「吹く」と「拭く」の違いご存じですか？

I'll give you a hint: 吹く has the "mouth" radical and 拭くhas the "hand" radical...

吹く means "to blow". In other words, air is coming out of your "mouth". It can be used in a variety of sense, from a scale of literal to metaphorical, because it is quite a common word. Some usages include:

風が吹く

the wind is blowing (intransitive)

シャボン玉を吹く

to blow bubbles (transitive)

トランペットを吹く

to play the trumpet lit. to blow through the trumpet (transitive)

芽を吹く

to sprout buds (transitive)

拭くmeans "to wipe". The kanji kind of looks like a "hand" is holding a cloth and wiping down a table. It is really only used in one sense.

テーブルを拭く

to wipe the table (transitive)

While they are homophones, the meaning and kanji are different enough that any confusion between the two ends early. What I am interested in, as an advanced learner, is how the meaning of compound verbs (補助動詞)can be synthesized quite easily when added to these two words in particular, since both are relatively common and refer to easily demonstrated physical actions. Let's take a look:

吹く
• ー吹き出す
• ー吹き消す
• ー吹き落とす＊
• ー吹き込む

拭く
• ー拭き取る
• ー拭き消す
• ー拭き落とす
• ー拭き込む

There are five different compound verbs represented here. As compound verbs, they have a consistent meaning which is sometimes directly, sometimes obscurely related to their individual meaning. Let start with the most common:

How to parse 出す

吹き出す has the verb 出す added to it, which by itself means "to come out". When used as a compound verb, it also means "out", specifically, outwar directionality, but it also intensifies the action. However, 吹く has four meanings. Does this not mean four different meanings that must be intensified?

風が吹き出す

the wind "rushes" past

シャボン玉を吹き出す

to "spurt" out bubbles

n/a

芽を吹き出す

to send out shoots

The third meaning isn't really used in this sense. Although in English, we might imagine "blasting" out some bars on the trumpet, in Japanese, an adjective would be used instead.

出す is also used constructively, i.e. it can be added on to almost any verb as a grammatical construct. We could consider this the difference between compound verbs (two verbs to convey complex actions) and auxiliary verbs (a verb that takes on a grammatical function). It means "to begin to~" or "to suddenly do~". This means that 吹き出す could be considered to have a secondary set of meanings.

風が吹き出す

the wind suddenly starts blowing

シャボン玉を吹き出す

to start blowing bubbles

トランペットを吹き出す

to suddenly start playing the trumpet

芽を吹き出す

to start budding

Note that 拭く does not take 出す as compound verb. This makes the Japanese learner wonder: could there be a more "intense" or "outward" sort of wiping? In reality, which verbs accept which compounds is linked to semantics (does "wipe + outward" make sense? does the concept deserve its own word when there are adequate adjectives?), but unfortunately it's arbitrary to a certain point.

That being said, 拭く can take 出す as an auxiliary verb, as in テーブルを拭き出した "to begin wiping down tables."

How to parse 消す

The next compound verb we'll talk about is 消す, which I think is the easiest. The verb means "to erase", and it carries this meaning with it to the verbs that it modifies to the point that you can basically translate any word it is attached to as "to X and erase" or "to X to the point of it disappearing"

You can use it with 吹く to mean "to blow and make disappear" i.e. "to blow out (a flame)". With 拭くit means "to wipe until erased" or "to wipe out", a verb you'd likely use when telling a student to clean the blackboard or whiteboard after class.

誕生日ケーキに並んでいるろうそくを吹き消した。

I blew out the candles on my birthday cake

授業の後で、黒板を拭き消してください。

Please wipe off the blackboards after the lesson.

How to parse 落とす

落とす is a little more complicated. 落とす has various meanings as verb, and pretty much any one of them can potentially be used to make a compound verb.

(English speakers commonly struggle to understand the difference between 落とす and it's intransitive sister 落ちる, but for the purposes of this discussion I'll assume you're comfortable with transitivity and ignore that discussion.)

1. to drop
2. to lose
3. to clean off
4. to fail
5. to lessen...

