目

Pattern visualization

Examples

1. 目を閉じてください。▶ —
   Please close your eyes.
2. 黒い目がきれいです。▶ —
   Black eyes are beautiful.

Collocations

Mnemonic

め — 目, Yamato. A single mora that names the eye. Because it is short, the syllable carries many homophones; the slug me-eye pins this sense down. The kanji 目 is a pictograph of an eye seen from the side — pupil and white locked inside horizontal strokes. kunyomi め (Yamato): 目を閉じる (close eyes), 黒い目 (black eyes). onyomi もく (Sino-Japanese): 目的 mokuteki (purpose), 注目 chuumoku (attention). The idiom 目が覚める — 'the eyes wake' — means to wake up; body and consciousness meet in a single phrase. The same 目 also marks ordinal position: 一つ目 hitotsu-me (the first one). Vision becomes counting, the Japanese way.

Quick check

1. "I woke up" — idiom in Japanese?

   • 目が覚めました me ga samemashita (correct idiom)
   • 寝が覚めました (no such pattern)
   • 眼が起きました (wrong word for "eye")
   • 目を起きました (mixes particles)