Does someone know why 格安航空券 kaku yasu kou kuu ken. where the all kanji are onyomi, only yasu is… - Feed Post by DragonR33UA

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  TherryMonk13

  I was intrigued by your question and did some research, and found this article! It should explain it: http://www.tofugu.com/2014/08/25/weird-kanji-unusual-readings-and-their-origins/

  February 15, 2016 at 4:48pm
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  DragonR33UA

  Thank you very much, it does not only explain this word, it also shows the whole picture about such words! Very informative and useful!

  February 15, 2016 at 5:46pm
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  mog86uk

  @TherryMonk13, That's a well written page. Tofugu has a lot of decent articles I like, but I hadn't seen that one before. You can learn all that just by reading the "kanji" article on Wikipedia, but she presented it in a simpler, easier to digest manner.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Readings
  
  @DragonR33UA, For your particular word 格安航空券, it is really three words (like in its English translation "discount airline ticket") combined to make a single phrase.
  
  格安 [かくやす] "cheap, reasonable" (n, adj-na, adj-no)
  航空 [こうくう] "aviation, flying" (n, adj-no)
  券 [けん] "ticket" (n, n-suf)
  
  So your question is really: "why does 格安 = かくやす (ON-KUN) rather than かくあん (ON-ON)?"
  
  The first kanji 格 doesn't have any kunyomi readings, so this is always onyomi.
  The second kanji 安 means things like "safety, security, peace" and is pronounced アン. This kanji itself doesn't really have the specific meaning of "cheap". However, this kanji was chosen as the kanji to write the the native Japanese word やす (cheap), making やす a kunyomi for this kanji.
  
  So... 安 read as its onyomi あん more often means one of the actual meanings of the kanji ("peace", "calmness", "safety"); 安 read as やす more often means "cheap". I think, anyway. There is some overlap, but it seems pretty clear it's like this from how 安 is used in other words. ^^

  February 16, 2016 at 7:15am
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  DragonR33UA

  @mog86uk true! Wikipedia is useful too. They wrote it pretty simple and clear. some of example, for example 菊 is possible to learn here =D
  
  I see, this is some kind of replacement so that it was clear what this actually is. Thank you mog!

  February 16, 2016 at 8:27am