Oof. A language rant.

I think being a native English speaker and learning Japanese is probably one of the hardest learning processes. The Japanese language and it's grammar structure is a far cry from the English language. 

Too often, native English speakers want Japanese word A to equal English word A and furthermore, they want Japanese sentence A to equal English sentence A. For lower level, entry words and phrases, this can work, but when you get to the higher levels (expressing thoughts, actions, feelings, etc), you have to start thinking more in terms of thoughts. Language learners have to forget the whole "this word = that word" equation and start working on, "How do I express this idea in Japanese?" So basically, you're working thought for thought instead of word for word.

Where "word for word" ideals becomes particularly sticky is learning the Kanji. Japanese has three alphabets: Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are fairly easy to learn as each symbol represents a sound, much like the English alphabet. Simple.

Kanji however, is more complicated. Each symbol can represent a series of sounds or one sound. Additionally, there are several way to interpret many of the Kanji characters. The way English speakers want to learn Kanji is by saying, "This symbol stands for fire." 

  

Here's the issue with that: the Japanese language has no word "fire"...so how can a Japanese symbol stand for a word that does not exist in their language? Notice I didn't say they have no word FOR fire...just the word "fire" itself does not exist in the language. Fire is an English word. 

However, the root of the Kanji symbol is the Japanese word for fire (ka)...so when you see the Kanji whose root is "ka" (which means fire) the sound you should think of is "ka." You should not think, "Oh, this Kanji means fire." because it does not. It means "ka."

火 = ka

So now, you can take the Kanji for "ka" and make other words, such as: 火曜日(kayoobi or Tuesday).

I'm really not too upset about it, but I think it's important not to get caught up in trying to make Kanji mean an English word. Kanji is simply symbols for different series of sounds.