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I was learning these words with my kanji list, and I thought that I made a
mistake and switched their meanings, but after checking the dictionary again I
realized that actually their definition are correct.

But what confuses me is that 屋根, that uses the kanji 屋, also used in 部屋
("room"), leads me to think in the top cover of a room (ceiling). And 天井, that
uses 天 ("heaven/sky"), leads me to think in the top cover of the house which
faces the sky/heaven (roof). But in reality, their meanings are the exact
opposite.

Is my logic flawed?
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meaning kanji etymology
Why does 屋根 means roof and 天井 means ceiling? Shouldn't it be the contrary?
The Kanji by itself means roof, House, shop, dealer, seller. I am not a native
Japanese speaker, but I have been trying to learn kanji for several years.
Something I have found is that many times when we are trying to learn we
overthink and assume that the meaning of the two Kanji's add together to form
some sort of logical meaning, and though this is often times the case, I have
found that sometimes you just have to learn the meaning of the two characters
put together. If it were me, I would relate the first Character to "house".
The second one is harder because it means root. There may have been some
history in the way houses were built early on in China that caused the roof to
be considered the origin Of the house, but I would just take this one on
faith.

I don't know if this will help you any but as I have been learning I have
tried to find resources that will help me. I keep all of my Kanji vocabulary
in a flash card application used on an iPad. This application is made by
chegg. I have also found an incredible site called Tangorin.com which allows
me to look up words and shows me examples of the usage of that word. They are
all written in Kanji. You can also create vocabulary lists and lists of
example sentences that you can study if you're trying to memorize kanji.

Another helpful resource that you can use is an application by Yomiwa for the
iPhone which can read a Kanji character and translated directly. It is the
coolest thing I have ever found it it used to be free. Unfortunately they now
charge for it but it is still a steel because it is so worth it it might be
like $2.99
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## Origins of 屋根{やね}

屋根{やね} is a compound of 屋{や} _"house, dwelling"_ + 根{ね} _"root → fundament,
base supporting the whole"_. This word is quite old, appearing already in
[poem 779](http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/Man4Yos.html#779) of
the _[Man'yōshū](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB)_ , one
of the oldest pieces of written Japanese dating to 759, with parts that appear
to be older still.

The age of this term might point to its origins: houses in ancient Japan were
dugouts, where the roof came right down to the ground:

![_yane_: the roof of a dugout, coming right down to the
ground](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Yoshinogari-
iseki_tateanashiki-juukyo.JPG/320px-Yoshinogari-iseki_tateanashiki-juukyo.JPG)

There is more about these houses [here on the relevant Japanese Wikipedia
page](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AB%AA%E7%A9%B4%E5%BC%8F%E4%BD%8F%E5%B1%85).
As such, the thing that formed the basis of a house was the roof itself:
_"house + basis"_ , thus 屋根{やね}.

## Origins of 天井{てんじょう}

Meanwhile, 天井{てんじょう} was borrowed out of Chinese. At its root, this is a
compound of 天{てん} _"heavens"_ + 井{じょう} _"well; wellhead; wellhead shape"_. 井
read with the _kun'yomi_ of い refers to a _"well"_ , as in the place where you
lower a bucket to get water out of the ground. 井 read with the _on'yomi_ of
either じょう or せい can refer additionally to the 井桁{いげた}, the crossbeams at the
top of the wellhead. The crossbeams themselves look a lot like the shape of
the 井 kanji, which is probably where this character came from:

![_igeta_: the crossbeams at the top of the
wellhead](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Well_with_bucket%2C_Ichijodani_200507.jpg/180px-
Well_with_bucket%2C_Ichijodani_200507.jpg)

By extension, 井 read as じょう or せい can refer to something with this same shape
-- much like what rafters or crossbeams might look like, over which the
ceiling of a room would be laid: _"sky → the area above one's head + wellhead
crossbeams"_ , thus 天井{てんじょう}.
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