Singularity on the Plane

This is the coupling track of Morning Musume’s 25th single, “THE Manpower!!!”. Heh, I actually like this a lot more than the single itself :). The lyrics itself is quite silly, first being serious and asking questions like “Does peace exist because there is love, or does love exist because there is peace?” but eventually ends with “There’s no answer, so let’s just eat deliciously” :).

4 new kanji:

承蔭継懇

Stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 18.96
• New words in this song: 6
• New “average new words/song”: 18.52

And the words:

Also a song from Koharu’s 1st album (lyrics). It is also the coupling track of her first single (Koi ka na). A very nice and enjoyable ballad.

6 new kanji:

悩頬撫膨蕾姿

Stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 19.33
• New words in this song: 9
• New “average new words/song”: 18.96

And lastly, the words:

Another song from Koharu’s 1st album (lyrics). This song is quite crazy but also fun.

3 new kanji:

腕駆誘

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 19.81
• New words in this song: 7
• New “average new words/song”: 19.33

And the words:

A song from Kusumi Koharu’s 1st album, Mitsuboshi (lyrics). Here she stars as the anime character Tsukishima Kirari. The anime name is Kirarin Revolution, and it is about a girl who can’t sing but strives hard to be a singer (she has a romantic motive to be a singer, but I won’t tell much further).

Well, I don’t watch the anime and not a fan of Koharu. However I got the album cover (with kanji lyrics!) and so thought it would be a cool romanization excercise.

The song itself is quite nice.

So, 5 new kanji:

暖匂斯溢飽

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 20.04
• New words in this song: 14
• New “average new words/song”: 19.81

And 14 words:

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This is from track 3 of Morning Musume’s 7th album, “Rainbow 7″ (lyrics). A really fun and energizing song, with trumpets and harmonica!

There are 4 new kanji:

眩吹繋輝

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 20.54
• New words in this song: 8
• New “average new words/song”: 20.04

And the words:

This is from Matsuura Aya’s single (lyrics). I think I first heard it on a Hello! Project concert. Nice song.

There are only 2 new kanji:

縺眺

The new word stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 21.13
• New words in this song: 7
• New “average new words/song”: 20.54

And the words themselves:

I kanjified 72 words on my word list. In the process I learned 31 new kanji:

己裂閣陛朕痛撮疲壊砕抜蚊喫困煙蛇菓傘逃帽拙眼汚奴郵謝条垂余勧慌

Here are the 72 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.

A notable source for the current dump is guidetojapanese.org and the name of Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou members.

There are 51 new kanji:

彩暇磨擬譲怒穏契華吉皆叫翼裕蝉痩呟茉莉閑臥釆菅餌澤雍卿嗣雅沙箇荒柳拳圭奈須智紗属欲玄琴勢妻尊垣寧謙耶紺

And 405 words:

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We will learn 3 shapes this time!

First is the plant shape. Observe the blue shapes in these kanji:

草 is the kanji for grass (kusa), 花 is the kanji for flower (hana), and 菜 is the kanji for vegetables (na). I call the blue shape the “plant” shape. Here’s an image of two plants:

For decoration, I made the flowers bloom :). Note that you can see the roots underground. The superimposed image should make it clear why it is called the plant shape:

Of course the discussion wouldn’t be complete without the stroke order:

OK, the plant shape… I’ll guarantee that you will meet it often (and many times in a plant-related kanji). The other two shapes are less common but I bring it here because they are similar to the plant shape.

Next is the bridge shape. See the blue shapes in the following kanji:

算 is the kanji for calculation (san), 鼻 is the kanji for nose (hana), and 械 is the kanji for machine (kai). This shape is devilish because it is so similar to the previous one. Having a completely different mnemonic is a must if you don’t want things mixed up. Look at the image below:

It is a nice bridge that allows you to cross the river! The image fits well with the shape:

Hence it is called the “bridge” shape. Remember, the key point is the bend on the left vertical stroke. Plant roots don’t bend sideways because, well… probably because gravity. Or is it because they can “smell” more water below and try to dig downwards as far as they could? Whatever, here’s the stroke order:

Now for the last one, the fence shape. Take a good look at the blue shapes below:

黄 means yellow (ki), 散 means to scatter (chi.ru), and 昔 means olden days (mukashi). It’s the plant shape with an extra stroke! But I use a different mnemonic, not related to plants, so that those two aren’t mixed up. Look at my drawing below:

Why, it’s a nice fence that protects the garden… Focus on the two vertical woods, and superimpose the kanji shape:

It fits perfectly! Therefore I call it the “fence” shape. The stroke order:

I hope with those mnemonics, your kanji quest can be made easier. Happy kanji hunting!

In Japanese, the kana ん (n) is considered a sound that can stand by itself. It sounds somewhat like “uhm”.

In normal speaking the ん sticks to the preceding kana. For example, りんご (ringo, apple) is pronounced “rin-go”, not “ri-n-go” (ri-”uhm”-go). Note that because ん is considered one mora (beat), “rin” (composed of 2 mora, “ri” and “n”) should sound longer than “go” (only 1 mora). The elongation is done by holding the “n” sound for a while.

However, in songs ん is oftenly detached and voiced by itself! This is very funny considering that the same thing doesn’t happen in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Consider Indonesian words like “jantan”, “makan”, and “jalan”. In songs (and conversation), they are always pronounced as “jan-tan”, “ma-kan”, and “ja-lan”. The same thing holds in English (e.g., “wo-man”, “ten”, “a-gain”, “A-me-ri-can”). ‘n’ never gets its own note.

An Indonesian or English song where the ‘n’ is forcibly separated would sound wacko. Try to imagine it… However enter the Japanese music world and a lone ‘n’ doesn’t seem weird at all… Two examples:

Anshinkan (Berryz Koubou): Nee itsu datte anshin shitai no yo (a-n-shi-n)
Aozora ga Itsumade mo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are! (Morning Musume): So donna toki mo jibun jishin shinjite GO (do-n-na, ji-bu-n, ji-shi-n, shi-n-ji-te)

Of course ん can also stick to the preceding sound like in normal speaking, so it all depends on the songwriter. In these following examples the ん isn’t separated:

Sakura Mankai (Morning Musume Sakura Gumi): aa sakura mankai, nee sakura mankai mune no naka (man-ka-i)
Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Morning Musume): onnaji kuukan kuukan eiga no naka kansei kansei (on-na-ji, kuu-kan, kan-sei)

I’ve said that in speaking (conversation, speech, anything other than songs) the ん is normally attached. That is almost always the case. However, I’ve actually encountered the isolated case several times! Here’s one example from a casual talk:

Sugaya Risako: ma… zenbu… kawaiin desu kedo, atashi ga ichiban… (i-chi-ba-n)

Of course, you can deliberately separate the ん if you want to give a slow motion effect. However I don’t consider that normal speaking. Nevertheless, this is what Sayumi does on her radio show:

Michishige Sayumi: Mooningu Musume Michishige Sayumi no “Konya mo Usa-chan peace…” (ko-n-ya)

To finish, I offer the audio file that contains all the above examples:

n-sound.ogg (duration 1:01, 515 KB): MediaFire mirror; 3000mb mirror; Indonesian mirror

(Audio made using the open source audio editor Audacity. To play the audio file in Windows you might need to install the codecs from Illiminable.)