Our Japanese word for today is – Kaiwa (会話) meaning conversation.

The first kanji (会) means meeting, meet, join or party and has the readings – カイ, エ, あう, あわせる and あつまる. We’ll be using the カイ (かい) reading for today’s word.

The second kanji is – 話 meaning talk (or tale) and the readings are ワ, はな.す or はなし.

The meaning of 会話 becomes clearer when we join together 会 (meeting, meet, join or party) and 話 (talk) and we get a “meeting or a joining together to talk”, which gives us “conversation”.

Examples

Kanji	Kana	Meaning
会	カイ (かい)	Meet, Join
話	ワ (わ)	Talk, Tale
委員会	いいんかい	Committee Meeting, Committee
宴会	えんかい	Party, Banquet
会員	かいいん	Member, The Membership
会見	かいけん	Interview, Audience
会食	かいしょく	Dining together, Mess
世話人	せわにん	Manager, Agent

I particularly like the last compound in the list – 世話人.

We can break these down in to their meanings to arrive at the final translation – 世 (generation, world, society, public ), 話 (talk), 人 (person). So that gives us “public”, “talk”, “person”, which is a “manager” or “agent” for a movie star or band as an example.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below.

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