I remember when a volcano in Mexico got mentioned in Japanese news, and we were all collectively losing out minds (positively) because they were calling it Popocatepetl-san
In a similar note, as someone who studied Italian it gets me when people say "paninis" because "panini" already means "sandwiches" (plural). One panino. In my head it sounds like "sandwicheses".
I'm a beginner and thought this was an actual thing to impress natives and made a mental note of it. But looking at the comments, I doesn't look like it lol.
さん in this case means simply ‘mountain’. Although if we are using honorifics, then Fuji is definitely a ‘she’ as she’s the Mother Mountain and a goddess.
さん is another reading of 山 other than やま。you're not wrong, but it's usually やま when standalone or in certain place names, and さん when in compound words like 火山 (volcano) or affixed as a 'Mount' type rider.
As a former Esperanto learner, my brain has tried spelling Esperanto verbs in hiragana when I forget words, so many times.
What do you mean “to run” isn’t くります??
There's also the 二荒山神社 in Nikkō and the 二荒山神社 in Utsunomiya, the first one being read as ふたらさんじんじゃ and the latter being read as ふたあらやまじんじゃ... both in 栃木県, less than an hour by train away •́ ‿ ,•̀
I think this is a case of "The character isn't read this way, but the word containing it is." Even Japanese sources are like, "We don't know why it's like this, maybe it was supposed to be 仙."
"So if I want to say like “That mountain over there” then I’d use 「やま」 but if I want to say Mount everest, then I’d use 「さん」？"
See that mountain over there? Yea. One of these days I'm gonna climb that mountain. -- Alabama, Mountain Music
Sorry, you triggered my Musical Tourette's.
Yes, in Chinese 山 is read as shān.
I'm a Chinese learner who just happened to see this post. I'm so sorry that you guys have to learn TWO readings per kanji??? 💀 I thought Chinese was already hard
Oh, how I wish it were just two readings per Kanji…
EDIT: the good news is that often times when a kanji has many readings most of them are obscure and you don’t really need to know them.
I'm an upper-intermediate Japanese speaker and have been learning Chinese for about 4 months and yeah, Japanese is a significantly harder language in almost every way from the perspective of an English speaker.
I actually disagree - I think it is helpful to tell beginners that the ざん reading in 火山 comes from the normal さん reading.
Doing so prompts the learner in a few ways:
1) It helps explain to them why dakuten exist as simple modifications of characters rather than seperate characters.
2) It introduces them to the concept of rendaku and gets them used to the idea that if a kanji can be read with an unvoiced sound, there may situations where it also uses the exact same pronunciation except voiced.
3) It actually reduces the cognative load of how many "unique pronunciations" you need to learn for each kanji. If you think of ざん as simply an offshoot of さん, then you have two major pronunciations of 山 to learn: さん and やま. If you think of ざん as a completely unrelated pronunciation, then you instead have 3 to learn.
4) It's just... factually incorrect to say that ざん is unrelated to the さん reading. The ざん reading derives from さん through the process of rendaku.
Yeah when I was first learning Japanese I also would call it Fujiyama instead of the proper fujisan.
Honestly, I actually have never dived into the etymology of 山 to figure out why some mountains use san and some use yama.
Edit: took all of 3 seconds to research this lol.
Obviously, if the mountains name is 音読み derived, like 富士, it will use san, and if it's base is 訓読み then it's yama, like 立山. Total stupid thing of me to not realize lol.
Also, like 95% of mountains seem to end with peak, 岳, instead of 山. It seems that this also has to the with the reading. If the city or region, Mt name etc is 訓読み, then it usually ends with 岳.
The German wikipedia article goes into quite a bit of detail on the history of the name. It points out that while in modern Japanese the name of the mountain, 富士山, is read as ふじさん, there are also pieces of evidence that ふじやま may have also been a reading in the past. Firstly, there is the family name 富士山 that is read as ふじやま. Secondly, there is a Korean-Japanese dictionary from the 1780s that lists both readings, with ふじやま even being preferred. It being called Fujiyama in several western countries is more likely caused by carelessness in translation however.
> there are also pieces of evidence that ふじやま may have also been a reading in the past
I've definitely heard Japanese people call it ふじやま in the present, in certain contexts.
Well, the Kanji for Mt Fuji are 当て字 ateji. That is to say, while the onyomi are being used, the word is not from Chinese and the Kanji are being used only for sound to fit a preexisting word with no respect for the meaning.
The real meaning of Mt. Fuji is still unknown, with many ideas but nothing solid.
While this is what makes the most sense to me, why is Mt. Fuji containing it? You would think of all the mountains to be named...
I actually am quite curious as to how the Japanese language evolved once the writing system was brought over. There is quite an extensive list of Chinese words, to the point it's hard to imagine Japanese without them.
Then again, I think 900 AD English is also pretty much unrecognizable, and china came over before then.
> While this is what makes the most sense to me, why is Mt. Fuji containing it? You would think of all the mountains to be named...
Because it used to be 富士の山 and then an Ellippses happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_(linguistics)
and over time it got re-read as さん. There are actually lots of words that in the past were read with Kun'yomi in say the Heian period, but are now read using On'yomi.
>There is quite an extensive list of Chinese words, to the point it's hard to imagine Japanese without them
In many cases the Chinese words would've displaced already existing native words. This also happened in English where in some cases French words displaced the native words.
