Lesson 24 of 28
Kanji Unit 24 — cut, stop, correct, not
about 9 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Recognise 刂 on the right of a character — the fifth radical position.
- Use 不 to turn a word into its opposite.
Words this lesson teaches
- 世
- a generation, the world — 世界
- 事
- a matter, a thing — 仕事, 用事
- 不
- not, un- — 不便, 不安
- 別
- separate, another
- 切
- cut; 大切, precious
- 止
- stop, halt
- 正
- correct, right
- 用
- use; an errand — 用事
- 物
- a thing — 買い物, 動物
What it explains
不 is a prefix you can use
Most kanji have to be learned word by word. 不 is different: it is productive, meaning you can put it on things. 不便 inconvenient, 不安 anxious, 不十分 insufficient. Not every word takes it and guessing will sometimes produce something nobody says, so treat it as a reading aid first — when you meet 不 at the front of an unknown word, the rest of the word is the positive version.
大切 is not about cutting
切 means to cut, and 大切 — big-cut — means precious or important. That is the sort of turn a compound can take, and no amount of staring at the parts will get you there. The lesson is not to distrust the parts but to hold them loosely: they narrow the field and they do not decide the answer. 大切な 人 is an important person, and it is one of the warmest things you can say in Japanese.
The scene itself is in the app.
Lesson one of this track is free to read in full. From lesson two on, the story, the audio and the review are part of a free account.