So according to google, words like wood are mokuzai (木材) But when i look up the individual kanjis they both mean wood on their own. Am I just misunderstanding something or.. thanks for the help
Make things clearer in speech (less confusion of homophones)
Make things clearer in writing (less confusion about the intended meaning of Kanji, because they tend to have more than 1)
Communicate nuance more specifically (Individual Characters can have a more general meaning that is more open to interpretation. Compound words tend to be more narrow in meaning by comparison)
1. Kanji don’t mean anything on their own. Words do. (but there are some single-kanji words) 2. For similar words, you often need to use a Japanese dictionary to understand the difference. Bilingual dictionaries are just not precise enough for some stuff. If you’re not yet at the point where a monolingual dictionary makes sense, at least try to use a _good_ bilingual dictionary like Kenkyusha.
When you start getting into etymology and the whys of kanji, Japanese information isn’t a bad start (but I’ve found apocryphal info can crop up sooner since you’re “down the chain” so to speak), but you’ll really want to look into the original Chinese. Mokuzai is the way it is because of the original Chinese aka “mu-cai” in modern Mandarin.
Obviously, it’s be going a bit above and beyond there if you’re still just learning Japanese, so I wouldn’t bother if it’s just purely out of brief curiosity.
Each of the kanji can mean “wood” but really it’s not that simple. When I look at the compound kanji I see 木 which can mean “wood” but also “tree” and 材 which also can mean “wood” but also “material” or “stuff”. So to me the compound “tree material” is “wood” but it’s not that the original two kanji are both synonymous. Most kanji have multiple meanings as well having multiple readings. I gotta say it’s NOT easy, that’s for sure. Hang in there.
And what about 木材 vs 材木? It seems like it is similar to the difference between “wood” and “lumber”. One stresses the material, the other stresses the use? “Tree material” = wood “Building material made from a tree” = lumber
I don’t recognize “材” as meaning of wood. I think It’s material in English but don’t know whether it’s correct. If”木材” is wood material, It perfectly make sense.
The meaning of 木 is tree not wood (maybe it have a second meaning, I haven’t a perfect understanding of 日本語).
“Water” in English can be “water,” “hydro-“ and “aqua-“. They’re used in different context. You wouldn’t order a glass of “hydro”.
Hydrothermal is water+heat.
Water in Japanese is 水. Heat is 熱. Hydrothermal is 熱水.
Looking at the Chinese language, which is where kanji and a lot of words in Japanese originated, helps understanding this phenomenon. This videos explains it really well: [https://youtu.be/BMI6Mbx8lbw](https://youtu.be/BMI6Mbx8lbw)
What haven’t already been said is another point additionally: In English there are many words which can be used the day the exact same thing (same meaning different words) that’s the same with Japanese. Over thousands of years certain words have prevailed.
Example: There are many words to describe a forest (woods, woodland) but everyone can understand you. Same for Japanese 森 (mori) is forest. Today this word is often use to describe the technical definition of forest. In daily speech one would use 森林 (shinrin) which also means forest
Japanese is a bit more tricky because of the writing system, but the important part to keep in mind is that it’s an agglutinative language. “mokuzai” is the combination of two words: “tree” and “material/stuff”. So “mokuzai” is literally “tree stuff”.
In general, that’s the logic agglutinative languages follow.
Etymology: puu + tavara. Guess what “puu” and “tavara” mean:).
If you look up 10 agglutinative languages, you can expect 9 of them will have roughly the same logic. It’s basic stuff. And it’s all you need to pay attention to, as a beginner. It’s not important to understand the exact etymology of words (and, indeed, my explanation is quite simplistic, 木 actually can mean “wood” in certain context…but that’s not going to help you understand or remember the word “mokuzai”. Looking at it as “tree”, will.
Another important point is that compound kanji often “feel” more formal, so people prefer to use them in writing or business settings!
and the reverse is true: using simpler non-compound verbs (taberu vs shokuji suru) feels more casual
flammable
inflammable
Just like words in english, different kanji might have the same “basic” meaning but have different connotations.
Think of the many words in English for “big”.
Humongous. Large. Big. Huge. Sizeable. Gigantic.
These are not the same word in the same way that multiple kanji that mean “wood” aren’t the same kanji.
Putting it simple, kanji comes from Chinese, not only each symbol but also a lot of words. And here’s the thing: Chinese doesn’t like one-symbol (one-syllable) words, because it helps them narrow the idea they’re trying to convey. Also, it avoids having lots of words that may sound similar. [Here’s a video about this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iro19GB6fH8), from a Chinese-learning channel.
When multiple kanjis are put together, it reduces the possibility of miscommunication. This is because one kanji may have multiple readings but only one in a certain compound.
In this context 材 means material, as in 材料 or 金属材.