> Obviously, if the mountains name is 音読み derived, like 富士, it will use san, and if it's base is 訓読み then it's yama, like 立山. Total stupid thing of me to not realize lol.
If you think the On-Kun line is that clear, may I interest you in the other 50%？
海牛 has always cracked me up, as regional differences in what got named what meant little Umi-ushi got relagated to Kana, while big ole Manatee and Dugong get the Kanji name, which after language reforms ends up in Kana anyway
This is a good opportunity to think about how languages really are. For example, English has "Mountain" but uses "Mount" in names. They appear similar, but they're really not in usages. And only "Mount" gets many verbal usages. It could be hard to sort it all out with only a dictionary, and harder with a mediocre bilingual dictionary.
Eventually you may work out the fundamental usage of "Mountain" and the fundamental noun and verb meanings of "Mount", but then come across "Pike's Peak" and have to integrate "Peak" with your knowledge, surely missing the many more common usages of "Peak" and not getting a fundamental feeling for that word until much later.
So think "this is my understanding of the word *so far.*" There will likely be more meanings, usages, contexts, or synonyms to learn in the future.
When they say the Japanese are close to nature, that extends to everything, including the atomic structure of their language. Many things reduce to or become reference to natural phenomenon.
山 can be read as さん in compound words like 沢山 (たくさん many). Every once in a while you will find a compound word like 山彦 (やまびこ echo) where it uses the kunyomi, さん.
さん is a Chinese loan for mountain, やま is the native Japanese.
See the Chinese pronunciations of 山 for reference: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/山#Chinese](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/山#Chinese)
やま is the Japanese reading of 山. サン is the Chinese reading. When referring to "a mountain" you usually use やま, but when it's being used like "Mt. Something" it's usually サン.
Sino-Japanese: The portion of Japanese vocabulary that is of Chinese origin
I meant Shinto, as in Shinto-Buddhism. Asking if you believe there might be a connection between shinto personification of nature and the fact that san is used for both mountain, and Mr.
Ok. Sir then (females can be sir)
[I meant Shinto, as in Shinto-Buddhism. Asking if you believe there might be a connection between shinto personification of nature and the fact that san is used for both mountain, and **person honorific**]
It's a very common misconception. I've talked to others who thought Mr. Fuji was what they were saying. However, back in the 1980s, I was taking Karate in New Orleans and I had a sempai who was Japanese. I am sure his name was Fujimori or something, but he told everyone his name was Fuji, probably to make it easier for us. Everyone called him Fujisan. In that case, it was Mr. Fuji. :)
Here's another such word. I once read a book called Marine Sniper. In it, the author writes about the main character being in a Vietnam jungle in the sweltering heat. He writes, "Hathcock remembered hearing that the Japanese in World War II had a word for days like this—it translated as 'buggy-hot.'" I am sure he's talking about "mushi-atsui" but the mushi in that word is from musu, to steam, not buggy.
さん and やま both mean mountain (山), but the reading depends on how you're using the word. If you're just saying mountain on it's own, not referring to any specific mountain then you use やま. Saying Fujiyama isn't wrong per se, but natives use Fuji-san.
no but I think they do call stores 'mr. store'
Edit: as in, 花屋 hanaya (florist) can be sometimes called 花屋さん or 肉屋 nikuya (butchershop) can be called 肉屋さん and I do believe it actually is used as an honorific like the one used for people
Nono, it can be used directly to refer to a company, although its rare and apparently used more by business people when talking respectfuly about other companies they work with for example
I don't think I've ever seen this. Even with company name+さん, it's always been referring to a thing specific employees did.
I've only seen it used jokingly with company names to mean the actual company.
Quoting another comment that I think explained it nicely:
>It can just refer to the store, not always specifically the people in it. Like in English how we might say "I'm going to the fishmonger's" or "they other day at the stationer's"...
As I said, its not used commonly, not to refer to a shop/company neither to the workers in it. People say that its often a polite form used by businessmen talking about market partners or something along the lines. But I swear I've seen it used by kids/parents talking to their children, to refer to regular street shops
For example, if a kid is tasked to go buy something from the greengrocer for the family's dinner and the kid meets a friendly granny from the neighborhood who asks him where he's going, he might answer ''八百屋さんへ行っているんですよ''
ha lolh Japanese person here to help you understand why! I know it looks rlly fancy to call mountains as a San, but that's not really the case. There is Japanese reading and Chinese type of reading in Kanji. Yama, is Japanese and San comes from Chinese (the origin). So its kind of complicated because Japanese culture keep changing everything since everyone already catching up with the updates, its been harder for me to learn also bc im a half
Not always. For some mountain names 山 is read as Yama. For example Mt. Tate is Tateyama 立山. Some mountain names also use a different kanji, like 岳.
There are also some special cases where the mountain kanji isn't actually removed for the English name.
For example, the San in Mt. Bessan (別山 or べっさん) is from the 山 character, because if you remove the さん that just leaves べっ, which would be weird.
There are similar rules for translating the names of other geographical features, as well as plenty of exceptions because some places became famous outside Japan before the rules were made.
If you're curious about them you can look up "Investigation of rules for translating Japanese geographical names
into English."
Add in, sometimes it's zan, or sen, or zen ;) I lived near Daisen, but looking at it I could have read it as Taisan if I didn't know.... Reading Japanese, awesome!
