It's one of the many rules that I know but can't explain very well, which is why I wanted one of you to explain in more detail.

It's good to know I was misinformed about the use of 我々, perhaps when they said old people use it I thought they meant really old people use it, as I haven't heard any adults say it myself. Heh, now that I think about it the only adults I've spoken japanese to are my old teachers.

Oh well, let's get some more kanji in here!

How about a funny-looking compound?

凸凹　（でこぼこ） = unevenness, bumps

凸凹の道　（でこぼこのみち）　= a bumpy road

赤霧　あかきり

I like thoes 2 for some reason.

I was going just to post that one!

雫 - しずく(drops; droplets; drip)
雲 - くも (clouds)
雷 - かみなり (thunder)
雪 - ゆき (snow)

The fourth one is rarely seen where I live in the U.S. unfortunately... All of these are related in some way to 雨

Sadly I don't see much of it either.

following on from Harold's post i remembered one.
魚雷ぎょらい　torpedo
fairly useless kanji but the compound made me laugh :D

Just out of the blue.......


任天堂　（にんてんどう）　＝　Nintendo

In a lot of Chinese books I have read (that have been written in english) the author always says that the opposite always has some word infront of it to make it opposite.
For example say you had the word for love, you would keep that word, put a word before it and get 'hate', does this work in japanese?

My favourite kanji has to be 人 - ひと - hito - it's really simple to remember and the woman who used to teach me japanese was called 'hitomi' so it's really easy to remember for me anyway.

Yes, it does. It works that way in many cases if not always.


必要　（ひつよう） = Necessary

不必要　（ふひつよう） = Unnecessary

可能　（かのう） = Possible

不可能　（ふかのう） = Impossible


Please tell me if this wasn't what you were referring to. Or give an actual Chinese example. Thanks.