What's the difference between kikenna and abunai? (I would use the kanji, but I'm a on a school… - Feed Post by RovkirHexus
What's the difference between kikenna and abunai? (I would use the kanji, but I'm a on a school comp)
posted by RovkirHexus
Comments 5
From what I remember Abunai is something that would be used verbally (like, "Watch out!") more often. kiken may be seen more often as a label on something dangerous.
one's a na adjective and the other one's an i adjective.
From what I've heard, abunai could be used in a dangerous situation to mean something like "this/that is risky!" or "danger" o_O I don't know that other word though
From what it looks like to me:
危険 (きけん) = noun meaning "danger". This noun can be used adjectivally with either な or の.
危ない (あぶない) = adjective meaning "dangerous". This adjective can also be used as an interjection.
危うい (あやうい) = adjective meaning "dangerous". This adjective CANNOT also be used as an interjection.
危ぶむ (あやぶむ) = godan verb meaning "to fear, to have misgivings, to be doubtful, to mistrust".
The first three terms above can be translated differently to just "danger(ous)", but I was trying to show there isn't a lot of difference in the actual meaning itself. Although it does seem that 危険な has a smaller variety of meanings compared with 危ない / あやうい (which seems to have a wider range of meanings along the lines of related things like uncertainty, insecurity,...)
危険 obviously uses the same kanji as the rest as its first kanji 危 (キ) meaning "danger", but the second kanji 険 (ケン) means "steep". So the combined meaning with this second kanji might limit the variety of type of danger. 危険な seems to be more like "dangerous, hazardous, perilous; risky".
I listed あやうい and あやぶむ as well, to maybe give some hints about the あぶない being used for an interjection. Anyway... I think I'm just rambling on about stuff now...
Thank you everyone for the answers! I think I get the difference now.