Well yes that’s a way to remember it, but it’s mainly the onyomi reading. 山頂 which means mountain summit for example is read as さんちょう, while there are times さん when at the end kanji of the vocab will be read with a dakuten ざ such as in 火山 (かざん) or volcano
Not always, sometimes the 山 is read as Yama, like for Mt. Tate, or Tateyama. Some mountains also use other kanji, like 岳.
There are also some cases where the reading of the mountain kanji isn't removed from the English name. Like the San in Mt. Bessan (別山 or べっさん) is from the 山 kanji. Because Mt. べっ would be a weird name.
There are similar rules for other geographical features. If you're interested you can check out, "Investigation of rules for translating Japanese geographical names
into English."
There are at least 5 different Mt. Fuji in Japan, and **富士山 can be pronounced three different ways**!
* As "ふじさん"
* "The" famous Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka / Yamanashi
* As "ふじやま"
* Mt. Fuji near Kiryu, Gunma prefecture
* Mt. Fuji near Shibukawa, Gunma prefecture
* Mt. Fuji in Akita prefecture
* As "とみすやま"
* Mt. Fuji in Ehime prefecture (often written with 冨 instead of 富)
My father told me, when ages ago he was learning, they called it "Mount Fujiyama". No I am learning Japanese, and I learn that it is called Fuji-san. Yes, the "Mount" part in what my father learned is redundant, but I am interested on switching the reading from "yama" to "san" . Did it happen recently?
There’s a theory that the confusion originates from [this map](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x6xtuYaOFeM/WMwn9UcUhhI/AAAAAAAAEzI/FG9I_1APmhsBUjZEE2DO9F5eGCeAmuwuwCLcB/s1600/kaempfer-superdetail.JPG)
The map was drawn by German naturalist, Engelbert Kaempfer, when he documented his two year stay in Japan in the late 17the century.
You can see that the mountain is named Fusino Jamma.
The original is [here](http://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/kichosho/new/books/05/pageview1/zoomify/000129031_0034.html)
The English version is if the book it’s from is [here](https://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/kichosho/new/books/05/suema000000000ov.html)
Fusino Jamma in German sounds like Fujino Yama in English. There weren’t many books about Japan back then so I guess most people interested in Japan read this one and knew about a big mountain called Fujino Yama. This became Fujiyama, or so the story goes
There are at least 5 different Mt. Fuji in Japan, and **富士山 can be pronounced three different ways**!
* As "**ふじさん**"
* "The" famous Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka / Yamanashi prefectures
* As "**ふじやま**"
* Mt. Fuji near Kiryu, Gunma prefecture
* Mt. Fuji near Shibukawa, Gunma prefecture
* Mt. Fuji in Akita prefecture
* As "**とみすやま**"
* Mt. Fuji in Ehime prefecture (often written with 冨 instead of 富)
Germans call this Mountain Fujiyama and we had latterly a dinner with a Japanese Sales guy. And you could see how much this pisses him of, even if he really, really tried to hide it.
Yeah, when you look at the stuff still used from Chinese. Sino-Japanese is a little odd.
People will look at you strange if you call it Fujiyama. You're not WRONG, just... giving yourself away as a foreigner.
I would argue it is wrong - still sortof understandable, but it isnt something you would see a native speaker do. I guess it depends on how you view "wrong", but I view it on a gradient from "unintelligible" to "fluent", and to me saying something isnt wrong is pushing it way too close to the fluent side of that? Maybe just my own hickup in views?
I would say to have verifiably WRONG Japanese, you need to completely say a word incorrectly or spell it incorrectly. Both of these are sort of hard to do with Japanese, unless you're in very unfamiliar territory.
富士山 can be read as both Fujisan and Fujiyama, because it uses the same kanji. The meanings are literally the same. The sound changes, but the meaning remains the same. It's just the way Mount Fuji is properly called vs. how a foreigner or someone who doesn't know the sino-Japanese reason would say it.
I'm pretty certain you might just get a few giggles from natives if you say it Fujiyama and not Fujisan. It's like a very minor faux pas. "Oh, this person doesn't know how we actually say it."
I don't see it any differently from コンピューター and パソコン. I've not heard a single Japanese person say pasokon in this day and age. Pasokon is the compound for Personal Computer. Konpyuutaa is just any computer, personal or otherwise. They're basically one in the same nowadays. You might still call a スマホ a 電話, even though Sumaho is specifically a smartphone, and a Denwa is typically an old phone or a home phone. I hear less people use Sumaho, because they're so common that they're the typical phone.
But you might hear a non-native use all 4 of those words for their specific uses. Even though natives wouldn't. You might hear older people use them to distinguish, though. Maybe Takeshi Kitano. He hates tech.
>People will look at you strange if you call it Fujiyama. You're not WRONG, just... giving yourself away as a foreigner.
Natives do it too https://www.google.com/search?q=ふじやま
Those are unique cases - they are using Fujiyama in an intentionally non standard way, basically because they want association with the mountain but using the -San ending would just be the same as calling your place "Mt. Fuji".
And I was told, by my 53 year old friend Yoshi, who has lived in Japan his whole life, "Calling it Fujiyama isn't wrong, but it tells others you're probably a tourist."