If you want to learn kanji, try this Google chrome extension I’ve made:
18 comments
Compound words:
Make things clearer in speech (less confusion of homophones)
Make things clearer in writing (less confusion about the intended meaning of Kanji, because they tend to have more than 1)
Communicate nuance more specifically (Individual Characters can have a more general meaning that is more open to interpretation. Compound words tend to be more narrow in meaning by comparison)
1. Kanji don’t mean anything on their own. Words do. (but there are some single-kanji words)
2. For similar words, you often need to use a Japanese dictionary to understand the difference. Bilingual dictionaries are just not precise enough for some stuff. If you’re not yet at the point where a monolingual dictionary makes sense, at least try to use a _good_ bilingual dictionary like Kenkyusha.
When you start getting into etymology and the whys of kanji, Japanese information isn’t a bad start (but I’ve found apocryphal info can crop up sooner since you’re “down the chain” so to speak), but you’ll really want to look into the original Chinese. Mokuzai is the way it is because of the original Chinese aka “mu-cai” in modern Mandarin.
Obviously, it’s be going a bit above and beyond there if you’re still just learning Japanese, so I wouldn’t bother if it’s just purely out of brief curiosity.
Each of the kanji can mean “wood” but really it’s not that simple. When I look at the compound kanji I see 木 which can mean “wood” but also “tree” and 材 which also can mean “wood” but also “material” or “stuff”. So to me the compound “tree material” is “wood” but it’s not that the original two kanji are both synonymous. Most kanji have multiple meanings as well having multiple readings. I gotta say it’s NOT easy, that’s for sure. Hang in there.
And what about 木材 vs 材木? It seems like it is similar to the difference between “wood” and “lumber”. One stresses the material, the other stresses the use?
“Tree material” = wood
“Building material made from a tree” = lumber
I don’t recognize “材” as meaning of wood. I think It’s material in English but don’t know whether it’s correct. If”木材” is wood material, It perfectly make sense.
The meaning of 木 is tree not wood (maybe it have a second meaning, I haven’t a perfect understanding of 日本語).
“Water” in English can be “water,” “hydro-“ and “aqua-“. They’re used in different context. You wouldn’t order a glass of “hydro”.
Hydrothermal is water+heat.
Water in Japanese is 水. Heat is 熱. Hydrothermal is 熱水.
Looking at the Chinese language, which is where kanji and a lot of words in Japanese originated, helps understanding this phenomenon. This videos explains it really well: [https://youtu.be/BMI6Mbx8lbw](https://youtu.be/BMI6Mbx8lbw)
What haven’t already been said is another point additionally:
In English there are many words which can be used the day the exact same thing (same meaning different words) that’s the same with Japanese.
Over thousands of years certain words have prevailed.
Example: There are many words to describe a forest (woods, woodland) but everyone can understand you.
Same for Japanese 森 (mori) is forest. Today this word is often use to describe the technical definition of forest. In daily speech one would use 森林 (shinrin) which also means forest
Japanese is a bit more tricky because of the writing system, but the important part to keep in mind is that it’s an agglutinative language. “mokuzai” is the combination of two words: “tree” and “material/stuff”. So “mokuzai” is literally “tree stuff”.
In general, that’s the logic agglutinative languages follow.
I randomly looked up the same thing in Finnish (I don’t speak a word of Finnish). In Finnish wood is “puutavara”. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puutavara
Etymology: puu + tavara. Guess what “puu” and “tavara” mean:).
If you look up 10 agglutinative languages, you can expect 9 of them will have roughly the same logic. It’s basic stuff. And it’s all you need to pay attention to, as a beginner. It’s not important to understand the exact etymology of words (and, indeed, my explanation is quite simplistic, 木 actually can mean “wood” in certain context…but that’s not going to help you understand or remember the word “mokuzai”. Looking at it as “tree”, will.
Another important point is that compound kanji often “feel” more formal, so people prefer to use them in writing or business settings!
and the reverse is true: using simpler non-compound verbs (taberu vs shokuji suru) feels more casual
flammable
inflammable
Just like words in english, different kanji might have the same “basic” meaning but have different connotations.
Think of the many words in English for “big”.
Humongous. Large. Big. Huge. Sizeable. Gigantic.
These are not the same word in the same way that multiple kanji that mean “wood” aren’t the same kanji.
Putting it simple, kanji comes from Chinese, not only each symbol but also a lot of words. And here’s the thing: Chinese doesn’t like one-symbol (one-syllable) words, because it helps them narrow the idea they’re trying to convey. Also, it avoids having lots of words that may sound similar. [Here’s a video about this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iro19GB6fH8), from a Chinese-learning channel.
When multiple kanjis are put together, it reduces the possibility of miscommunication. This is because one kanji may have multiple readings but only one in a certain compound.
In this context 材 means material, as in 材料 or 金属材.
If you want to learn kanji, try this Google chrome extension I’ve made:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kanjithing/nccfelhkfpbnefflolffkclhenplhiab/