While doing some practice I often do on the Kotoba-chan app on my phone just now, I noticed… - Feed Post by mog86uk
While doing some practice I often do on the Kotoba-chan app on my phone just now, I noticed something when I encountered the following word: 団扇
The answer was "fan" (as in the thing used to cool oneself down). But the thing I noticed is that the reading of this word 団扇 is うちわ, which in the past would have been spelt うちは ("uchiha")...
And then I realised for the first time that the crest on Uchiha Sasuke's back is very likely a picture of a fan... I'd never thought about what the picture was before. Only worked it out now after randomly encountering this 団扇 word. (Hope I'm not completely wrong about the picture being a fan. I've not seen or looked up anything about this...)
Although people probably don't learn much Japanese just while watching subbed anime, it's the random times like this afterwards which are cool and help with understanding and remembering words. Some of the many other words I've encountered this way: "whirlpool" being 渦巻き (うずまき, uzumaki); "spiral" being 螺線 (らせん, rasen);... I love it when this kinda stuff happens. ^^
The answer was "fan" (as in the thing used to cool oneself down). But the thing I noticed is that the reading of this word 団扇 is うちわ, which in the past would have been spelt うちは ("uchiha")...
And then I realised for the first time that the crest on Uchiha Sasuke's back is very likely a picture of a fan... I'd never thought about what the picture was before. Only worked it out now after randomly encountering this 団扇 word. (Hope I'm not completely wrong about the picture being a fan. I've not seen or looked up anything about this...)
Although people probably don't learn much Japanese just while watching subbed anime, it's the random times like this afterwards which are cool and help with understanding and remembering words. Some of the many other words I've encountered this way: "whirlpool" being 渦巻き (うずまき, uzumaki); "spiral" being 螺線 (らせん, rasen);... I love it when this kinda stuff happens. ^^
posted by mog86uk
Comments 5
i love naruto anime too..
this is a cool discovery...:)
Very nice discovery indeed @mog, I've somehow always seen the Uchiha emblem as a fan but never made this particular association.
I do experience this kind of thing very often though while watching anime and there's definitely been a lot of it in Naruto!
One example was when I'd always think about the Sharingan when I'd encounter the word (しゃりん) which led me to do some research and find out that it was actually written 写輪 in the word "Sharingan" (写輪眼, しゃがん) and that the word literally means "copying eye". I think the reason this happens so often in Naruto has a lot to do with the somewhat straightforward naming of the Justus in general...
I've also developed a habit of pausing while watching anime to look up a word or expression that I keep hearing. I usually do this just to have a better understanding of it and move on but I find that what I learn from it somehow always clicks back when I encounter some of the radicals or other similarities elsewhere...
@Medyrius That's interesting about しゃりんがん. I think しゃりん (車輪) is taught here on JCJP, and I realised it was probably the word from Naruto. I always thought "wheel eye" was a bit odd, but then it does kind of spin. I never knew しゃりんがん is spelt with different kanji though. The name makes more sense now that I know it's 写輪眼, not 車輪眼. Thanks. ^^
I sometimes pause anime to look up words too, but only for fairly rare occasions when it seems like the word might be especially interesting. I don't like pausing mid episode for anything if it's a decent anime. :P- That's exactly what I thought at first, "Wheel eye" makes perfect sense in the anime context :D
