Saturday, July 31, 2010

Kanji Beginner: Umi - "Sea/Ocean"

I just got back from a friend's birthday party on the beach, hence tonight's theme (Happy Birthday again, Jason!). "Umi", or "sea/ocean", is a fun 3-in-1 kanji that makes perfect sense once you look at the parts.




The first part in building our "umi" is "mother", which is a woman's breasts (no kidding).


"Person", which we've already learned, is this:


If you put these two together, it means "every" because every man has a mother, right?


Add our third element, "water" 水 (squeezed into a few drops when put into compounds), next to "every" and you have "every water", which is... the sea. Cool, huh?

No comments: