Japanese counters such as 〜人 or 〜枚 which attach to numerals to form words like 3人. There are a number of these you should know, such as their examples of 〜的 and 〜然. What Habein and Mathias refer to above as "auxiliary" I would categorize under "prefixes and suffixes". There are a couple ways you can put kanji together you'll need to be familiar with: That's a word you've got to learn, and coming up with your own compound for it simply won't work. Think about it this way: if you didn't know the compound television, you probably wouldn't come up with it yourself by putting tele and vision together. If you create your own without a good understanding of Japanese, you have a good chance of not being understood―and if you are understood, you have a good chance of sounding quite strange. Instead, we're taught that we should learn as many pre-existing Japanese compounds as possible. Still, although native speakers make new compounds fairly often, learners are generally taught not to make their own kanji compounds. This description isn't exhaustive, and there are other ways to catalogue compounds, but it should give you at least an overview of how they're put together. There are occasionally three-kanji compounds where all the kanji have contrasting meanings, such as 大中小(ダイ・チュウ・ショウ, large-medium-small): "large", "medium", and "small". 新時代(シン・ジダイ, new era): "new" and "age", or a two-kanji compound and a suffix, e.g. Three-kanji compounds are usually made with a prefix and a two-kanji compound, e.g. 左右(サユウ、left and right): "left" and "right" 子孫(シソン、descendants): "child" and "grandchild" Combination of two kanji with contrastive meanings Combination of two kanji of similar meaning When two kanji are in a nonsyntactic relationship:ī. 突然(トツゼン, suddenly): "sudden" (adjective) "state (of things)" (auxiliary) Auxiliary kanji 私的(シテキ、private): "I/me" (noun) "-ic, -ous" (auxiliary) Adverbial first kanji 不正(フセイ, injustice): "not" (adverb) "just" (adjective) 国宝(コクホウ, national treasure): "nation" (noun) "treasure" (noun)ĭ. Adjective/noun-noun 高級(コウキュウ, high class): "high" (adjective) "class" (noun) 在日(ザイニチ、(someone) stays in Japan): "to be" (verb) "Japan" (locative)Ĭ. Verb-object/locative 造船(ゾウセン、shipbuilding): "make" (verb) "boat" (object) Subject-predicate 地震(ジシン, earthquake): the "earth" (subject) "quakes" (predicate)ī. When two kanji are in a syntactic relationship:Ī. It catalogues several common types of compound: Below, I'll reproduce a description from Habein and Mathias' Decoding Kanji pp.25-27, which I believe is now out of print. Metaphor for how words are put together in Japanese because kanji so often correspond to the words or parts of words that can be compounded. Still, let's talk about "kanji compounds" for the time being. When you put these words or parts of words together, you can often (but not always) write the resulting compound using kanji. It's made of words and and parts of words, many (but not all) of which can be written with kanji. The Japanese language is not made of kanji. Technically speaking, kanji don't compound.
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