The Joy o' Kanji Essays

This page provides a synopsis of all 545 kanji that have so far been featured by Joy o' Kanji. Each section provides the ability to purchase and download a kanji essay (), study flashcards for the essay content (), play entertaining study games (), or view the kanji's details on Kanshudo ().
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sword
JOK: 1214
This packed-to-the-gills essay teaches everything about the Japanese sword, from its connections to Buddhism and samurai to its metaphorical role. You'll learn how people use 剣 and 刀 quite differently. Fantastic photos provide glimpses of sword-bearing martial arts, supplementing the discussion of kendo. In one quiz, you'll even consider which animals come equipped with swords!
range
JOK: 1216
This kanji makes us conceive of the world thematically, linking countries in unexpected ways (e.g., those that use euros or Chinese characters). With 圏 you can also convey that a restaurant is “within a 10-minute walk” or that you’re “out of range” and can’t make a phone call. Learn to say “Tokyo Metropolitan area,” “Kanto region,” and “My family lives far from a metropolitan area.”
self-effacing
JOK: 1222
Find out how to say, "He modestly understated his fabulous achievements" and "His modesty is commendable." Learn about honorific versus humble speech: the purpose, formation, and altered vocabulary. And "meet" people with 謙 in their names, such as actor Ken Watanabe; the first person to cross the Pacific by yacht; and an empress who may have dallied with a sinister monk.
cocoon
JOK: 1223
The Japanese associate 繭 with silkworms, even though other animals make cocoons. Find out how silkworms develop, producing a mile-long silky thread, and how people turn that filament into usable silk. See why the Japanese have been passionate about silk for millennia, and learn how that enthusiasm ties in with religion, architecture, literature, video games, and cosmetics.
illusion
JOK: 1226
This kanji enables us to talk about what isn’t really there: illusory countries on old maps, phantom limbs, an alcoholic’s hallucinations, sorcery, and mythical creatures. Learn about phantom rice and phantom railroad lines, and see what “pursuing phantoms” really means. Find out about magic mushrooms in Japan, as well as mushroom statues created long ago and very far from Japan.
mystery
JOK: 1227
Find out about the shape that figures prominently in the name of a green tea and the word for "brown rice." It's also the "blackness" radical. What a colorful character! Or should I say "What a mysterious character"? It primarily means "mysterious," and it unexpectedly lends that meaning to such common words as 玄関 (げんかん: entranceway).
bowstring
JOK: 1228
Discover the imaginative leaps the Japanese have made by associating 弦 with objects whose shapes suggest curved archery bows and their taut strings. Learn terms for “guitar string” and two categories of stringed instruments, as well as “string quartet” and “orchestra.” Also find out how to speak of stringed, wind, and percussion instruments collectively with a tidy acronym.
alone
JOK: 1229
The 孤 kanji runs the gamut from lonely isolation to enjoyable solitude. This character pops up in terms for orphans, solitary islands, villages cut off by floods, someone fighting alone for a lost cause, and countries that are isolated economically and politically. Learn to say, "She led a solitary life," "To tell the truth, I felt lonely," and "We shouldn’t confuse solitude with isolation."
arc
JOK: 1230
See what the Arc of Freedom and Prosperity represents. Learn to speak of balls that arc through the sky and curved island chains (e.g., the Ryukyu archipelago). Discover terms for parentheses (which are little arcs!), Japanese quotation marks, and various brackets in Japanese text. Find out how to say, “Abbreviate the parenthesized words” and “Put a word in each pair of parentheses.”
boast
JOK: 1233
Learn about the positive kind of pride that even dogs (and flowers!) can feel, and see what Japan is proud to show the world. Discover five ways of saying "to take pride in." Also learn to say "I'm proud of you" and "He proudly made an announcement." Read about terms for "ostentation" and "exaggeration," finding out how one of them relates to political propaganda.
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