Since this is a "Japanese" blog, i would like to introduce a new topic, besides news...As you probably know, Japanese use Chinese Characters for their writing. At the beginning, Japanese had no way of expressing themselves in written since they didn't have their own writing method; therefore, they borrowed it from the Chinese Language, that's why now, most of the words are actually chinese characters.
What i would like to talk about today, in our first lesson, is the character for King in Japanese (王). Sometimes characters are similar to real things like Mountain (山) or fire (火). So, with a little imagination, you might see a crown with the character of King (王).
Now, changing the king slightly, we get the word for Master (主) and if we add a Person (人) combined becomes (主人) which means one's Master...and here is getting interesting ;).
The same combination for 主人 is also translated "Husband". Well, i guess all men out there are delighted by this ;) ... they would say I'm the master! ...but there is more ;)
Master in Japanese is pronounced SYUJIN (just pronounce it as you would in english). The problem comes now with another very similar word pronounced SYU-U-JIN. Just one 'U' more but very difficult for foreigner to catch it when pronounced by japanese.
So, now we have the two words, the one for Husband - or One's Master (主人) and the other one pronounced SYU-U-JIN (囚人) that means....prisoner.
...I bet now are the girls out there to be very delighted...uh? ;) ... yeah... similar prounonciation but a very different meaning...
So it might happen...that when referring to her own husband, a woman might call him "her Prisoner"... well... sometimes, it might just be the thruth... who knows... married men out there, watch out !! ^-^/
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