Japanese help!?

Question

More Japanese questions! Woo hoo!?

I'm just about done with all my kanji questions. :P I would also like to thank all you other nice people who are putting up with me. ;) But anway, I was wondering, for certain compound kanji, how come they're not adjectives, and just nouns in their own right?

For example, the kanji for "mountain pass" is 山道. Alright, but wouldn't mountain be the adjective? Mountain would be the adjective and pass would be the noun, wouldn't it? Or the word garbage man, "廃物人." Wouldn't garbage be the adjective and man be the noun? Is this the way it is in Japanese dictionaries? If you want to make the word "garbage man" do you have to figure out yourself which kanji to use? Thanks.

Answer 1

Ono and Black Dog are correct. I was going to try and answer the question...but pointless now...At least I get 2 points for this :-)

Answer 2

Well, this works pretty much the same as nouns that combine to make a noun phrase and then becomes one word: Streetcar, drugstore, supermarket, ... halfpenny! ...I don't know some of these may not work... (I intend to come back and put in some examples..) (I am back but those words are enough to get my point across.)
But, yamamichi is in my dictionary and in fact it doesn't say it is a noun. But, that is what it is. This really isn't as interesting as it could be. As the real question here is just how do kanji combine in Japanese? And, you have made it rather simple and I don't think that it is.
My kanwa dictionary defines hai ( garbage) as something that is useless. butsu is just a word that is sometimes used to make a noun out of what seems to be a verb (suta-reru - some[thing] that is thrown away).
haibutsu in my dictionary is yaku ni tatanaku natta mono. or sutarimono. (something that is useless - something that you throw away.) Butsu, of course, is the Chinese reading or the onyomi of the character that means 'thing ' (mono).

In a Japanese dictionary usually a verb is indicated by its conjugation. I don't understand the definitions of Japanese conjugations yet, but, I know that 'godan' is a verb conjugation, for example. You know, the dictionary form always ends in '-u.' And, then the base part or part that never changes is indicated by a seperating - [dash] from the part that does. Most verbs are kunyomi, that is the Japanese reading of a Chinese character, kanji. The main exceptions would be the verbs that take suru such as ai suru - to love. The form is to add the Japanese verb 'to do' to the onyomi of the character. Haitatsu suru. ... etc. OK presently I am hard pressed to think of an example for a verb with a onyomi reading that doesn't take suru.
(Since I am always blogging about this; why don't you check out my blog as see if I haven't answered your question there?)
I just have to thow in the famous quote: "yamamichi o nobori nagara kou kangaeta." I memorized this long ago when I first started to study Japanese.
Also, I don't know it I made it clear; but, I think that a garbageman with butsu and jin or nin would be funny. I am trying to think of an example where butsu means 'person.' Well, jinbutsu.
A haijin is a yaku ni tatanai hito, by the way. I don't know for sure but a grabagemen is a gomiya 'dustman' like in English. Anyway, the simple answer is that kanji combine like nouns in English. Adjectives and verbs also combine with nouns to make new nouns. haibutsu is an example of one. koma is a small (ko) uma (horse). pony. ops! that doesn't work as kanji OK komai is last year's rice. 'old' an adjective and 'rice.' The complicated answer is that there are many ways in which kanji combine and too many to treat here.
Sorry, but I don't know how to write kanji on my computer. Otherwise it would be easier understanding my meaning.

Answer 3

The person above me is right. Mountain is noun, and the pass is noun. So in the case of 'mountain pass', both words are nouns, and making one word '山道' together, and '山道' is a noun, made with 2 noun words. (Sounds a bit confusing, but it's like the word 'suitcase' in English, for example.)
廃人 is someone who has become socially and physically dysfunctional, due to things like drug and alcohol abuse. I don't get what you are trying to say by 'garbage man', but if you mean a garbage collector, then the word is ゴミ回収人. ゴミ is a noun, means garbage, 回収 is also a noun, means collection, and 人 is a noun means a person. 廃物人 is not a Japanese word.
The adjective words in Japanese always finish with 'い ', like 新しい (new), 高い (high, expensive) ,多い (many), etc.

Answer 4

"mountain" is a noun and "pass" is a noun. "mountain pass" is also a noun.
Same with Japanese. "山" is a noun and "道" is a noun. "山道" is also a noun.

"廃物人" is not Japanese. "廃人" is a proper Japanese word.

An adjective word is something like "新しい" meaning new and "赤い" meaning red etc.

Answer 5

What is the symbol for crossdresser?