 Hello everybody and welcome to the class once again. We have been doing a lot of grammar in our previous classes and learning a lot of kotowaza, proverbs, doing a lot of vocabulary, learning a lot of expressions, but that will not suffice actually. That is not all that we have to do. I have also been doing kanji with you and those are the pictograms. We have been covering a lot of them. We have covered a lot of them in our classes and today we will talk about kanji. We will talk about what kanji is, how it came into being, what are the different ways, different methods in which we can divide it into sections, how it is to be written, what is stroke order, what are the onyomi and kunyomi, how it came into Japan. So all those things we are going to talk about today and not do grammar or our conversation practice. So well, there are a lot of things that I want to tell you. What actually is kanji? What comes to your mind when you think of kanji? When someone tells you this is kanji or this is a character, this is a Chinese character. What comes to your mind first and foremost? What exactly it is? What does it show? Kanji characters are pictograms. They are ideas, they are representation of a certain idea, a certain pictogram, a certain concept in line form, in vertical and horizontal lines. What you think? What idea comes to your mind when you look at a certain thing and how you would depict that idea, how you would show that idea in lines is what kanji is all about. For example, I think I told you in the beginning as well, when you look at a mountain, what comes to your mind or how do you make a mountain? Well, for us as we are not Chinese, we would make mountains like this and the moment you see something like this, automatically you know in your mind that we are talking about mountains or if I show something like this, what comes to your mind? Everybody will say this is water that we are talking about water. If I draw this picture in front of you, what does it look like? You will not say this is a flower, you will always say it is a tree. So how do you depict all of this? How do you show all of this in lines is what kanji is all about. That is what we are going to do today. Now when we talk of pictograms, these are the pictures that come to our mind and we show them in lines. But kanji is not only pictograms, they are also ideas. You look at something, a certain idea comes to your mind and then you want to show it in lines. So that is what we are going to do today. Well, how did kanji come into existence? As we all know, are aware of that earlier when there were no scripts, when we could not write, how did we communicate? Well, we were communicating with pictures most of the time. We would draw something and try to communicate to the other person what we were feeling or show our feelings by mode of pictures. Draw something, show it, make something, show it and the idea was conveyed. Now there are a number of theories, number of legends, how actually kanji came into being. Kanji is basically from China. One of the Chinese historians long back, maybe about 6000 years ago, maybe even more thought that why not show these pictures, these ideas in lines and that is how the concept of kanji came into being. Now whether this is actually true, whether actually this happened, nobody knows but well there is a story like this, there is a theory and people feel that maybe this is what happened. But what is known is that about 4000 years ago, the earliest kanji characters that were seen that were found on tortoise shells, on copper plates, on stones were quite modified actually, were had undergone a lot of change from their original form. They had been changed, they had been modified, they had been simplified and were being used by the people. Now this happened in somewhere in the 16th century BC, the 17th century BC. Now the kanji that we see is even more simplified, even more systematic and easy to understand. Now you would want to know how and when these characters came into Japan. Similarly, Japan did not have a writing system before kanji came into Japan and this happened somewhere in the 4th century AD. So till then there was nothing, Japan did not have a script of their own. Now how did it come into Japan is very simple, there was trade going on, people were moving about, travelling a lot, going to places, carrying their goods from one place to another, doing business with other countries and that is how via Korea in the 4th century AD through paintings, through souvenirs, through cloth, these kanji characters entered into Japan. Now when the Japanese people saw this, they found it very interesting because they could say whatever they wanted, they could write something in some kind of a script, some kind, some form it could be documented, otherwise they could speak the language, they could understand the language but there was nothing they could write it down in. So this was a very welcome change which they felt they needed to do. Now when the script, the Chinese characters or pictograms, ideograms came into Japan, well the Japanese had a language of their own, the Chinese sent or somehow the characters landed into Japan. Now how do you write something in Japanese? So what the Japanese did was initially they used these characters phonetically, that is whatever was being said was written. For example, you know this character kuni, kuni means country, we all know that. You know the character also for kuni, like this, this is how it is made, a closed area and you put a kanji over here, a small something in lines over here and this means it is a country. But it has two sounds to it, ku and ni. So if some characters are coming from China and have this reading ku and ni, that is what was put for kuni. Now what the character was is very simple, ku and ni, ku and ni. This is what was used for kuni, which means country and the character that is used now is this character kuni. Now the problem with this system using kanji characters phonetically was that each character would have a number of such characters, such sounds and that would make it very very complicated, very very difficult to remember and to understand. For example, words like watashi or even bigger words would have three or four kanji characters and that would make it very very difficult. So thus this was dropped at some time, this was changed and then characters were used as an idea, ideographically meaning that Japanese meanings were put for certain characters without considering their Chinese meanings or words. So initially it was phonetic, then it was as an idea you would just use the Japanese reading for a certain character a, which also had a reading over here in Chinese, but that was not considered and only the Japanese meaning with the character was considered. This was done for a very very long time and it was used. Also even after the Chinese characters came into Japan, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji