Firstly I haven’t studied japanese this is just a thought that occurred to me and I haven’t found the exact reply to what I’m searching for (or the question may simply be stupid :])
Anyways the question is, what is the meaning (and possibly pronunciation) of 進 on its own?
I ask this because using Jisho and others I’ve found conjugations (i think that’s the name for them, not english sorry) and iterations like 進み, so a kanji followed by hiragana and obviously different meanings with different additions of hiragana (from what I understand so far which is little) .
Does 進 have the “primitive” meaning of advance, progress, charge or does it need the hiragana? And in that case, is the kanji alone, at least for this example, not usable on its own or does it just have a different meaning compared to the ones listed above?
If from this you notice that I haven’t understood anything about kanji and how they work feel free to enlighten/destroy me because reading the replies is always really fun.
Thank you in advance and have a good day <3
4 comments
If it’s on its own, it could be the man’s given name Susumu (kind of an old-fashioned sounding name IMO). It’s used together with other kanji and/or hiragana in words that are related to the concept of progress or forward motion
Not all kanji can be used as words by themselves.
Though in this case, as mentioned above, can be read as the name susumu.
One of the confusing things about kanji is that, although every kanji has a meaning associated with it, they aren’t words. They are just characters, which are used to write words.
It would be like if each individual letter of the alphabet had an associated meaning. Just because the letter “b” would have a meaning, “b” is still not an actual word.
The kanji 「進」has the meaning “advance, progress”, but in most cases it has to be used as a part of a longer word. For example, it appears in words like 「進化」(evolution) and 「進む」(to advance), and, as mentioned by the other commenters, it can be read on its own as the name “Susumu”.
進み has the dictionary form 進む。すすむ is the originally native Japanese word. Japanese kind of fixed their grammar probably in the 1800s or so. And they have fixed rules for transforming a verb into past tense, continuous tense, … Most Japanese words that I know end in u, say ru, mu, ku, u, gu, … I believe adding these words at the end of a verb is artificial.
進 is the Kanji that matches the meaning of the original Japanese sound word すす the most. So, they use the word 進 to denote the sound すす. In Mandarin, 進 is pronounced as jin2. In Cantonese, it is pronounced as jun2 which is totally different from susu. On the other hand, 学 gaku is pronounced as hok6, so I know it was originally from some southern East Asian languages which they call 吳音。In Mandarin it is pronounced as shue3 which is totally different. I see Japanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin as three totally different languages. In fact, in some cases, Japanese is closer to Cantonese.
進 has the same meaning in all three languages. It means proceed and progress. Chinese characters are like Latin roots. 進 is more commonly used in Mandarin, but not in Japanese or Cantonese. 推進 is being used in both three languages, meaning push forward. 推 means push. 進展 means new development or progress in both languages. 展 means spread out or unfold. So, you can see how these languages use Kanjis as something like Latin roots. It is just like the English word computer. com + putare + er. The difference is, Japanese does not always use the original Kanji pronunciations for the words in a phrase.