアを引き開ける。 I pulled the door open.
Can you do the same for 閉める? So for example:
ドアを押し閉める。 I pushed the door ...
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そのようにする + Recognizing a compound
そのようにしてこの巨城は、二年の長きにわたってゆっくりと攻略されてきた。
The first thing I had kind of a problem with, is そのようにして...
I just have no idea how to translate it.
Also, as for 巨城, 巨 doesn't have a prefix form, nor there is ...
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meaning of 名種設定? [closed]
A friend of mine asked me to give him a quick translation of an app he downloaded.
One of the buttons in the main menu had this 名種設定 written. I wasn't able to find what it means.
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What's the word or phrase used specifically to describe someone who is only concerned with physical appearence of others?
I believe it starts with み and is something like 'only has an eye for beauty', but it's been a long time since I used it. I believe it's a kanji compound.
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Does Japanese have morphemes that span two kanji?
I read once (in this comment by Victor Mair on Language Log) that Chinese has single morphemes that span two hanzi. The example given was the Chinese word pútáo 葡萄. At the time, I assumed it applied ...
user1478
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しらゆきひめ 'Snow White'
I am trying to understand the title of a tale.
しろ 'white'
ゆき 'snow'
ひめ 'princess'
しらゆきひめ 'Snow White'
If white is しろ, why is 'Snow White' not しろゆきひめ？
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Are 弱い相互作用 and 強い相互作用 unnatural?
In introductory physics books, when they introduce 弱い相互作用 "weak interaction" and 強い相互作用 "strong interaction", I almost always see a notification that these terms are supposed to be the name of the ...
user458
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Analysis of もしかして (perhaps)?
I'm hearing this word a lot in Japanese drama and anime. What is the literal meaning of it? Does it have a Kanji form? What root(s) does it contain (I think there is a する in the second half of it? ...
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Size adjectives and prefixes
I know some size adjectives like 小さい (small), 大きい (big), and 並 (normal). Does anyone have a list of other size adjectives: something that could describe things ranging from micro things like Legos to ...
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If a compound noun is made from a na-adjective suffix, is it followed by a な particle?
There are a few compound nouns that are made by compounding something with na-adjectives like 好き and 嫌い, for examples:
花見好き
子供好き
水嫌い
人嫌い
負け嫌い
Are these compounds followed by a な particle? Or do they ...
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Are all kanji compounds considered words?
A friend once commented to me that Japanese has a larger vocabulary than English. I said I didn't think it did, because it wasn't really accurate to call all kanji compounds "words". My friend said I ...
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Exceptional compounding forms
There are a number of Japanese words which have distinct compounding forms:
-a/-e alternation: 天・雨、酒、上、風、目 — many examples.
-u/-i alternation: 神（[神]{かむ}[集]{つど}ふ）、月（[月]{つく}[読]{よみ}）
-o/-i alternation: ...
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Rules or criteria for 連濁: Voiced or unvoiced syllables in compound words
Examples first.
空 {そら}.
Almost all compound nouns for which 空 is the second component pronounce it as ぞら zora:
青空 {あおぞら}
夜空 {よぞら}
星空 {ほしぞら}.
There is at least one exception though: 美空 {みそら}.
蕎麦 {...
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Was the name for the Shōwa era a voluntary pun?
According to dictionaries, the WA 和 in 昭和 has both the meaning of peace, harmonious and Japan, japanese (although mostly as the first kanji of a compound, such as in 和語). So I wonder how Japanese of ...
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What is the meaning of 人児, and is it a compound?
There's this rather unpleasant sign on a restaurant that says:
中国人＆帰化人、残留孤児、中国系混血人児、絶対入店禁止、純血日本男児のみ。
Putting aside the racist content, from a linguistic point of view, the one word that throws me ...
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What are the nuances between these three terms for intelligence: 知恵 [ちえ], 知能 [ちのう], 知性 [ちせい] ?
In particular which one is closer to the idea of "ability to reason over things" as a quality of someone in particular?
What I believe is that 知識 on the other hand is closer to "knowledge" and "...
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What is the difference in meaning between "husband and wife" 夫婦【ふうふ】 and 夫妻【ふさい】?
I see that those two compounds mean husband and wife, as a married couple. But is there a difference in usage or context?
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Common 四{よ}字{じ}熟{じゅく}語{ご} that use/are 当{あ}て字{じ}
Are there any commonly used known 四{よ}字{じ}熟{じゅく}語{ご} that use/are 当{あ}て字{じ} besides the following? Just crossed my mind, and now I'm curious.
滅{め}茶{ちゃ}苦{く}茶{ちゃ}, 夜{よ}露{ろ}死{し}苦{く}, 無{む}理{り}矢{や}理{り}
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What is the etymology of [山葵]{わさび}?
I know that "わさび" 'wasabi' can also be written using kanji as "山葵" and that these two characters mean respectively "mountain" and "hollyhock", but hollyhock doesn't seem at first glance to be related.
...
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