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I have a random question about how kanji can be pronounced in Japanese. How does a fanciful kanji name like "Tamahome" from Fushigi Yuugi come to be prounounced that way when the original kanji characters are pronounced differently? Here's an image of Tamahome's name written in Kanji: http://windom.iespana.es/fyarch/fy-cast.tamahome.jpg

The first character is "oni" and the second one is for a constellation or something, right? So where does "oni" get to be pronounced as "tamahome" or "tama"? And the name Hotohori shares the same second character in his name, and yet there is no "home" sound in "Hotohori." I guess what I'm trying to ask is, can the Japanese just pick random kanji and pronounce it (with hiragana) anyway they feel like? This is something I've never understood. I've never studied the Japanese language, so please bear with me if this is a stupid question.. ^^; I've always just wanted to hear an explanation for this.

I don't know kanji extensively enough to give an exact answer, but in short, no, kanji pronunciation can't be random -- there are certain readings that are used in names and not in normal use of the kanji, and there are many irregularities, special cases, and exceptions, but I don't think it can be random. The problem with FY in particular is that many of the characters have Chinese names in addition to the ones they normally go by in the series, and part of the confusion around their name kanji probably stems from differences in Japanese vs. Chinese usage of the same or similar characters. Also, I think the names like Tamahome are found in the three-character names in parentheses on the site you linked to--there's a good chance that the first one of those three could be read as "tama," though I'm not really sure.

Kanji can have different ways of saying them depending on the context. Even something as simple as the character for 2 has multiple ways of saying it (Ni, Futa and Futsu)

Jadress wrote:

The first character is "oni" and the second one is for a constellation or something, right?

The second one has a few different readings. One is "shuku" as in "shukudai" meaning homework. The other is "yado" meaning a roof or a place to stay, though I might not be correct and somebody like abunai or dormcat might say otherwise. So it looks like Oniyado meaning demon hotel.

Okay, okay... Anime catgrin + sweatdrop

The name system of Fushigi Yuugi is based on Chinese astrology / astronomy, which allocates the starry night into 108 constellations (宿; "shuku" in Japanese onyomi). The character stands for a residence and can be extended or derived as a family, a hotel, etc. Each shuku has a deity with different personalities, as described in Suikoden (水滸伝). Those constellations are considered as their residences in the heaven, thus the name.

I just found a Japanese astrology website complete with furigana of all 28 zodiac constellations in both the literally translated names and Japanized names (lucky!). Take myself as an example: in Western astrology I'm a Virgo, which is roughly overlapping with 角宿 (kakushoku, かくしゅく or suboshi, すぼし). "Boshi" (as in hoshi -- star) is added as a suffix to all literal translations. Its alpha star Spica was (and still is -- explained later) called 角宿一 (#1 star of kakushoku / suboshi or "Alpha Cornu"). While modern Japanese astronomy has abandoned the Chinese nomenclature, Chinese astronomers a century ago invented an intermediate method: while adopting the 88 constellation system used by the West, all names of individual stars remains. They were still taught in textbooks, thus although I knew my constellation is Virgo in English in elementary school, I didn't know the name of its alpha star "Spica" several years later.

Back to the first question: 鬼宿 (きしゅく kishuku or たまほめ tamahome) is one of seven southern constellations. It's located near the center of Cancer. Thus on the character introduction page of Fushigi Yuushi @ Pierrot you can see his birthday was June 28. A more formal name of 鬼宿 should be たまほめぼし (tamahomeboshi), but sometimes tamamone would be enough, as demonstrated on another astrology site. You can't call Virgo / 角宿 as short as "su" alone; you have to add "boshi" as suffix, making it "suboshi."

However, I don't know how those Japanized names were created. Some of them, such as shitsushuku (室宿, Pegasas alpha) was originally called hatsuwi (はつゐ), a letter no longer in use today. Some sources marked it as hatsui (はつい).

Did I answer your question, Jadress? More can be found in Wiki. The same page on Japanese Wiki even mentioned Fushigi Yuugi, as well as Beyblade, Digimon, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Banner of Stars.

Kanji is just...odd, I think that's the only way to put it. Even Japanese speakers sometimes pronounce it wrong (there's a scene early in live-action Sailor Moon where Usagi tries to read Mamoru's name and fails...and then he does the same for her and I think it comes out meaning "pig" instead of "bunny"). And obviously one kanji can have two pronunciations (I know that the kanji is the same for the names of Kei in Pretear and Hotaru in Sailor Moon).

So yeah...weird pretty much is the only explanation I can give you.

Eh...
Kanji can usually have up to 3 readings:
1. When it stands alone it is read in the "Japanese Way", called kunyomi.
2. When it composes a word with another kani it is read in the "Chinese way" called onyomi. So a kanji is pronunced differently depending if its standing by itself or if its a part of a word.
3. There is also a less know way of reading called the nanori. Means a kanji can have a third reading when it composes a Name. Pretty nifty right? It makes the reading of japanese names soooo hard. Because there is no way of knowing all the nanori readings of kanji. The joke is - most kanji have the nanori reading of "Akira" Razz

(it means the name Akira can be written with a buttload of kanji) So the names are "usually" written with a furigana so you would know how to read them.
Of course some names are read with kunyomi or onyomi just to piss of any Japanese Philology students Razz

So to answer your original question - It doesnt matter how the kanji is read when it stands alone, if it composes a name it can have ANY reading it pleases. There is no rule for it.

marie-antoinette wrote:

Kanji is just...odd, I think that's the only way to put it. Even Japanese speakers sometimes pronounce it wrong (there's a scene early in live-action Sailor Moon where Usagi tries to read Mamoru's name and fails...and then he does the same for her and I think it comes out meaning "pig" instead of "bunny"). And obviously one kanji can have two pronunciations (I know that the kanji is the same for the names of Kei in Pretear and Hotaru in Sailor Moon).

