万 10000
ONYOMI: MAN
You can think of this as the katakana KU (ク) plus the number one over it.
A MAN touches your KUchie with ONE finger. ten thousand times!!
DESCRIPTION:
Japanese count big money in units of 10,000. They don't for instance, have a word for 'million.' -- a million is actually called 100万. Which would be logical if it were written with 万-sized commas： 100,0000 . . . but it's written with rest-of-the-planet commas, like this: 1,000,000. I'm sure some asshole thought he was doing the rest of the world a favor with this compromise, but actually that just makes it more confusing for everyone. Probably it was the same motherless douche who decided to import all the on-yomi from China and get them all wrong.
Anyway.
KUNYOMI:
- ( 一 ) まん
-
10,000
(LAZY)
- 万が一 ( まんがいち )
-
just in case (literally, 'on the one-in-10,000 chance that something goes wrong')
(NP)
万 (10000) + 一 (one) = 万が一 (just in case)
- 万歳 ( ばんざい! )
-
Fuckin' banzai, man!!!! (literally '10,000 years', meaning, 'May the Emperor live 10,000 years!' is what you shout as you charge into battle)
(1/2 KANA)
万 (10000) + 歳 (years old) = 万歳 (banzai!)
- 万引き ( まんびき )
-
shoplift.
(SARC)
万 (10000) + 引 (pull) = 万引き (shoplift.)
| Meaning | Hint | Radical | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 方 | direction / method / person | HEAD | |
| 万 | 10000 | EVEN ON TOP |
方 means 'person', so naturally it has a little 'head' stiking up on top - you can think of that as the person's beret!
万 is a number, so naturally it has NO HEAD. It's EVEN on top - which makes sense because 10,000 is an even number.