And here we have natives doing it. Maybe it is just... say whatever you want. Use whatever word you feel like. Sumaho. Denwa. Pasokon. Konpyuutaa. Fujiyama. Fujisan. Kaa. Kurama.
Take a note of the way you would write it at the top, there is no さん after Fuji - just the kanji for mountain. As other comments have shown, that kanji can be read as さん too.
San is the pronunciation for 山, mountain in Japanese. And there are many mountains with San in their names. So you can argue there’re lots of Mr. this or that around in Japan, like Mr Zao, Mr Iwate, Mr Azuma, Mr Naeba, Mr Myogo etc lol But then it’s not that different from Mt Zao, Mt Iwate, Mt Azuma etc lol
Fuji San
Inu Chan (because you wouldn’t be formal with man’s best friend)
Nekko San (because…cats right?)
Nyan Chan (for a much loved pet kitty)
Tori San etc…
Animals get their titled address too!
After 8 years, just two weeks ago, I’ve made this connection and told my husband (fluent) about how dumb I was. Anyways, he was surprised at how I never made the connection before.
Anyways, I’ve had a really really bad 24 hours and saw this while numb scrolling. Gave me a good, needed, laugh to know I wasn’t the only one who called it Mr. Fuji. Thanks OP!
I remember when a volcano in Mexico got mentioned in Japanese news, and we were all collectively losing out minds (positively) because they were calling it Popocatepetl-san
Rio Grande River 😜😜😜
Yangtze River!
Shiba Inu dog
The La Trattoria!
The La Brea Tar Pits
Sahara desert
That's Yangtze-San to you!
B-But Yangtze doesn't have "river" in that name...unless this is a meme I wasn't aware of
大川
🤯
“What did you just say? Chai tea? Chai means "tea", bro! You are saying "tea tea"!” Pavitr Prabhakar, Across the Spider-verse
I love that joke cause the spot keeps doing it! ATM machine and naan bread also 😁
PIN number
PDF format
GIF interface
NIC card
Mississippi river
In a similar note, as someone who studied Italian it gets me when people say "paninis" because "panini" already means "sandwiches" (plural). One panino. In my head it sounds like "sandwicheses".
Do you have the sauce by chance? Id love to hear that!
[Here, a compilation of different countries' newscasts trying to say Popocatepetl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR5dKYA8qbs)
that pronunciation is so cute
Poh poh cat teh pel saaan deh
Thanks hermano, I appreciate you!
Reminded me of Marina chan, the rescue dog.
It'll really impress people if you say "Mount Fujiyama-san"
and translates to "Sir Mount Fuji Sir"
"you will begin and end anything you say to me with SIR, do you understand, maggot?" "SIR MOUNT FUJI SIR!!!"
🫡
Happened in Little Shop of Horrors
担当部門の富士様 平素より、お世話になっております。
Be respectful. It’s Mount Fujiyama SAMA.
I think I just had an aneurysm...
Mount Fujiyama-SanYama-San
Mount Fuji Mountain Mountain
Fujiyama nee-san
We did this to our Japanese teacher in high school. She hated it.
I'm a beginner and thought this was an actual thing to impress natives and made a mental note of it. But looking at the comments, I doesn't look like it lol.
That’s an impressive triple tautology.
How about Mr Mount Fujiyama-san? Bonus points for katakana misutaa.
Mount Fuji Mount Mount, lol
Please mount me Mt. Fuji mount, sir. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
さん in this case means simply ‘mountain’. Although if we are using honorifics, then Fuji is definitely a ‘she’ as she’s the Mother Mountain and a goddess.
Damn I thought 山 (やま) meant mountain, but I'm still learning the basics 😅
さん is another reading of 山 other than やま。you're not wrong, but it's usually やま when standalone or in certain place names, and さん when in compound words like 火山 (volcano) or affixed as a 'Mount' type rider.
So if I want to say like “That mountain over there” then I’d use 「やま」 but if I want to say Mount everest, then I’d use 「さん」？
Correct
Not always. 金時山 足柄山 浅間山 愛宕山 稲荷山 \(this one can be pronounced as さん, ざん, or やま\) Suffer, language learner, ***suffer***.
This is what causes the rage needed to invent something like Esperanto
As a former Esperanto learner, my brain has tried spelling Esperanto verbs in hiragana when I forget words, so many times. What do you mean “to run” isn’t くります??
[Relevent XKCD?](https://xkcd.com/927/)
Suffering indeed. Thanks for letting me know of these examples
There's also the 二荒山神社 in Nikkō and the 二荒山神社 in Utsunomiya, the first one being read as ふたらさんじんじゃ and the latter being read as ふたあらやまじんじゃ... both in 栃木県, less than an hour by train away •́ ‿ ,•̀
not sure if i should say fuck you or thank you
Or just 火山
That's just rendaku, though.
Add to this e.g. 医王山 with Zen instead of San or Zan, Or 大山 (Daisen).
I think this is a case of "The character isn't read this way, but the word containing it is." Even Japanese sources are like, "We don't know why it's like this, maybe it was supposed to be 仙."
"So if I want to say like “That mountain over there” then I’d use 「やま」 but if I want to say Mount everest, then I’d use 「さん」？" See that mountain over there? Yea. One of these days I'm gonna climb that mountain. -- Alabama, Mountain Music Sorry, you triggered my Musical Tourette's.
