I was just watching Spirited Away, and I noticed the flag flying at the bathhouse, as well as some of the other signs, have a single Chinese character on them. After some effort, I was able to identify the character as you2. (Sorry, I can only do Pin Yin.) The online Chinese Dictionary defines this as oil or sly, but what’s its significance to the movie?
Do you mean this?
http://cn.yimg.com/ent/juzhaoawayth7.jpg
The Chinese for that is indeed oil, but why it is hanging out there I have no idea… But by the power of Google, I give you this:
Normally I would thinkt it means the place is selling oil…
Aburaya – which has its own web site http://www.aburaya.org/ – is an actual bath house. Most of the web page in in Japanese, but you will find Spirited Away mentioned in English about 2/3 of the way down the page.
(Ah, the powers of Google!)
Sorry, I should have also pointed out that the Japanese reading of the character on the flag is “Abura”. That weas in the second web page cited by ExtraKun.
Now, I’m really curious. While that character alone is apparently pronounced abura, when it is combined with other things, it’s pronounced “yu”, pretty much like the Chinese pronunciation. (Why is that?) Now the owner of the bathhouse is Yubaba. What’s that mean? How would it be written? Maybe I should just learn Japanese. It might be simpler.
Ah, first post, and on one of my favorite subjects too!
See, those Japanese are a funny lot, they have three writing systems. AFAIK, and according to my fiancee, that ゆcan be pronounced both “abura” and “yu” depending on context. When it’s “abura” it means “oil”, and when it’s “yu”, it means “hot water”. thus its use on a bathhouse.
Oh, and for greg, in japanese and without kanji “yubaba” is ゆばば.
It’s complicated. Abura is presumably a native Japanese word that predates the introduction of Chinese characters and has since been mapped onto the Chinese character of the same meaning. Characters are usually read using their native pronunciation when they’re alone and using their Chinese pronunciation when in compounds, but this is not always the case. You get a feel for it after awhile.
Is that the character’s name or title? If it’s a name, it could be damn near anything. If it’s the latter, I’m going to guess that it’s 湯婆 (hot water + old woman.) Searching the web, it looks like I was close. The name is 湯婆婆 (and it’s yubaaba, rather than yubaba.)
I’ve never seen 油 used with the meaning of hot water; just oil. The yu used for hot water is 湯. I’d guess that the 油 on the banner was just a reference to the place’s name ( 油屋 ), and unrelated to hot water.
To reinforce what cckerberos posted above:
When Japan first adopted a writing system, they chose Chinese characters (“kanji”) to represent the Japanese language. Kanji were mapped to Japanese vocabulary in two ways; sometimes it was due to similar meaning, and sometimes it was due to similar pronunciation. Due to this, a large portion (but not all) of Japanese kanji have an “on” reading (Sino-Japanese, or from Chinese) and a “kun” reading (native Japanese). Sometimes they have several of each. This makes studying for the upcoming Japanese Language Proficiency Test remarkably tedious…
The two (somewhat) newer writing systems are “hiragana” and “katakana.” Both are derived from kanji, in that they are simplified elements of kanji that are read with the same sounds as the basic Japanese syllabary. (An interesting article on this can be found here.)
Kanji are used for nouns, verbs, and adjectives; hiragana is for grammatical things like articles, inflections, and verb and adjective conjugations (and occasionally nouns/verbs/adjectives where their kanji is rarely used/nonexistent); katakana is generally used for foreign words and for emphasis.
The “yu” you posted (ゆ) is the hiragana yu, and thus could have many different meanings. (My Compact Nelson lists ten kanji with an on-yomi of “YU,” and one with a kun-yomi of “yu.”) This “yu” æ²¹ has a kun-yomi of “abura” and means oil. This “yu” 湯 has an on-yomi of TOU and means hot water. One can not mean the other.
Simplified Sumary
Depending on how you count, the Japanese have 5!
Romaaji (Roman letters)
Hiragana - Syllabary
Katakana - Another syllabary like Hiragana but used for foreign words. This may actually be wholly unique in language; I certainly have heard of no other language with a similarly bifurcated system.
Chinese Signs - these (usually) have a similar meaning to the Chinese original.
Japanese Signs - These (usually) have a similar meaning to the Chinese original. But they also have an independant pronunciation in Japanese which is what it’s usually used for. And as that, it can be part of another word.
Ironically, had the Japanese met the idea of an alphabet, or even syllabary early on in their history, life would have been a lot easier.
Ah, romaji. The only thing that romaji is used for on a regular basis here is typing on a computer or word processor; since it’s automatically converted into kana/kanji onscreen anyways, nothing is ever actually printed in romaji.
As for “Chinese Signs” and “Japanese Signs,” I can only assume you’re referring to kanji. Almost all kanji in use in Japan are of Chinese origin. Although there are some “Japanese original” kanji, they are very few in number. As for the Chinese/Japanese pronounciations (on-yomi and kun-yomi), and meanings, refer to my previous post. Kanji (which literally translates to “Chinese characters”) counts as one character set. I can’t see how you’d split them up into “Chinese Signs” and “Japanese Signs.”
After World War II, the Japanese government made an official list of around 2000 “everyday kanji,” all of which one would need to remember to be considered truly literate in Japanese. Most Japanese people I’ve spoken to say that they would have trouble if they were tested for all of them.
Interestingly, after the war the government also simplified many of the characters. (For example, 來 became æ¥, 螢 became è›, etc.) A couple of decades later, the Chinese government took similar action, but simplified their hanzi to greater extent. Because of this, characters that used to be the same between Chinese and Japanese can now look very different. (However, Simplified Chinese hasn’t caught on in large portions of China…)
Nah. Japanese needs the characters. Ever tried to read a long all kana text? It’s painful.
True, some of the list are obscure, though IIRC, your average literate Japanese adult knows around 3000 characters, so they know many not on the list.
I wouldn’t say “many”. Thankfully, I believe they only altered less than 10% (and were much better at keeping them still look like kanji than the Chinese were).
What level of the JLPT are you going for? I found the higher the level, the easier it became to predict and memorize the readings.
I was referring to the fact that many kanji have two uses, as noted above. Hence, one kanji is often two used in two distinct ways.
heh, guess that’s what I get for trying to show off.
a fitting introduction to the board I guess. y’all have certainly helped fight MY ignorance. thank you.
I’m going for level 3, which I failed by two points a couple of years ago. My friends are telling me that I probably could pass level 2, but I’m absolutely certain they’re just being polite. I only need to remember 300 kanji, but it’s a challenge for me. 
I’m not sure about that. For many of us in Singapore, this is how we know whether a book is published in Taiwan or China - if it is in Simplified Chinese, then it’s from China. If it is in traditional Chinese, then it’s from Taiwan. Likewise for comics and computer games 