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Karate is pronounced "kara te" and it can be written 空手 (empty hand) or 唐手
(Chinese hand). 手 is the word for hand and is pronounced "te". Now to the
tricky part: 空 means sky/emptiness and it's pronounced "sura". 唐 means
Tang/Chinese and it's pronounced "to". Why are both these words pronounced
"kara" in kara-te? Why not "sura-te" and "to-te"? I'm confused. Can anyone
please help me here?
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2021-09-30T17:26:18.937
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question
pronunciation
Pronouncing Karate as kara-te
I'm not sure about other Asian languages but this is how Japanese happens to
be: a lot of kanjis have more than one reading (and meaning). How to find out
the reading in each specific case? Well, bad news is that you'll have to
memorize this. Sometimes it gets to be almost absurd. Check this out:

  * 生 — **nama** — raw; uncooked; fresh
  * 生 — **sei** — life; living
  * 生 — **ki** — pure; undiluted; raw; crude
  * 生 — **iku** — vital; virile; lively​
  * 生 — **fu** — area of thick growth (of trees, grass, etc.)​
  * 生きる — **i** kiru — to live; to exist
  * 生まれる — **u** mareru — to be born
  * 生じる — **shou** jiru — to produce; to yield; to cause​
  * 生憎 — **ai** niku — unfortunately; sorry, but ...​
  * 生る — **na** ru — to bear fruit​
  * 生える — **ha** eru — to grow; to spring up; to sprout
  * 生業 — **nari** rei — occupation; calling
  * 生垣 — **ike** gaki — hedge
  * 生い茂る — **o** ijigeru — to grow thickly; to be overgrown; to thrive
  * 生毛 — **ubu** ke — downy hair; down; vellus hair; peach fuzz; fluff

Fortunately, this is a rare example. Most of the kanjis have 2-3 readings.
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2021-09-30T23:46:37.513
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