Singularity on the Plane

What better way to continue from Newton and Galileo than to hunt words from Aristotle (2007-03-13) itself? I got 47 kanji and 132 words.

Here are the kanji:

羅矜矯羞獣導逍践捉繹寡侍廊倒偉韻衡岐巧謬僭顎倣浄庸損厚豪遍辱侮奉均液貢聘肯妥層乾湿疇善潔財粋醜

And the words:

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This is Matsuura Aya’s 14th single (lyrics, translation). The song is so nice that the composer, Tsunku, sang a version of it.

2 new kanji:

冗些

5 new words:

This is the theme song of the drama Takaramono (lyrics). The story is about Sen, a girl that lived away from his hometown to forget the tragedy of eathquake that had befell it. She had left her hometown for so long that she also forgot all the sweet memories of her childhood there. The main star and the singer of the song is no other than Abe Natsumi.

Everyone knows the kanji 青 (あお, blue or green) which is taught in grade 1. However, in the song lyrics I found another あお, 蒼. According to Windows XP’s IME, 青 is for blue or green in the general sense while 蒼 is for dark or dull blue. An example is 蒼い月夜 (aoi tsukiyo, (dark) blue moonlit night).

Also, I already know the kanji 哀れむ (あわれむ, to pity). However in this song the kanji is used for かなしい (哀しい, sad) instead of the usual 悲しい. According to Windows XP’s IME, 悲しい is for sad in the general sense while 哀しい has a more painful sense. An example is 哀しい響き (kanashii hibiki, a (painful) sad sound).

There are 3 new kanji:

臆蒼贈

And 6 new words:

This is Morning Musume’s 16th single (lyrics). An energetic happy song that I really enjoy.

The kanji 会う (あう, to meet) is very common. In this song, I meet (no pun intended) another あう, 逢う. 会う is for meeting someone in a general sense, while according to EDICT 逢う has a more dramatic sense. An example is ここで逢った (koko de atta, I met (my girlfriend) here (for the first time)).

I also already know 超える (こえる, to exceed), but in this soung I found another こえる, 越える. According to Windows XP’s IME, 超える is for quantity or limit, while 越える is for place or time. Some examples:

• 定員を超える (teiin wo koeru): to exceed the passenger capacity (e.g., boat)
• 予想を超える (yosou wo koeru): to exceed expectation
• 国境を越える (kokkyou wo koeru): to go past the country border
• 山を越える (yama wo koeru): to go past the mountains

So, these are the 2 kanji:

逢越

which corresponds to these 2 words:

For this time, there are noticably lots of organ-related kanji (e.g., 筋 (suji), muscle) because I once did a word hunt for organs.

I got 32 kanji:

盾矛唇緊撃縁怖擦踏沈透零潤肝腰爪掴抑渋褐斗膚舌濃戯灰額招筋肺震杯

And 116 words:

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Random words and kanji are those that I randomly encounter, for example while watching a movie.

Side-effect words are dictionary words that I picked when learning a new kanji from another dump. For example, I encountered 激しい (hageshii, intense) while hunting from a song. 激 was a new kanji for me, and to know its on-reading I searched for some compounds in the dictionary. Those compounds, e.g. 激化 (gekika, intensification) are considered side-effect words because they are not in the original material.

It is also possible that I deliberately set out to memorize words or kanji from a particular source, but the amount is too small to warrant its own section.

For this time, the notables sources are Hello! Morning and Hello! Project members.

I gathered 43 kanji:

李栞椰萩妨紫採維汁銭浜敢卑餓卬貰肋閏謗或誹旁沓弥迎琳駁痺睪臤癖漬披厳紋趣締避虚浦奏穴衝

And 364 words…

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Did you know that in Windows XP’s IME we can input a kanji by drawing it? (Does Ubuntu, and Linux in general, have it?) I will outlay the steps here.

Obviously you need to have the IME installed. See this Wikibook page. For illustration, we’ll use Notepad. So fire up Notepad, switch the IME on, and input any character on the keyboard. I use ‘a’, which the IME will convert to hiragana ‘あ’ on the fly:

The magic key is ‘F5′, which will launch the IME pad. Press it and you’ll get this:

Press “OK” and you’ll get this:

On the screen pictured above, you can find a kanji by its radical (部首, bushu). However that’s not what we’re interested in right now. To input by drawing, click the top-leftmost button (circled red). You’ll get this:

Here’s the explanation for the UI elements:

1. This is the drawing area. You draw the strokes here by holding the left mouse button and dragging.
2. Matching shapes (and not-so-matching shapes) you draw in (1) will be listed here. If you’ve found the kanji you want, just click it.
3. 戻す (modosu) means “to return”. Click this to undo the last stroke.
4. 消去 (shoukyo) means “erasing”. Click this to clear the drawing area.

One thing to note is that stroke order matters! Try to draw a perfectly matching shape but with a random stroke order, and chances are the program will not give the kanji you want.

The power of this tool cannot be underestimated. For one thing, it allows you to quickly find a printed character you see. Suppose you went to a mini market and see a notice written in Japanese (for example, in Circle K Terban, Yogyakarta). If there is an unknown kanji there, you won’t have any information other than its shape. Finding the kanji through the method explained above will be very easy. After you have the digital form of the character, you can find its readings, compounds, and meanings in electronic dictionaries.

