About The Japanese Language

Japanese for the martial arts can be daunting, even for Japanese people. Many of the words and phrases are not the Japanese of everyday usage.

The martial arts of Okinawa date back to ancient times when Okinawa was a tiny independent country with a strong ties to China. Cultural exchanges between China and the people of Okinawa regularly occurred during this period. The native martial arts of ancient Okinawa were strongly influenced by Chinese chuan’fa. Even today, martial arts terms often use the alternative Chinese pronunciations for a kanji, making the language of the martial arts challenging even for a Japanese person.

I have been interested in the Japanese language for many years. I started out just like you, learning to count and responding to commands. In 1987, I heard Sōke Kaichō Kinjō speak when he came to the Lincoln dojo for the first time. A tiny and largely ignored voice said, “I could learn Japanese.” Several years later I decided to teach myself hiragana and katakana and a few simple kanji, more or less as a pastime. Honestly, I just thought the kanji were cool. I bought a brush pen. I learned the strokes. So fun!

At about the same time I began to take notes during karate seminars. As part of that note taking, I began to collect frequently used karate words as I heard Sōke Kaichō Kinjō use them. I had the vague plan of making a martial arts dictionary. My approach was Japanese as a puzzle. I struggled to determine the kanji, spelling and definitions of my karate word collection. Surprisingly, this information was not readily available. I do enjoy puzzles, so I was happy with the challenge. After buying a lot of books and wearing out a couple of paper dictionaries, I discovered the Internet. Over time that little voice became, “I could learn enough Japanese to speak to Sōke Kaichō Kinjō.” Ha! (said with great scorn). Several Japanese tutors, NJStar and Google Translate later, I can communicate in writing more or less accurately and politely. Conversation remains a distant goal.

I hope some of you will benefit from what I have learned over the years, but I do understand if you do not immediately develop an interest in learning Japanese. Start small.

Sue Crow

In the very old days Japan did not have a written language. Kanji, the pictorial characters of the written Chinese language, were borrowed by Japan some time between the 4^th and 5^th centuries A.D. At the same time Chinese pronunciations of the kanji were added on to the native Japanese spoken language. Therefore, a single kanji ended up having two or more pronunciations. The native Japanese pronunciation is the kun pronunciation or kunyomi. The pronunciation borrowed from Chinese is the on pronunciation or onyomi.

The on pronunciation is usually used when the kanji is a part of a compound word. The kun pronunciation is used when the kanji is used on its own as a noun. For example, the kanji for fist is 拳. The native Japanese word for fist is kobushi. However, when we speak of fist in karate class we never say kobushi. We use the word ken. The kanji for Kōbuken is 孝武拳. We never say Kōbu Kobushi.

Another example is the word for foot, ashi. Ashi comes from the native Japanese language. However, foot also has the Chinese pronunciation of soku, which we are familiar with in the term zensoku geri, literally meaning “front foot kick.” In the case of foot, we use both ashi and soku, since we also say “ashi kaete,” meaning change feet or “migi ashi mae,” meaning right foot forward.

The kun pronunciation is also used as an adjective stem or verb stem. This is of minimal interest to the martial artist who is not planning to write Japanese.

In English we have a few cases of words which have different spellings and different meanings. For example, your/you’re/yore (causes no end of grammar errors) or beech/beach (one’s a tree and the other is a sandy shore). In Japanese this confusion is so common that you will see Japanese people writing kanji on their palm with a finger if the meaning is unclear by context alone.

You may be wondering why the Japanese haven’t decided to stop using kanji and just use hiragana to write words. The problem is that so many different kanji have the same sound. In my beginner’s dictionary of Japanese kanji there are 60 different kanji that are read as ko. There are twice as many for kō. The kō (孝) from Kōburyū is just one of those. Chaos would ensue.

This is a case of Japanese grammar. Just like we might say “I walk” versus ” a walk,” Japanese have verb forms and noun forms. Keri is the noun form, meaning a kick. Keru is the verb dictionary form, meaning “to kick.”

Just as you would not expect to find “kicking” or “kicked” in an English dictionary, you should not expect to find all verb forms of “kick” in a Japanese dictionary. Verb conjugation in Japanese is complicated (though far more consistent than English). Fortunately, we don’t need to know verb conjugation for the study of karate.

One other verb form that you will hear is the mild command form of a verb. Some examples:

We learned to count in Japanese as beginning karate students, but there are lingering questions. Why do we say shichi when we count and nanakyū for the 7^th level of karate training?  

Historically, there are at least two “readings” of each kanji:

1. The KUN pronunciation is the native Japanese pronunciation.
2. The ON pronunciation was borrowed from the Chinese at the same time that the written language (kanji) was borrowed from China in the 5th century.  

When two or more kanji characters are used together to make a word (like nanakyū), the ON pronunciation is the norm.  The KUN pronunciation is used when the kanji is used on its own, like when we count in class.

However, not every Japanese person counts using the KUN pronunciations. Just as we sometimes have superstition about the number thirteen, there is Japanese superstition around the numbers four and nine. For example, the number four, pronounced shi, shares its pronunciation with the pronunciation of the kanji for death (死). Hence the superstition. Similarly with ku for the number nine. Ku means nine, but ku (苦) also means to suffer. Some Japanese people prefer to use yon and kyū just to avoid the association.. So what about nana instead of shichi? Apparently shichi sounds too much like one of the pronunciations of the kanji for the number four and therefore shares its death association.

And maybe some Japanese people just prefer to use yon, nana and kyū just to avoid the whole issue.

This one is a little hard to predict. Just like we Midwesterners might soften a t sound to a d sound like saying “wader” instead of “water” or “karade” (please don’t) instead of “karate.” Japanese people will do the same, but only with certain sounds, like k to g, ts to z, h to b. These are somewhat predictable, but there are no firm rules as to when to use the substitution sound. Typically, if the word is used alone then the dictionary spelling is used. If the word follows a word that modifies it then the softer sound is used.