This week’s Word Of The Week – Toshokan (図書館) meaning Library – is probably still relevant for those of us who have our heads constantly in a book studying a language. I can’t say I spend alot of time in them anymore though since the interwebs came along ^_^

Library is made up of three characters – 図書館 (としょかん). The first two kanji (図書 – としょ) form a kanji compound, which is where two (or more) kanji are joined together to form a new word.

The two kanji we have here are 図 (map, drawing, plan) and 書 (write) – as a compound we get 図書 (としょ), which means “books”.

The last kanji in this word is 館 (かん), which in today’s example means building.

Examples

Kanji	Hiragana	Meaning
図書	としょ	Books
図	と	Map, Drawing, Plan
書	しょ	Write
館	かん	House, Hall, Building, Hotel, Guesthouse
映画館	えいがかん	Movie Theatre
天気図	てんきず	Weather Map
辞書	じしょ	Dictionary
手書き	てがき	Handwriting

Please note that I have only included the relevant kanji readings for this example in the table above. For example, 館 has three readings – カン (かん), やかた、 たて.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below.

Add Your Comment | zonjineko! Free Monthly Newsletter