Hiragana for Day 45

「む」の発音（はつおん）は/mu/です. 「む」はま行magyouの３番目（さんばんめ）のかなです。ま行はひらがなの７（なな）行目です。 「む」の由来（ゆらい）は「武」という漢字（かんじ）です. Words to practice for today: 村（むら） village 昔（むかし） a long time ago 虫（むし） bug 虫歯（むしば） cavity 無駄（むだ） waste お結び（おむすび） a rice ball 住む（すむ） to live 無視する（むしする） to ignore 六つ（むっつ） six 難しい（むずかしい） difficult

There are no more 濁点（だくてん）.

Today is a long lesson in vocabulary. At this point, most of the かな should be familiar even though they haven't all been formally introduced, so hopefully this will not be too hard.

One point about む is that it may not look balanced when you practice writing it. This is one of the characteristics of this かな; even the brush-type in the 書き順（かきじゅん） picture looks a little off-balance.

Vocabulary notes

日本（にほん also pronounced にっぽん） Japan is divided into 47 regions known as prefectures in 英語（えいご） English and as 都道府県（とどうふけん） in 日本語（にほんご but (almost) never にっぽんご）。

東京（とうきょう） is the only 都（と） prefecture, not a city, and in fact includes many 市（し） cities.

北海道（ほっかいどう） is the only 道（どう） prefecture. Although suffixes like 都、県、and 市 are optional when naming a place, 北海道 is never referred to as 北海。 The prefectural seat of 北海道 is 札幌市（さっぽろし）, the name of which comes from Ainu, a nearly extinct native people with there own language in northern 日本。

京都（きょうと） and 大阪（おおさか） are both 府（ふ） prefectures. The prefectural seats of 京都府 and 大阪府 are 京都市 and 大阪市。

All the other prefectures are 県。Within each 都道府県 are 市（し） cities、町（ちょう） towns and 村（そん） villages. In conversation and sometimes names, 町 can be called 町（まち） and 村（むら）。

The head of a 都道府県 is known as a 知事（ちじ） a prefectural governor. 知事 also refers to governors of states in foreign countries.

The head of 市町村（しちょうそん） are 市長（しちょう）、町長（ちょうちょう） and 村長（そんちょう）。 City hall is 市役所（しやくしょ）。 Large cities have 区（く） wards, the office for which are called 区役所（くやくしょ）。 The town/village halls are 町役場（まちやくば） and 村役場（むらやくば）。

Although そん is used in some names and official context, the conversational pronunciation of 村 is むら。 A person who lives in a 村 is called a 村人（むらびと）。

昔々（むかしむかし）、おじいさんとおばあさんがいました (A long, long time ago, there was an old woman and an old man) is a common way to start a 童話（どうわ） children's story (fairy tale). Another word for a 童話 is 昔話（むかしばなし）。

虫（むし） is a general word like bug that includes spiders and insects.

虫歯（むしば） is not a bug tooth, but just a cavity.

無駄（むだ） means waste in the sense of being not helpful. Talking to someone who does not listen is 無駄.

Although お結び（おむすび） can be simply salted rice balls, they often are wrapped with a piece of のり seaweed on the outside and have something good like 鮭（さけ） salmon or 梅干（うめぼし） pickled plum inside. お結び are more commonly known as お握り（おにぎり）. In both cases, the honorific お is mandatory.

The verb 住む means to live at a location, not 生きる（いきる） be alive or 暮らす（くらす） to live one's daily life.

As you can see, the pronounciation of むし is bug when written 虫 and ignore when written 無視。 When learning 漢字（かんじ）, this can be frustrating, but is convenient once they are mastered.

無視 belongs to a large group of Chinese compounds that are made into verbs by adding the verb する to do. Although some people consider する a separate verb class, there is only one verb, so it is easier to remember it as 不規則動詞（ふきそくどうし） an irregular verb. In Japanese there are only about four irregular verbs, including the most common, する。

When counting, there are two options: the native Japanese counting system or the Chinese system. (Chinese refers to the numbers borrowed hundreds of years ago. There is also a more modern Chinese borrowing used in 麻雀（まあじゃん） mah jong. The English number system also plays an important part in Japanese.) With rare exceptions, the Japanese counting system is only used through ten:

You may have noticed that 十 has two different 読み（よみ） readings with the same meaning. The correct 読み is judged according to context.

形容詞（けいようし） adjectives are easier to conjugate than verbs, but unlike in most European languages, they do conjugate. Another thing about 形容詞 is that they can act as the 述語（じゅつご） predicate of a sentence.

In English and other European languages, every sentence (normally) needs a verb. In Japanese, every sentence needs a verb or adjective.

これは難しい。 This [is] difficult.

There is no word for "is" in this situation. In Japanese, the 形容詞 is allow to control the entire sentence. 形容詞 conjugate, so there is a past form that in English we would normally think of as being "was difficult." Some of the conjugations are:

In the last two rows, なる is just the 動詞（どうし） verb meaning "become." This pattern works for all 形容詞。

Please keep the 書き順 と方向!

書き順と方向をしっかりと守ってください。

前のかな次のかな

Copyright 02/08/00 Benjamin Barrett

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