Compound? how to read

Question

Since every kanji has an inherent meaning when I do know to read a compound? Do I read each kanjis meaning individually or does it somehow make a new meaning? What if the the kanji happens to be next to each other?😖

Like 明日 so, “bright day” wtf?

Answer 1

明日 is a single word meaning "tomorrow", not "bright day". This combination also has a special reading, あした (see jukujikun). So when 明 and 日 are combined together, it produces a new word whose meaning and reading are unpredictable even if you know the basic meaning and readings of each kanji.

Just as you parse English sentences based on words, people parse Japanese sentences based on words. As is the case with any language, words may have tricky meanings or readings, and you have to memorize them one by one.

Note that similar things happen also in English. If you combine "awe" and "some", you get "awesome", but its meaning is unpredictable. The same is true for words like "wonderful", "however", "nevertheless" and so on. All we can do is memorize their meanings without worrying too much about their components.

That said, many compounds have straightforward meanings and readings, so you'll have to remember only tricky ones. For example, "volcano" is 火山 in Japanese, which is fairly easy.

For details, please read the following questions.

• 日曜日，the different meanings and pronunciations of 日
• Can kanji compounds be formed arbitrarily?