This week’s Word Of The Week is – Monogatari (物語) meaning story or tale.

Monogatari is made up of two kanji – 物語 (ものがたり).

The first kanji (物) means thing or object and has the readings – ブツ,モツ, もの – although we’re only interested in the もの reading for today’s example.

At the beginner level (JLPT4/N5) you’ll come across this kanji in several words including 食べ物 (food – たべもの), 動物 (animal – どうぶつ) and 飲み物 (drink – のみもの).

The second kanji is – 語 – meaning word or language. The readings for 語 are ゴ (ご), かたる, かたらう and a popular example for those of us learning Japanese is にほんご (Japanese language – 日本語).

To wrap up this week’s Word of the Week we join 物 – thing, object and 語 – word, language, which gives us objects of language or words eg a story.

Examples

Kanji	Hiragana	Meaning
物	もの	Thing, Object
語	がたり	Language, Word
物語	ものがたり	Story, Tale
食べ物	たべもの	Food
飲み物	のみもの	Drink, Beverage
日本語	にほんご	Japanese (language)
英語	えいご	English (language)

Please note that I have only included the relevant kanji readings for this example in the table above. Almost all kanji have multiple readings but not all are applicable to the examples in this article.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below.

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