were used independently. Of course now you would have seen and we have done also over here in our lessons that all three scripts are used together. You must have noticed that Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji all are written together and the language is incomplete without the other. But earlier for a very very long time all three were used independently and the whole language could be written in either of the scripts. And now of course the total number of Chinese characters that are used in Japan are about 1,945 and it is interesting that the students in Japan are supposed to read, are supposed to study these characters over a total period of 12 years. Till class 12 they do a certain amount every year and then towards the end they are able to master all the 2000 or approximately 2000 characters. Now why it is difficult or it is difficult for the foreigners is because each character will have minimum two readings. Now why two readings? Because one will be a Chinese reading of course, there will be a Chinese reading and then there will also be a Japanese reading through a certain character probably A. There is one reading over here and there is one reading over here. So minimum two readings are there and then of course you can imagine the combinations with 2000 characters of these readings. And of course not only two readings but minimum is two but sometimes you may even have readings up to four maybe even five with some special readings. So it becomes extremely difficult if you do not see these characters every day, you do not practice them every day, do not read them every day, it becomes a little difficult to remember them. Well, now of course a lot of kanjis are simplified and they are used now in Japanese. These kanjis can be divided into pictograms, into ideograms, into complex characters. As we did just now you could see the pictograms over here for kawa, for yama, for mizu. The three I showed you just now kawa, yama and mizu, these are simple. You look at something and that picture comes to your mind and you draw the picture in lines and it is very very clear. I have also done it in class but what about ideas? See a kawa is like this, you see something running like this, you will automatically say it is a river or ocean. So how would you depict this? In straight lines it would be like this, 1, 2 and 3 like this. But if we are talking about some idea for example, say on top of my hand, under my hand or inside like this, then how will you show that? Now that becomes a little difficult to show. Those could be seen or could be shown very clearly for example, on top of something. So you cannot make a dot over here and say ok on top of something and this means upper above, you will have to show it in lines. So above the moment you look at this character you know that it means on top. If you look at this character, this is a box, a simple box. If you do like this, it means inside or passing through naka. So these are some of the simple ideas that you can show in kanji form. Then also you have complex characters, you can also join a number of characters and then make your kanji. For example, I just now did this character with you of a tree. So how will you make a tree now? We have done it in class simple, 1, 2 and then this. So if you look at this character of a tree and this reminds you of a tree. If you look at this one, this makes a mountain and that is exactly what we did for mountains over here. So this character when you look at it, it is a mountain. When you look at this, this is a river generally and in kanji form this is a river. If you look at this, this is a tree and make a character out of it. This is how it is going to be made. Now this tree if you want to show its woods, it is a jungle then what do you do? A jungle has lot of trees. So you need to show or make two trees like this and this character immediately would mean that it is a small jungle. It is not a very dense forest but it is a small jungle, it is a small forest. Now if you want to show that it is a very big jungle, what do you do? Again these characters are joined and put them like this and this makes it a very, very big, a dense forest or a jungle. That is how you generally join characters and you show your kanji. You make your kanji. All this is about ideograms and pictograms. How would you write kanji? What is the easiest way of writing kanji? Now there are lines only in the vertical and in horizontal and sometimes as you just now saw in ki, some of the lines are slanting. So how would you write? It is a set pattern to write kanji characters. You cannot just start from anywhere, from any line anywhere and end it anywhere. There is a set pattern for doing it, there is a system of doing it, if there is a block like this. One thing is very essential before you even think of drawing any lines, your last line should end in this corner. Why? Because you need to write another character over here and it is easy to go from this place to this place. Your pen or your brush will take you immediately from here to here. So always have to remember this that whatever the stroke order it has to end in this corner. Now how does that happen? For example, if we draw this very simple, make this very simple character over here. This one ki, 1, 2, 3 and see it will end over here in this block. And to make another ki quickly I can immediately go from here to here. So that part is important. Now there are lot of do's and don'ts about writing kanji. These kanji characters are straight lines and vertical lines. One has to remember that always the straight line will come first. All the time any kanji character that you begin, you have to make the straight line first. Then comes the vertical part. The second line will generally be vertical. If you have two straight lines, well two straight lines will come first and then the vertical stroke will be made. As is the case over here, 1, 2, then as we need to end it over here, naturally this side will come first and then this side will be made. Let us try to make on a graph sheet because you have lines drawn very nicely and proportionately and you can choose a block and then try to make here. So it is very very proportionate and balanced. There are a lot of other things that we need to remember about these kanji characters. For example, as I told you just now kanji has to be always written with the horizontal line coming in first. Now you have done a character like this. If you remember, what is this? This is time, ji, ichi, ji. So what have I done? Have I started the character from here like this and then going on like this and making it here or maybe just making here and then here and then coming here? No, there is a set pattern. You first make this character, then make this one, then do this one and then this one. So this is how it is to be written. It goes from top to bottom all the time. The first stroke has to be here, then here, then