So yeah...weird pretty much is the only explanation I can give you.

If you think kanji is odd or difficult to understand, imagine Chinese since it uses much more complicated characters and the language consists of only "kanji." Although it has a set number of meanings, depending on the position and surrounding context the meaning and pronunciation can change. A simple example: the kanji "Ta" which means "field" in my last name, "Tanaka" （田中） changes in my friend's last name to "da", in "Hamada"　（浜田） although it retains its meaning. The general rule for that one is it becomes "da" at the end and "ta" in the beginning (ie. Hamada, Yamada, Yoshida, Nishida). However, all of the meanings are derived from the whole field/farmer idea, and since in the past most of the families were farmers, they're very common names in Japan (Tanaka #4, Yoshida 吉田　#12, Yamada 山田　#13).

Fui wrote:

If you think kanji is odd or difficult to understand, imagine Chinese since it uses much more complicated characters and the language consists of only "kanji." Although it has a set number of meanings, depending on the position and surrounding context the meaning and pronunciation can change. A simple example: the kanji "Ta" which means "field" in my last name, "Tanaka" （田中） changes in my friend's last name to "da", in "Hamada"　（浜田） although it retains its meaning. The general rule for that one is it becomes "da" at the end and "ta" in the beginning (ie. Hamada, Yamada, Yoshida, Nishida). However, all of the meanings are derived from the whole field/farmer idea, and since in the past most of the families were farmers, they're very common names in Japan (Tanaka #4, Yoshida 吉田　#12, Yamada 山田　#13).

Reasons why Chinese is supposed to be the hardest language in the world to learn.

I never thought I'd ever say this but I long for the simplicity of Carbon Chemistry...at least with that there is no multiple meanings behind a name! (though depending upon the form you present it in it could be confused...empirical, displayed, etc..)

I long for the simplicity of this:-
2,6-dimethyl-4,4-diethylcyclohexanone

Proof of how wildly confusing Oriental languages seem to me...It astounds me that people have such difficulty with their own language (namely, English) when there are languages as seemingly incomprehensible as Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Shame on all of you TxT and (I think this is right) 133T speakers...English is simple enough to use in comparison.

marie-antoinette wrote:

Reasons why Chinese is supposed to be the hardest language in the world to learn.

Thing is, all Chinese characters have a set pronounciation, unlike kanji, which is pronounced differently in a different context. In addition, after Mao's communist regime and all that jazz, many of the characters are simplified, making some of them much easier to write. I can read and write Chinese, yet learning kanji is not a breeze for me.

Taking the kanji for day/sun, 日, for example:
(underlined is how the kanji is pronounced in the particular context)

一日, pronounced ichinichi (means: one day)
三日, pronounced mikka (means: three days/third day of the month)
日々, pronounced hibi (means: days, day by day)
曜日, pronounced youbi (means: day of the week)
日本, pronounced nihon (means: Japan)
先日, pronounced senjitsu (means: A few days ago)

As opposed to 日 in Chinese, pronounced "zhi" and pretty much nothing else (I hope I romanized that correctly...).

In Fui's example, 田 can be "ta" or "da" depending on context, while in Chinese, 田 is "tien" no matter where it is used.

Chinese isn't an easy language to learn, but it is not any harder than Japanese. There's more kanji, but there's less to have to know about each one, since for the most part, pronounciation remains fixed.

[EDIT]
- Changed bold to underline, as it is easier to read.
- Added meanings

Okay, this is probably more of a Japanese culture question then a Japanese language question but I feel it's somewhat similar so I'm going to ask the question here. I have a feeling I should know what this thing is but I don't... I think I've seen it somewhere before though.

I was in Japan and near a clothing department store they were giving out free samples of something that I don't know what it was. It came in a package like this:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture069.jpg

The inside looks like this and has a bunch of little papers:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture070.jpg

The papers were extremely thin and tissue like. This is how a single one looked:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture071.jpg

Says on it that they are 100 x 70 mm. Also says "for women & men" on the package. Don't know what the rest says though...

I've never taken Japanese, but there were three guys in my last Japanese class that were taking Chinese and Japanese simultaneously. They all agreed that Chinese is a joke in comparison to Japanese. Maybe it was because they were taking the two side-by-side and a lot of the stuff they picked up in Japanese translated over, or that the Chinese program was easier, but they're not the only ones I've heard say this. There's a lot of memorization in the kanji of Chinese, but apparently that's really the only difficult part.

Fui wrote:

A simple example: the kanji "Ta" which means "field" in my last name, "Tanaka" （田中） changes in my friend's last name to "da", in "Hamada"　（浜田） although it retains its meaning. The general rule for that one is it becomes "da" at the end and "ta" in the beginning (ie. Hamada, Yamada, Yoshida, Nishida).

animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=115413#115413

selenta wrote:

They all agreed that Chinese is a joke in comparison to Japanese.

Um, I know you meant no offense, but how about using "piece of cake" instead of "joke?"

selenta wrote:

There's a lot of memorization in the kanji of Chinese, but apparently that's really the only difficult part.

I'd say it's because of the simpler grammar. Due to the discrete nature of logogram, Chinese has no verb tense or gender-specific articles (there are different characters for he and she but that's all).

PantsGoblin wrote:

Pictures

You have to improve the picture quality first. Anime smallmouth + sweatdrop

marie-antoinette wrote:

Reasons why Chinese is supposed to be the hardest language in the world to learn.

I'm told Chinese is one of the easier languages to learn if it's Asian, because the sentence structure is the same as English. Whereas it's the opposite with Japanese where the verb structure will come first.

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