hello! I was just a little confused at this going over the different lessons. thank you!
What's the difference between hito and jin?
kitty-cupcake
April 23, 2013
2679
April 23, 2013
Hito and Jin are both readings of the kanji 人 = person.
While Hito is the Kun (Japanese) reading, Jin is the On (Chinese) reading of that character.
When used as an independent word to mean person/man, it is read as Hito. When 人 is part of a word made out of more than one character, it is usually read as Jin or Nin.
Here are some examples:
* Kono hito wa dare desu ka ? = Who is this person ? (here, it is read as hito because it is an independent word)
* example of words in which it is read as Jin/Nin:
- 人間 - ningen = human
- 人生 - jinsei = life
- 人類 - jinrui = humanity
- 人口 - jinkou = population
When it comes to counting people, the reading Nin is used always. You just add Nin to a number to count people. There are 2 exceptions here though:
*1 person -> 一人 (hitori)
*2 persons -> 二人 (futari)
The rest are read as: sanNIN (3 persons), yoNIN (4 persons), goNIN (5 persons) etc.
Hope this clarifies things a bit :)
kitty-cupcake
April 23, 2013
Yes it totally does!! Ahhh thank you sooooo mcuh! ^w^
2679
April 24, 2013
Also forgot to mention that there also are exceptions here, but fortunately they're not many.
When I say exceptions, I mean that 人 is part of a word, but is still read as hito (99% of the cases read as "bito").
There are only 2 that come to mind now: "hitobito" (人々 = people/populus -> where the 々 takes the place of the second character in duplicates). The other one is: "tabibito" (旅人 = traveler)
kitty-cupcake
April 26, 2013
thank you again! :)