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Discovering Kanji by Train Travel!

At our Kanji Club in May we were whisked away across Japan by super fast Shinkansen trains and up through the valleys in mountain traversing carriages. It is amazing what we could discover about Kanji and also Japanese culture from exploring characters and words related to travel.

Discovering Kanji by Train Travel!

Our speedy and adventurous theme of trains explored particular kanji such as 日本の電車 Nihon no densha, Japanese trains, and 新幹線 Shinkansen. Blair showed how the visual radicals and parts of the kanji gave meanings, and he wrote these and the kanji for 駅 eki – station  (as well as the katakana and hiragana writing options) for participants to copy for writing practice.

Discovering Kanji by Train Travel!

Some kanji that came up this time during the fun quiz were related to the 目め me (eye) kanji radical –  泪 rui tears,   貝 kai  shellfish,   冒  bou  to brave,   相  sou  inter-/ together.

Discovering Kanji by Train Travel!

Many thanks to the participants for kindly sharing their images to add to this post.

Joan