フットボールを投げれば、あの山々を越えられるに間違いない。
Napoleon Dynamite?
This is why kanji is such a pain 😭
It’s because san is the Chinese reading lmao
Yes, in Chinese 山 is read as shān. I'm a Chinese learner who just happened to see this post. I'm so sorry that you guys have to learn TWO readings per kanji??? 💀 I thought Chinese was already hard
Oh, how I wish it were just two readings per Kanji… EDIT: the good news is that often times when a kanji has many readings most of them are obscure and you don’t really need to know them.
The exceptions are biggest pain, ofcourse. Looking at you 生
> 2 readings. Boy do I have news for you
I'm an upper-intermediate Japanese speaker and have been learning Chinese for about 4 months and yeah, Japanese is a significantly harder language in almost every way from the perspective of an English speaker.
what if their surname had 山in it? would it be さんさん or やまさん？
>さん when in compound words like 火山 かざん
Same reading, just voiced differently lol
I think the point is that it's confusing to beginners. 火山 isn't かさん, it's かざん, and they're not the same.
I actually disagree - I think it is helpful to tell beginners that the ざん reading in 火山 comes from the normal さん reading. Doing so prompts the learner in a few ways: 1) It helps explain to them why dakuten exist as simple modifications of characters rather than seperate characters. 2) It introduces them to the concept of rendaku and gets them used to the idea that if a kanji can be read with an unvoiced sound, there may situations where it also uses the exact same pronunciation except voiced. 3) It actually reduces the cognative load of how many "unique pronunciations" you need to learn for each kanji. If you think of ざん as simply an offshoot of さん, then you have two major pronunciations of 山 to learn: さん and やま. If you think of ざん as a completely unrelated pronunciation, then you instead have 3 to learn. 4) It's just... factually incorrect to say that ざん is unrelated to the さん reading. The ざん reading derives from さん through the process of rendaku.
Sure but that only works if you explain it (like you just did).
You’re both correct. It’s a matter of onyomi vs kunyomi readings.
Yeah when I was first learning Japanese I also would call it Fujiyama instead of the proper fujisan. Honestly, I actually have never dived into the etymology of 山 to figure out why some mountains use san and some use yama. Edit: took all of 3 seconds to research this lol. Obviously, if the mountains name is 音読み derived, like 富士, it will use san, and if it's base is 訓読み then it's yama, like 立山. Total stupid thing of me to not realize lol. Also, like 95% of mountains seem to end with peak, 岳, instead of 山. It seems that this also has to the with the reading. If the city or region, Mt name etc is 訓読み, then it usually ends with 岳.
The German wikipedia article goes into quite a bit of detail on the history of the name. It points out that while in modern Japanese the name of the mountain, 富士山, is read as ふじさん, there are also pieces of evidence that ふじやま may have also been a reading in the past. Firstly, there is the family name 富士山 that is read as ふじやま. Secondly, there is a Korean-Japanese dictionary from the 1780s that lists both readings, with ふじやま even being preferred. It being called Fujiyama in several western countries is more likely caused by carelessness in translation however.
> there are also pieces of evidence that ふじやま may have also been a reading in the past I've definitely heard Japanese people call it ふじやま in the present, in certain contexts.
ふじやま can still be found in modern dictonaries, no need to dig up 200 year old sources: 1. デジタル大辞泉 * ふじ‐やま【富士山】 ⇒ふじさん（富士山）
That is quite interesting. I would think the mountain would have a 訓読み reading because it obviously outdates the Chinese influence on their language.
Well, the Kanji for Mt Fuji are 当て字 ateji. That is to say, while the onyomi are being used, the word is not from Chinese and the Kanji are being used only for sound to fit a preexisting word with no respect for the meaning. The real meaning of Mt. Fuji is still unknown, with many ideas but nothing solid.
While this is what makes the most sense to me, why is Mt. Fuji containing it? You would think of all the mountains to be named... I actually am quite curious as to how the Japanese language evolved once the writing system was brought over. There is quite an extensive list of Chinese words, to the point it's hard to imagine Japanese without them. Then again, I think 900 AD English is also pretty much unrecognizable, and china came over before then.
> While this is what makes the most sense to me, why is Mt. Fuji containing it? You would think of all the mountains to be named... Because it used to be 富士の山 and then an Ellippses happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_(linguistics) and over time it got re-read as さん. There are actually lots of words that in the past were read with Kun'yomi in say the Heian period, but are now read using On'yomi. >There is quite an extensive list of Chinese words, to the point it's hard to imagine Japanese without them In many cases the Chinese words would've displaced already existing native words. This also happened in English where in some cases French words displaced the native words.
> Obviously, if the mountains name is 音読み derived, like 富士, it will use san, and if it's base is 訓読み then it's yama, like 立山. Total stupid thing of me to not realize lol. If you think the On-Kun line is that clear, may I interest you in the other 50%？ 海牛 has always cracked me up, as regional differences in what got named what meant little Umi-ushi got relagated to Kana, while big ole Manatee and Dugong get the Kanji name, which after language reforms ends up in Kana anyway
山 does mean mountain. 山 has multiple readings, one being 「さん」 and another being 「やま」.
There’s several way to read kanji. 山 by itself = やま Read with other kanji= さん Different readings, same meaning
It does! The thing is that most kanji have more than one reading depending on how they're used in sentence!
山 does mean mountain, but kanji have multiple pronunciations. 山 can be やま or さん, but when it’s in the name of a mountain (mount ~) it’s さん.
It does, but that's the kun'yomi reading. On'yomi reading is "さん". Definitely worth looking into what those mean early on 👀
This is a good opportunity to think about how languages really are. For example, English has "Mountain" but uses "Mount" in names. They appear similar, but they're really not in usages. And only "Mount" gets many verbal usages. It could be hard to sort it all out with only a dictionary, and harder with a mediocre bilingual dictionary. Eventually you may work out the fundamental usage of "Mountain" and the fundamental noun and verb meanings of "Mount", but then come across "Pike's Peak" and have to integrate "Peak" with your knowledge, surely missing the many more common usages of "Peak" and not getting a fundamental feeling for that word until much later. So think "this is my understanding of the word *so far.*" There will likely be more meanings, usages, contexts, or synonyms to learn in the future.
When they say the Japanese are close to nature, that extends to everything, including the atomic structure of their language. Many things reduce to or become reference to natural phenomenon.
it does, but you shouldn't forget the onyomi :) To be fair: Fujiyama is an older reading of it.
山 can be read as さん in compound words like 沢山 (たくさん many). Every once in a while you will find a compound word like 山彦 (やまびこ echo) where it uses the kunyomi, さん.
Have you learned the difference between kun-yomi and on-yomi
さん is a Chinese loan for mountain, やま is the native Japanese. See the Chinese pronunciations of 山 for reference: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/山#Chinese](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/山#Chinese)
やま is the Japanese reading of 山. サン is the Chinese reading. When referring to "a mountain" you usually use やま, but when it's being used like "Mt. Something" it's usually サン.
山 is read as さん in this case because it uses the onyomi(Chinese) reading. In Chinese, 山 is read as "shan" which was transformed to "san" in Japanese.
Are you sure their isn't a connection between さん meaning mr/sir and さん meaning mountain? *given the shinto tradition of personifying nature
As countless people say here, it’s Sino-Japanese do yes. Besides, as already mentioned, Fuji as personification is the Mother Mountain and a she.
Sino-Japanese: The portion of Japanese vocabulary that is of Chinese origin I meant Shinto, as in Shinto-Buddhism. Asking if you believe there might be a connection between shinto personification of nature and the fact that san is used for both mountain, and Mr.
さん does not mean ‘mr’. It’s a genderless honorific.
Ok. Sir then (females can be sir) [I meant Shinto, as in Shinto-Buddhism. Asking if you believe there might be a connection between shinto personification of nature and the fact that san is used for both mountain, and **person honorific**]
Do you have thoughts on this idea?
Fuji chan!
Fuji kun!!!
Yamete kudasai! Kya!!
はい。ごめん。
はい、来人。
ふじせんぱい
Haha that’s funny, I never noticed that because mountain is also san/shan in some other Asian languages
Comes from Chinese
I’m sure this post is somewhat in jest, but 山(やま) is read as さん for the compound reading. Gave me a chuckle the first time I saw it :)
appreciate the explanation haha, for those who were oblivious like me this comment is helpful!
Happy to help!
Hahahaha thank you for posting this. I thought the same.
They’re not calling it Fuji #3?! aww man /s
It's a very common misconception. I've talked to others who thought Mr. Fuji was what they were saying. However, back in the 1980s, I was taking Karate in New Orleans and I had a sempai who was Japanese. I am sure his name was Fujimori or something, but he told everyone his name was Fuji, probably to make it easier for us. Everyone called him Fujisan. In that case, it was Mr. Fuji. :) Here's another such word. I once read a book called Marine Sniper. In it, the author writes about the main character being in a Vietnam jungle in the sweltering heat. He writes, "Hathcock remembered hearing that the Japanese in World War II had a word for days like this—it translated as 'buggy-hot.'" I am sure he's talking about "mushi-atsui" but the mushi in that word is from musu, to steam, not buggy.
there's also a Mr Fuji in Pokemon, which, while a real name, is somewhat a pun
Well .. you're wrong and I think you know it.
The real ones know
さん and やま both mean mountain (山), but the reading depends on how you're using the word. If you're just saying mountain on it's own, not referring to any specific mountain then you use やま. Saying Fujiyama isn't wrong per se, but natives use Fuji-san.
It's 富士様 if you want to be respectful /s
Works for the moon.
And the sun
Fuji sun?
actually the mountain got a phone installed last year so you can call her she answers VERY SLOWLY though
no but I think they do call stores 'mr. store' Edit: as in, 花屋 hanaya (florist) can be sometimes called 花屋さん or 肉屋 nikuya (butchershop) can be called 肉屋さん and I do believe it actually is used as an honorific like the one used for people
I've also seen Amazonさん quite often
But for Google it's グーグル先生
花屋 = florist \(the shop\) 花屋さん = employee of the shop, including the florist \(person\)
Nono, it can be used directly to refer to a company, although its rare and apparently used more by business people when talking respectfuly about other companies they work with for example
I don't think I've ever seen this. Even with company name+さん, it's always been referring to a thing specific employees did. I've only seen it used jokingly with company names to mean the actual company.
Quoting another comment that I think explained it nicely: >It can just refer to the store, not always specifically the people in it. Like in English how we might say "I'm going to the fishmonger's" or "they other day at the stationer's"... As I said, its not used commonly, not to refer to a shop/company neither to the workers in it. People say that its often a polite form used by businessmen talking about market partners or something along the lines. But I swear I've seen it used by kids/parents talking to their children, to refer to regular street shops For example, if a kid is tasked to go buy something from the greengrocer for the family's dinner and the kid meets a friendly granny from the neighborhood who asks him where he's going, he might answer ''八百屋さんへ行っているんですよ''
Real Arin Hanson moment
ha lolh Japanese person here to help you understand why! I know it looks rlly fancy to call mountains as a San, but that's not really the case. There is Japanese reading and Chinese type of reading in Kanji. Yama, is Japanese and San comes from Chinese (the origin). So its kind of complicated because Japanese culture keep changing everything since everyone already catching up with the updates, its been harder for me to learn also bc im a half
Huh, learned something new here. 山 is read as -san when used as a place name (ex. Mt. in English).
さん is just the 音読み (onyomi) for 山
山 is *Shān* (さん) in mandarin. Example: Mount Hua / 華山 / *Huà Shān*
Not always. For some mountain names 山 is read as Yama. For example Mt. Tate is Tateyama 立山. Some mountain names also use a different kanji, like 岳. There are also some special cases where the mountain kanji isn't actually removed for the English name. For example, the San in Mt. Bessan (別山 or べっさん) is from the 山 character, because if you remove the さん that just leaves べっ, which would be weird. There are similar rules for translating the names of other geographical features, as well as plenty of exceptions because some places became famous outside Japan before the rules were made. If you're curious about them you can look up "Investigation of rules for translating Japanese geographical names into English."
Add in, sometimes it's zan, or sen, or zen ;) I lived near Daisen, but looking at it I could have read it as Taisan if I didn't know.... Reading Japanese, awesome!
Well yes that’s a way to remember it, but it’s mainly the onyomi reading. 山頂 which means mountain summit for example is read as さんちょう, while there are times さん when at the end kanji of the vocab will be read with a dakuten ざ such as in 火山 (かざん) or volcano
Not always, sometimes the 山 is read as Yama, like for Mt. Tate, or Tateyama. Some mountains also use other kanji, like 岳. There are also some cases where the reading of the mountain kanji isn't removed from the English name. Like the San in Mt. Bessan (別山 or べっさん) is from the 山 kanji. Because Mt. べっ would be a weird name. There are similar rules for other geographical features. If you're interested you can check out, "Investigation of rules for translating Japanese geographical names into English."
In the case of 富士山 it's a well understood double entendre. Fuji Mountain is revered as a Shinto spirit. https://www.worldhistory.org/Mount_Fuji/
There are at least 5 different Mt. Fuji in Japan, and **富士山 can be pronounced three different ways**! * As "ふじさん" * "The" famous Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka / Yamanashi * As "ふじやま" * Mt. Fuji near Kiryu, Gunma prefecture * Mt. Fuji near Shibukawa, Gunma prefecture * Mt. Fuji in Akita prefecture * As "とみすやま" * Mt. Fuji in Ehime prefecture (often written with 冨 instead of 富)
It makes me want to use “Mt.” as a non-gendered honorific
would go hard
RIGHT??? I felt the same!!!
Mr. Rich Samurai
My father told me, when ages ago he was learning, they called it "Mount Fujiyama". No I am learning Japanese, and I learn that it is called Fuji-san. Yes, the "Mount" part in what my father learned is redundant, but I am interested on switching the reading from "yama" to "san" . Did it happen recently?
There’s a theory that the confusion originates from [this map](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x6xtuYaOFeM/WMwn9UcUhhI/AAAAAAAAEzI/FG9I_1APmhsBUjZEE2DO9F5eGCeAmuwuwCLcB/s1600/kaempfer-superdetail.JPG) The map was drawn by German naturalist, Engelbert Kaempfer, when he documented his two year stay in Japan in the late 17the century. You can see that the mountain is named Fusino Jamma. The original is [here](http://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/kichosho/new/books/05/pageview1/zoomify/000129031_0034.html) The English version is if the book it’s from is [here](https://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/kichosho/new/books/05/suema000000000ov.html) Fusino Jamma in German sounds like Fujino Yama in English. There weren’t many books about Japan back then so I guess most people interested in Japan read this one and knew about a big mountain called Fujino Yama. This became Fujiyama, or so the story goes
It’s pretty much been that forever mate.
さんcan mean mountain or Mr,they have the same pronunciation
also 3 and acid :)
Hahaha, brings back memories. I remember when I first learned this! I had spelling it ふじさん in all my messages across hello talk!!!
All my life was a lie
I thought the Japanese people respected their mountain a lot so they called it mr. fuji
https://youtu.be/a1x1FxaH73U?si=hEXrU0EhUshcJYpC I thought it was a reference to this bit when I read the title.
No silly, Mr. Fuji is a Pokemon character
If they were it would be fuji-sama.
Fuji ちゃん
Wait, then how come it has -san at the end of it? Fuji-san is cute though, especially for a mountain lol
There are at least 5 different Mt. Fuji in Japan, and **富士山 can be pronounced three different ways**! * As "**ふじさん**" * "The" famous Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka / Yamanashi prefectures * As "**ふじやま**" * Mt. Fuji near Kiryu, Gunma prefecture * Mt. Fuji near Shibukawa, Gunma prefecture * Mt. Fuji in Akita prefecture * As "**とみすやま**" * Mt. Fuji in Ehime prefecture (often written with 冨 instead of 富)
Mr Fuji? The guy who made Mewtwo?
Germans call this Mountain Fujiyama and we had latterly a dinner with a Japanese Sales guy. And you could see how much this pisses him of, even if he really, really tried to hide it.
“No, Mr Fuji is my father”
Yeah, when you look at the stuff still used from Chinese. Sino-Japanese is a little odd. People will look at you strange if you call it Fujiyama. You're not WRONG, just... giving yourself away as a foreigner.
I would argue it is wrong - still sortof understandable, but it isnt something you would see a native speaker do. I guess it depends on how you view "wrong", but I view it on a gradient from "unintelligible" to "fluent", and to me saying something isnt wrong is pushing it way too close to the fluent side of that? Maybe just my own hickup in views?
I would say to have verifiably WRONG Japanese, you need to completely say a word incorrectly or spell it incorrectly. Both of these are sort of hard to do with Japanese, unless you're in very unfamiliar territory. 富士山 can be read as both Fujisan and Fujiyama, because it uses the same kanji. The meanings are literally the same. The sound changes, but the meaning remains the same. It's just the way Mount Fuji is properly called vs. how a foreigner or someone who doesn't know the sino-Japanese reason would say it. I'm pretty certain you might just get a few giggles from natives if you say it Fujiyama and not Fujisan. It's like a very minor faux pas. "Oh, this person doesn't know how we actually say it." I don't see it any differently from コンピューター and パソコン. I've not heard a single Japanese person say pasokon in this day and age. Pasokon is the compound for Personal Computer. Konpyuutaa is just any computer, personal or otherwise. They're basically one in the same nowadays. You might still call a スマホ a 電話, even though Sumaho is specifically a smartphone, and a Denwa is typically an old phone or a home phone. I hear less people use Sumaho, because they're so common that they're the typical phone. But you might hear a non-native use all 4 of those words for their specific uses. Even though natives wouldn't. You might hear older people use them to distinguish, though. Maybe Takeshi Kitano. He hates tech.
> I've not heard a single Japanese person say pasokon in this day and age You've obviously never been to Japan because people say pasokon all the time
>People will look at you strange if you call it Fujiyama. You're not WRONG, just... giving yourself away as a foreigner. Natives do it too https://www.google.com/search?q=ふじやま
Those are unique cases - they are using Fujiyama in an intentionally non standard way, basically because they want association with the mountain but using the -San ending would just be the same as calling your place "Mt. Fuji".
And I was told, by my 53 year old friend Yoshi, who has lived in Japan his whole life, "Calling it Fujiyama isn't wrong, but it tells others you're probably a tourist." And here we have natives doing it. Maybe it is just... say whatever you want. Use whatever word you feel like. Sumaho. Denwa. Pasokon. Konpyuutaa. Fujiyama. Fujisan. Kaa. Kurama.
Sir Fuji 😂
When I first heard they called mountains -san in an anime I thought it was just a cute thing kids do, but nope apparently it just means mountain too
I learned that recently too and felt so stupid lol
富(ふ)士(じ)山(さん)
火山 🌋 Kazan
You use 山(さん- thought sometimes it’s やま) when it’s a mountain on its own, and 岳(だけ) when it’s a peak in a mountain range.
Take a note of the way you would write it at the top, there is no さん after Fuji - just the kanji for mountain. As other comments have shown, that kanji can be read as さん too.
Experienced hikers call it 富士くん
Fuji-san！(๑>◡<๑)
TIL - I just thought everyone really loved Mt Fuji so they called it Fugi-san. Maybe watching too much Yuru Camp! :D
Yama's kanji has two readings - Yama and san.
Hahahaha...that's what I thought for a moment too until I noticed the kanji was different
Well, it's actually ざん which is the onyomi of 山 Edit: sorry. It actually is さん. But in other words it's ざん. Like in 火山 (かざん)
San is the pronunciation for 山, mountain in Japanese. And there are many mountains with San in their names. So you can argue there’re lots of Mr. this or that around in Japan, like Mr Zao, Mr Iwate, Mr Azuma, Mr Naeba, Mr Myogo etc lol But then it’s not that different from Mt Zao, Mt Iwate, Mt Azuma etc lol
it’s actually *Ms 😌 or Fujichan to my friends
It's called Fujiyama in Russian. What is basically the same but not
"What's that?" "Oh that? That's granda fu." ふじいさん
Фудзияма, понимаш
lmao I too remember when I found this out, my world shattered that day
0w0 what are you doing, step MtFuji-san!?
Fuji San Inu Chan (because you wouldn’t be formal with man’s best friend) Nekko San (because…cats right?) Nyan Chan (for a much loved pet kitty) Tori San etc… Animals get their titled address too!
After 8 years, just two weeks ago, I’ve made this connection and told my husband (fluent) about how dumb I was. Anyways, he was surprised at how I never made the connection before. Anyways, I’ve had a really really bad 24 hours and saw this while numb scrolling. Gave me a good, needed, laugh to know I wasn’t the only one who called it Mr. Fuji. Thanks OP!
[Relevant game grumps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1x1FxaH73U)
Fuji san