something may come here, something may come here and maybe something like this. Though this is not a character please but I am just trying to tell you that this is how it should be made. First character is horizontal from top to bottom like this. This is how it is made. Look at this character here, one, two and then three. This character has something to do with construction, with making something. You have done a lot of such characters, for example you have done this one like this. So one, two, three, four and then five. So always the first top one will come first horizontal, vertical and then ending over here in this corner. So you always right from left to right as you just saw with kawa, one, two and three kawa. Also you have done with chi-sai. The center one will come first and then this one and then it will end over here. So now you can see that it comes from top to bottom, it comes from left to right as we did just now and then it comes from the middle. The middle stroke has to be done first. For example for the middle stroke you have also done mizu, which is water. You have also done other strokes like komei, komei is rice, the horizontal, the vertical, one, two and then three and four. So it will end over here. This means komei, komei is rice. Incidentally this character is also used for America, for the United States as it is considered the rice country. You have also done another one with hii, one, two, three and four. With the horizontal stroke I just told you that the horizontal stroke comes first. There are a few exceptions yes. With any of these actually there are exceptions. With the horizontal stroke one exception which you have done is kuchi. So you will see that first you have the vertical strokes and then the other strokes follow. And there is another one here, one, two, three, four and five. So you can see this is a field over here. In these two characters the vertical stroke comes first. Then in certain kanjis where the character is cutting the kanji horizontally or vertically both in such a case it comes in the end. We just did it this one like this. This is a vertical stroke which comes in the end after you have written the character. In case of a horizontal stroke which cuts the character completely is on nanohito again on top and that stroke comes in the end. You have so many kanjis as I have already told you and different ways of writing it. There are certain rules but of course exceptions are also there. Now there are certain kanjis which are written enclosed. For example we just did this character of kuni like this. So you have a character here and then something written inside. So this is how kanji is written. It is easy to write it like this. It is simpler if you try to memorize the stroke order. It is essential also that you memorize the stroke order because it is easy to write and go to the next character quickly. Now we have been talking about kanji but how do we divide kanji? How do we separate them? How do we categorize them? There are strokes, there is stroke order to remember, there is reading of the character to remember and then there is radical to remember. So we will deal each of these very quickly but first and foremost let us talk about strokes. So you have done characters with 2 strokes, 3 strokes, 4 strokes and so many of them some even 11 strokes and 12 strokes we have done. For example, 2 strokes ni, juu, shichi, kyu, so many of these with 2 strokes hito, 2 strokes hairu, 2 strokes then we also have with 3 strokes 1, 2, 3 san of course then we have kuchi, we have ue then also we have a number of other characters also. For example, we have shita, we have doyobi which you have done as like this. So there are 3 stroke characters. You also have 4 stroke characters like and most of them you have done nichi, 1, 2, 3, 4 then you have sirki, 1, 2, 3, 4 and you have 1, 2, no this will not work. This is the 5 stroke character 1, 2, 3, 4 go. So these are some characters which are 4 stroke characters. So this is how you have been doing in class and this goes on till 23. Though of course 23, 22, 21 characters are very few and are generally not used in a generally most of the time not used in conversation. So this is stroke order which is important and you can see there is a pattern over there which you need to know. For example, if you have a 5 stroke character like 5 over here. There is a pattern 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. You cannot write 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 there is a set pattern this is how you are supposed to write. Then you also have may over here 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. You cannot write 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 that cannot be done. So the stroke order is extremely important. Then why is it that we have so many readings for a character? We are always worried, we always are flustered over this as to why a certain character needs to have so many readings. As I told you earlier two readings are extremely essential as one is a Chinese reading and one is a Japanese reading. But beyond that also number of characters will have two readings. So the reading that is of the country that is Japan is Kuniyomi, yomi is the way you read it and the reading that is Chinese is the Oniyomi. So that is the reason and the combinations of these characters lead to more readings all the time. For example, we can divide characters by their readings also. You have done this character ki, you have also done this character for ki though both are very different. They are very very different, they are not same at all but both have the same reading. For example, you have done ki, you have also done ki. This is mood, this is tree. So this can again be put into the same reading section that it has a similar reading and can be divided with readings. For example, you have done another character sen which is thousand and sensei no sen also you have done. This means earlier or before. So these are some of the readings that you can see very clearly as you have done these and you can understand how kanji can be put into a certain section by grouping it into same readings. So this was a little introduction of kanji to you and still there is lots more to do in the kanji section. Also we have radicals which give a basic meaning to the character which tells you about the character which from which you can also gather and make some other kanjis and some associated meanings also you can understand. So this radical part we will do in our next class. Try to digest what we have done today. Try to read it again and see. Try to find some more similar kanjis which have similar readings. Try to group some of the kanjis with their stroke order and try to group them in one section. Try to group a few with readings and then we will meet again next time and try to discuss radicals in our next class. Till then, minasan mata ashita aimashou. Arigatou gozaimasu. Thank you.