失
Fault
| on’yomi | kun’yomi | Radicals |
|---|---|---|
| しつ | うしな.う | 夫 + 丿 |
Meaning: Fault
Your husband is going down a slide. That’s nice. As he’s going down, though, he snaps the slide in two, and it collapses on top of your family dog :’( Was it your husband’s fault that the dog died?
Think of this conversation, following the “accident.” You yell at your husband: “This is your fault,” you scream. “My fault!?” he replies. “The slide obviously wasn’t built right!” This goes on and on, and as it goes on, make sure to focus in on the fault part, with both people blaming each other over and over.
Reading: しつ
Remember the dog that got squished? The husband was really sad about this, because it turned out to really be his fault because he built the slide too, so to make it up to the kids, he buys a new puppy. That new puppy is a shitsu (しつ).
Imagine the kids holding up the new shitsu puppy, so happy! They’ve forgotten all about the dog that’s under the slide in the backyard… how horrible. Shitsu dogs aren’t that distracting, are they? I guess they’re puppies.
Vocabulary
a 失う（うしなう）＝ To Lose, Miss Out On
- Meaning: The verb version of the kanji. It’s a little different, but I think you can see the logic here. If you do fault, you lose.
- Reading: You have to remember the whole うしな part to remember this kun’yomi. One thing you can think of, though, is “who’s fault is this?” It’s the 牛’s (うし) fault. “Nah,” it isn’t. Not a great mnemonic, but it should get you closer than nothing at all. Spend a few secs thinking about this.