太

Fat

Meaning: Fat

You have a big guy here, with an extra drop of something below this thigh, hanging down. That’s fat right there. He’s so fat he has things hanging down like that.

Maybe you should touch the fat below his leg just to see what it is… feel it, and squeeze it. It’ll help you to remember that this kanji means fat.

Reading: たい

This poor fat guy has trouble with a lot of things. One of the things he has the most trouble with is tying a tie (たい).

Imagine him trying to tie the tie but he can’t lift his hands around to do it. You have to help him out. Another thing that might help you to remember this kanji’s reading is that it’s the same reading as 大 (or, one of the same readings). Similar kanji often have similar readings, which is a good thing to know when you have to guess (it’s true with this one, anyways!).

Vocabulary

Learn the meanings of these words before moving on (and take a shot at the readings as well).

a 太い（ふとい）＝　fat, thick

• Meaning: The meaning is the same as the kanji. You can tell it’s an adjective because of the い on the end.
• Reading: The kun’yomi reading. Usually when a word has hiragana sticking out of it it’s going to be kun’yomi. What part of you is especially fat? It’s your giant foot (ふとい).

a 太る（ふとる）＝　to become fat, to get fat

• Meaning: This is to become fat or get fat. You can tell it’s a verb by the う sound on the end (the る). So, all you really need to do remember that this is the verb form of 太.
• reading: If you know the reading of 太い then you can figure out the reading for this.

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