Kanji for "sun"

[helmi7]

Wasup man

I've tried to look these simples on google and I found.....





















calendar No sun..

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by RadioKid

I think my answer above will be 90% right as far as in current usual conversations.

That would be right. Just wanted to clarify it from an academic perspective.

I also misunderstood the original question, I thought the person wanted to find out about what the characters mean, instead I think he wants to know when he uses the Japanese word ひ, is there any difference between writing it as 日 or 陽 in which case, your explaination would make perfect sense although writing everything as 日 isn't wrong either.

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by shooon

You can say 太陽, but not 太日.
I don't know why...I'm sorry.m(_ _)m

There probably isn't any reason except 日's counter part is 月.
But 太陽's counter part is 太陰, a old way of saying the moon.

[RadioKid]

Though it is not sensitive subject (to enjoy the discussion), I would like to point out 陽 is basically used with 陰 like as 陰陽(minus and plus side of things). 陰陽 also means shadow side and lighten side. This leads 陽 for sun-light.

As for the comparison of "陽が落ちる" and "日が落ちる", it might be caused by the Japanese IME(Input Method Editor). As most Japanese does not care of the difference of 陽 and 日, "ひがおちる" would be converted to "日が落ちる" by default. Considering this default conversion, unexpectedly many people choice "陽が落ちる" consciously.

>IMHO, 陽 simply means 太陽.
By the way, what do youmean by IMHO?

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by RadioKid

By the way, what do youmean by IMHO?

In my humble opinion (IMHO),　私の考えでは・恐縮ですが…

Personally I don't think people should get too hung up on Kanji selection. It belongs to the realm of trivia rather than practicality.

[RadioKid]

Thank you.

And I agree to you ignoring the trivia of Kanji Usage for foreign people.

Some of Japanese (like me) are keen to check the usages of Kanji at the communication between Japanese people.

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by RadioKid

Some of Japanese (like me) are keen to check the usages of Kanji at the communication between Japanese people.

IMHO Kanji in Japanese is very very very very complex and involves a lot of memory work. Much more complex than anything a Chinese person would even dream of.

I'm not surprised why Japanese learners are confused over Kanji, there are countless KUN readings, but even ON reading has 3 varieties, and when to use what is total guesswork, it's just madness.

When you wrote 陰陽, I had trouble figuring out whether i should read it as いんよう or おんみょう. This is crazy.

But apparently it makes good business (漢検協会・受験者２７２万人), and its great quiz material (熱血、平成教育学院・ネップリーグ・ヘキサゴンＩＩ etc.)

You know this thing is out of control when it Kanji reading guessing is a regular section on quiz shows in Japan for Japanese!

[chryuop]

Speaking of what reading to use...

I use Raichan, I am sure native speakers don't need it so they don't know it. Raichan is an add-on for the internet browser (Firefox only). Everytime you pass the arrow on top of a kanji or kanji coumpound anywhere on the screen it opens a small "floating" box with the reading and meaning of the kanji itslef.
Now my question

Please don't ask me which ones, because I really can't remember, but I have notice that quite a few times Raichan for the same kanji compound gives 2 different redings (sometimes both using different 音読み and sometimes using 1 音読み and 1 訓読み). Since the translation is the same, why using two different readings for the same compounds and same meanings?

[kirakira]

Originally Posted by chryuop

Please don't ask me which ones, because I really can't remember, but I have notice that quite a few times Raichan for the same kanji compound gives 2 different redings (sometimes both using different 音読み and sometimes using 1 音読み and 1 訓読み). Since the translation is the same, why using two different readings for the same compounds and same meanings?

Basically, this is because Japanese does not have its own native writing system back in the days.

訓読み - When Chinese characters were introduced, they went through each Kanji, was told what it meant in Chinese, then they grabbed a word from the Japanese vocab and assigned it to that character. That's how they got 訓読み。Sometimes a Character can have many meanings hence why it can have any 訓読み readings.

音読み - The Japanese sent 遣唐使（けんとうし）scholars to China in 3 different eras and each time they landed in different areas of China. Native Japanese has a limited vocabulary and cannot express complex ideas so they want to borrow Chinese words to fill in that gap. To do that, they need to know how the Chinese characters are pronounced in Chinese (at the time). What happened is, each time they went, Chinese evolved and the pronounciation of Chinese changed slightly, so when they came back to Japan, they kept on introducing new 音読み readings with them (the latest version at that time). These days, there are 3 音読み for each character, 呉音、唐音 and 漢音 which represents different Chinese eras.

Example:
生：生産（セイさん）、誕生日（たんジョウび）

On occasions, a Chinese character may have more than one reading such as 重 which can mean heavy （重い）or repeat/cross over（重ねる）in which case there will be 2 音読み readings for the same era. じゅう meaning heavy 重量 and ちょう meaning repeat 重複.

重箱読み、湯桶読み - Also the Japanese didn't sit still, they started inventing words by mashing Japanese words with Chinese words so you started getting compound words which is half Japanese and half Chinese, like frankentein, examples include 本屋（ホンや） and 鶏肉（とりニク）.

当て字 - Occasionaly, a compound word (i.e. word that is formed using 2 or more characters) in Chinese can express a meaning that cannot be expressed by a single character alone. At the same time, there is a correponding Japanese native word that means exactly that, so what the Japanese did is they took the compound word and assigned a Japanese reading to it as a set reading.

This is fantastic quiz material and is often seen on Japanese quiz shows because there is no pattern, its total memory work. Examples include words you already know like 今日（きょう）, 明日（あした）, but it gets hairy when it gets to animal and planet names like 水母（クラゲ） and 海豚（イルカ）.

And people wonder why Japanese Kanji is so hard.

[chryuop]

I am sorry Kirakiraさん, I must have not explained myself very well. I already knew what you explained, but what I meant is something else.

Unfortunately the only 2 example that come to my mind are not 100% the right sample for my question, but I will try anyway. Take Japan: 日本 which can be read にほん or にっぽん. I understand this is a case of phonetic adjustment, but there are case where the readings are completely different yet keeping the same meaning. Another example (but even this case won't work perfectly because the meaning is not 100% the same) is 一寸 where you can say it ちょっと or いっすん.
I can't think of more appropriate examples...sorry