Second, you can use it to input rare kanji easily. Suppose for some insane reason you want to write “koe” (sound) using the rare kanji 聲 instead of the normal 声 (see for example “Endless Rain” by X Japan). You know its sound (no pun intended), but you can’t find it by typing in the IME because that kanji is archaic (even EDICT don’t list it). However, by drawing it you can find the kanji.

The third is for writing names. When IME don’t recognize a name, you can input it by drawing character per character.

One essential aspect of learning a language is learning its vocabulary. In my Japanese study, this tranlates into learning kanji which are the building block of many words.

Most kanji are for things I am familiar with. Some examples are 人 (hito, person), 玉 (tama, ball), and 火 (hi, fire). Many are for common animals like 虫 (mushi, insect), 亀 (kame, turtle), and 猫 (neko, cat). Unexpectedly, I quite oftenly encounter kanji for an animal or plant that I have no knowledge about.

An example is 藤 (fuji, tou) which is the kanji for the plant genus Wisteria. It is found on many people’s name, such as 藤本美貴 (Fujimoto Miki), 後藤真希 (Gotou Maki), and 工藤新一 (Kudou Shin’ichi).

Using KANJIDIC or EDICT, I only get a brief description like “wisteria”. That is useless for someone with a shallow knowledge such as me, but enough as a pointer to get more information elsewhere. If I’m not online, my next stop is Stardict, which gives more detail such as “a climbing plant with purple or white flowers”. At least I could know that “Wisteria” is a plant, not something else like “hysteria”. My final stop is of course Wikipedia, which gives detailed descriptions and more importantly, images!

I’ll share some of the new living things I’ve discovered… Do you know them?

Wisteria

In Japanese, it is フジ (藤, fuji). And no, Mount Fuji is written differently. It is native to Japan and other countries including eastern US. It can climb by twisting itself along any available support. As I have written above, it is used on many people’s name. Anyone knows its Indonesian name?

Cicada

In Japanese, it is セミ (蝉, semi). I found it on Berryz Koubou’s song titled “Semi”. It is a family of insect that makes a lot of noise (but it’s different from Cricket). According to Wikipedia Indonesia, the Indonesian name is Tonggeret (never heard it before).

Chrysanthemum

In Japanese, it is キク (菊, kiku). I found it on an author’s name (菊池, Kikuchi) at the digital library Aozora Bunko. In Japan, this plant is a symbol of death and are only used for funerals (which means, don’t give it to your Japanese girlfriend). 菊花紋章 (kikukamonshou) is the name given to the position of Japanese emperor. By the way, I recently went to Moro department store and found a Chrysanthemum product. It is a Chinese product and how happy I was to see the character 菊 written on the box :). The Indonesian name is Seruni (never heard it before too).

Manchurian Violet

In Japanese, it is スミレ (菫, sumire). I also found it on a writer’s name (薄田泣菫, Sasakida Kyuukin, and please don’t ask me what “sasaki” means). Is it also “Violet” in Indonesia?

Japanese Royal Fern

In Japanese, it is ゼンマイ (薇, zenmai). I knew what a fern is, but I was curious whether this fern has a striking difference (nothing striking to a layman like me). Strangely, it is the kanji used in Rose (薔薇, bara), which is where I found it. In Indonesia, ferns are called paku or pakis.

If you want to be able to read people’s name, you’ll be sure to encounter lots of these exotic kanji. It’s almost like they’re forcing us to be a botanist or zoologist. You’ll also find these kanji in songs and literatures (e.g., novels), because writers want to look cool by using obscure characters.

As a closing, note that I use katakana to write the name of the plants and animal above. This is a modern practice, which originates from the scientific community. Even in the Japanese Wikipedia, the article for dog is titled イヌ (inu) despite its kanji 犬 being taught in grade 1 elementary school. It is probably a sensible decision, considering that there are countless living things on Earth.

My previous dump was on 2007-03-03, 18 days ago. During the period, I learned 202 kanji and 733 words. So, now my kanji count is 1516 and my word count is 7687.

But well, even that amount still sucks. Look at these marked Wikipedia articles: Aristotle, microbiology, Linux. The red kanji are the ones I haven’t learned (still damn lots of them!).

Gotta catch ‘em all?

Anyway, the posts for this dump batch are this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. If you’re from the main page, they’re the n consecutive blogs below this one :).

Another major accomplishment! I managed to learn the kanji and words from the Japanese Wikipedia article on Galileo (timestamped 2007-02-19 12:36).

Here are the 96 new kanji:

慣皇罠布破璧庁宛並従忠汐宅碩担丑看潮靖批翌促撤姓技噂贋脇庇往衛比而剥齎秤態識紐査郊斡炙禁虔退攻荘執阻旋兼擁凹拠訴昇扶凸払塔尼威肩抗抵軟斜依盲拒審稿拓称奪舶曇響沿疑域迫俊憲枢刺控措即敷釈邸誉埋但

And 205 words:

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