曲
Music
| on’yomi | kun’yomi | Radicals |
|---|---|---|
| きょく | まげ.る | 口 + 廾 |
Meaning: Music
Twenty mouths are together. That’s a lot of mouths. What do they do? They sing beautiful music together.
Listen to the twenty mouths. They sound great. Have them sing your favorite music.
Reading: きょく
The reading for this one, I’m afraid, is super-difficult mnemonic wise. Definitely shoot me an email if you can come up with something good, but in the meantime, you’ll want to try and learn this one straight up.
きょく、きょく、きょく. Attempt to recall きょく in five minutes. Then ten minutes. Then a half an hour from now. Recalling is what builds memories, so just set a timer for yourself reminding you to recall 曲 and if you recall it enough, you’ll have a strong memory of it too.
Vocabulary
It’s kind of weird how this kanji both means music and it means bend/curve. You’ll have to just imagine music as something you can see, that bends and curves all over the place to make beautiful patterns!
a 曲（きょく）＝ Melody, Song
- Meaning: Same as the kanji, pretty much. Think of it like a piece of the kanji, just like a song is a piece of the bigger picture: music.
a 曲げる（まげる）＝ To Bend Something
- Meaning: This is where things get strange. The verb form (kun’yomi reading) has to do with bending something. This particular word is when you’re doing the action of bending.
- Reading: The reading is the kun’yomi reading. You have to remember the ま part for this one and the next word. If you can remember the meaning of this word, you can think of bending your Ma (ま) in half. It’s weird how she just bends like puddy, or something.
a 曲がる（まがる）＝ Something Is Bent
- Meaning: The same as the previous word, except this time something is just bending, and you’re not doing the action of bending it. It’s just happening.
- Reading: Once again, you have to remember the ま part. Use the 曲げる’s mnemonic to remember this one too (or both of them at the same time).
a 名曲（めいきょく）＝ Famous Music
- Combo: 名 (name/famous) + 曲 (music)
- Meaning: Pretty straightforward
- Reading: The on’yomi readings.