Kanji and TL'ing

Kanji, (漢字) one of the three (four if you count romaji) Japanese written　languages. The others being Hiragana (Japanese words) and Katakana (Foreign words in Japanese).

Now Kanji itself is entirely borrowed from the Chinese language. As if a Japanese Man or Woman were to go to China, they would be able to read everything, and that somewhat goes for a Chinese visiting Japan.


Kanji is very important for TL'ing, since it can help us distinguish words apart.


Here's an example, Take two phrases:
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon (I'll blog about this later if you want an explanation), and Hitagi Senjougahara


The part we are interested in is the Senjou.
Pasted senjou into EUdict, Here is what I get.


Now that doesn't help me at all.
Kyoukai Senjou Horizon, is "Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere" not "Horizon of the Battle's Boundary" as cool as that sounds.


In order to get a better grasp of what the words mean, we have to look at the Kanji.


Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - 境界線上のホライゾン
Senjougahara Hitagi - 戦場ヶ原 ひたぎ


To isolate the Senjou's, they are:


戦場 and 線上.


If we paste 戦場 into EUdict, Here is what we get. Battleground
If we paste 線上 into EUdict, Here is the English translation, On the line.


Different words, same pronunciation. That's why Kanji is important.




But wait! Rel! if we paste 上 we get this, and I thought the word for 上 is うえ.
Well, in fact, all of those are correct. In Japanese, every Kanji has multiple readings, meanings, and can change based on the words before and after it.


Small wonder Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn.