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KANJI: MATRICULATIONM A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 8

TEACHING TUESDAY

The Japanese school year begins in April with a big opening ceremony, to celebrate the students matriculating or entering the new school year, known as nyuugaku 入学. The first kanji 入comes from an ancient Chinese ideogram depicting an arrowhead indicating “to enter”. The second character 学 means school and depicts a child 子 learning something ツ (abbreviated image of a hand passing something to another hand) at school 冖 (originally meaning “cover” or “covered building”).

Reading: にゅうがく nyoo-gah-koo

Meaning: matriculation; entry into school or university

入学

CC BY 2.0 Dick Thomas Johnson via Flickr