蛙
かえる
hepburn kaeru
frog
Part of speech · noun
Pattern visualization
no decomposition available
Examples
- 池に蛙がいます。There are frogs in the pond.
- 雨蛙が鳴いている。A tree frog is croaking.
Collocations
蛙 (kaeru, frog)雨蛙 (amagaeru, tree frog)蛙の合唱 (kaeru no gasshou, frog chorus)鳴く (naku, to croak / cry)池 (ike, pond)
Mnemonic
Kaeru (蛙, frog) — its hiragana かえる is homophone with 帰る (to return), so in Japanese consciousness the frog is a charm for "things return safely." Buji kaeru (無事カエル, return safely) is sold as a travel-safety amulet. Classical synonym kawazu (蛙) appears in Bashou's 1686 masterpiece haiku: furu-ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto ("an old pond — a frog leaps in — sound of water") — perhaps the most famous haiku ever. Kaeru-gassen (frog chorus) describes the spring soundscape of paddies and ponds, a registered kigo (season word). Onomatopoeia diverges: Japanese kero-kero, English ribbit — each language carves the same croak into different phonemes.
Quick check
Logic of the buji kaeru amulet?