Lesson 8 of 12
Kanji Unit 8 — eye, ear, mouth, hand, foot
about 6 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Read the five body-part characters on their own.
- Explain why 口 on a door does not mean a mouth.
Words this lesson teaches
- 目
- eye
- 耳
- ear
- 口
- mouth; an opening
- 手
- hand
- 足
- foot, leg
What it explains
A character means one thing alone and another in company
口 is the clearest case in the set: a mouth by itself, an opening in a compound. This is not an exception you have to memorise — it is how most kanji behave, and it is why a dictionary lists the character and then lists the words separately. When you meet a character you know inside a word you do not, expect the sense to have shifted, and read the word rather than the parts.
手 and 目 are two more that squash
Unit 5 showed 人 becoming 亻. 手 does the same thing, becoming 扌 down the left of characters about doing things with hands. 目 keeps its shape but moves to the left in characters about looking. You are not asked to learn those characters now. You are asked to notice, when one turns up, that its left-hand side is something you have already met.