写真

Pattern visualization

Examples

1. 家族の写真を見せます。▶ —
   I'll show you a family photo.
2. ここで写真を撮ってもいいですか。▶ —
   May I take a photo here?

Collocations

Mnemonic

しゃしん — 写真, Sino-Japanese. Unpack the two kanji ── 写 (copy) + 真 (truth, the real) = 'a copy carried over from the real'. For 19th-century photography, East Asia named the technology with the kanji idea of 'copying the truth' ── a different gaze from English photograph ('drawing with light'). The Korean reading sajin matches character for character. The verb is 撮る toru (to take) ── 写真を撮る. It is counted with ~枚 mai, the counter for flat things ── 一枚, 二枚. An essential tourist phrase ── 写真を撮ってもいいですか? (May I take a photo?). You meet these characters again in Mandarin Roots, as 写 and 真.

Quick check

1. "Take two photos" — correct counter?

   • 写真を二枚撮る (correct, 枚 for flat things)
   • 二個 (general, less precise)
   • 二本 (for long thin objects, wrong)
   • 二つ (general native counter, acceptable but less precise)