日本語の道

Plum Rain

梅＋雨＝つゆ（梅雨）？

What's the connection of rainy season to plums? For those of you in Japan, I am a bit envious. We could use some rain in England right now (except it would ruin the tennis at Wimbledon).

Latest Book

In an effort to rekindle some lost motivation I've shelled out for Rembering the Kanji Vol. 1 by J. Heisig. You may recall a discussion of the book which you can refer to here. I won't re-write much about it except to say that the book offers a systematic method of learning how to write the kanji by 'story telling'. Thanks to Roy for bringing the book to my attention in the first place.

After paying £20 for this book I have found that it has been distributed and is widely available on the Internet for 'free'. Of course, I prefer the print version and at least I am supporting the author. Obviously, I am just trying to console myself.

Five Senses

Sight - 視覚 - しかく
Touch - 触覚 - しょっかく
Hearing - 聴覚 - ちょうかく
Taste - 味覚 - みかく
Smell - 嗅覚 - きゅうかく

Recommended

英会話じゃなくて、公立の学校で教えていたので、息子さんにおすすめできません。

I was trying to say something along the lines of:

"I taught at public schools, not conversation schools, so I can't really recommend any good conversation schools for your son."

My friend kindly corrected my Japanese (below). To be honest I don't really understand the difference. Isn't this just the verb form of my noun sentence?

「おすすめできません」は良くない意味ですね。
「not better for you」みたいな意味。
「すすめることができません」がいいかな。

[Update: The 'corrected' Japanese may not be so accurate after all. See comments...]

Appetite

The first word I learnt for 'appetite' was 食欲 （しょくよく）. Today I've learnt a new one, 食い気 （くいけ）. The new word has a much lower frequency value.

食欲 （しょくよく） - appetite - freq. 677
食い気 （くいけ） - appetite - freq. 179

Related only by 「気」 another word I came across was:

色気 （いろけ） - interest in the opposite sex, sex appeal, glamor, sexual passion, romance, desire, seductiveness, charm, sensuality... What a lot of defintions...

Less than

There appear to be subtle differences in 未満（みまん） and 以内（いない） which I was unaware of (all credit to my calligraphy teacher for pointing this out). ５万円未満 means less than 50,000 yen while ５万円以内 means 50,000 yen or less. Right?

How about 以下（いか）？Like 以内, I would guess.