How can all these disparate meanings be applied to a single verb? Anyone who's been studying Japanese for a while is very familiar with verbs like 落とす and 吹く, which have dictionary entries as long as your arm. However, part of moving from an intermediate learner to an advanced learner is realizing that there is a common metaphor lying beneath the surface of all of these verbs. By recognizing that metaphor, you'll have a much easier time internalizing all of these meanings, and you'll probably start using the word more dynamically without even realizing it, because metaphor comes very naturally to us. First and foremost, let's add some context:

花瓶を落とす

to drop a vase

財布を落とす

to lose your wallet (to drop your wallet)

結晶を落とす

to clean off makeup

試験を落とす・試験に落とす

to fail an exam

肩を落とす

to lower your shoulders (to drop your shoulders)

Already, you can see that some of these meanings have been metaphorically applied in a very similar way to English. This is why having example sentences, even if they're very short, is so helpful.

You can easily see that all of these definitions metaphorically refer to "going down".

Like all transitive verbs, 落とす will always carry a sense of volitionality, or at the very least, a sort of accusation that the agent did nothing to stop it. When you "drop a vase", it means something is falling from a human's hand. In other words, even if it was an accident, it's just as likely that the agent might have done it on purpose. The human hand carries with it the implication of intent, and a degree of guilt. Don't believe me? What if you dropped a very nice insta-pot on the ground and broke it? When explaining to your mother why it's broken, you'd probably say "The insta-pot fell" rather than "I dropped the insta-pot". Even though it was an accident, you still feel bad. By avoiding a transitive verb, you avoid admitting fault.

The second most common meaning is "to lose", as in 落とし物, lost objects. In English we can also say "I dropped my wallet somewhere" when we've lost our wallet, but in Japanese, you can use 落とす to describe lost bags, shoes, umbrellas... Perhaps a better way to think about it is not that the object is "lost", but rather that it was "left behind". Take for instance an umbrella in an umbrella stand. In English, you could say either that it was left behind or that it was lost. In Japanese, you'd say 傘が落とされた。The act of leaving something behind, whether it's forgetting an umbrella or dropping a handkerchief, is still something going from your hand down to the ground.

Now, we might begin to understand how "to drop" relates to situations like "cleaning", "failing", "lowering". When cleaning something, specifically things like dirt or make-up, you use your hand to rub off or chip off the material, which then falls to the ground in flakes. When I was a child, me and my siblings found a large mud hole behind a barn and played in it all afternoon. We had to hose off in the backyard with cold water, and even then we couldn't get it all out. When I learned this word, I imagined rubbing dried mud from my eyebrow and watching the specks fall down to the floor.

You could connect 落とす's sense of "failure" to the English "dropping grades". It refers to "failing a course" or "failing a test". In other words, you dropped in the rankings, you dropped from a passing grade to a failing grade. You took the test by your own hands, and you failed to prepare well enough by the very same hands. Though you might not have set out to fail, you still feel guilt that your grades have spiraled downwards.

The final sense is a metaphorical extension we also use in English. "To lessen bodyweight"="to drop weight", "to lower production"="to drop in production"... By this point, you understand. You have grasped the idea enough to that any further explanation is tedious.

It turns out that 落とす is quite a complex word! But now that we're so familiar with it, we can better analyze how it functions as a compound verb.

When attached to 拭く, 拭き落とす means "to wipe off (dirt)" "to rub out", which means it's using the third meaning of 落とす, to clean, not the primary meaning of "drop". However, to help you really remember it, here's a scene for you. Imagine your brother threw a mandarine at you and it hit the wall behind you. You go to wipe off the stain, and as you vigorously rub the wallpaper, mandarine pulp and wallpaper flakes fall to the ground.

壁からみかんの肉を拭き落とした。

I wiped off the mandarine pulp from the wall.

＊There is technically a verb 吹き落とす, which means "to blow and make drop", with the example provided in the dictionary "to blow down fruit". I wonder if it might be used for the tale of the three little piggies...? Regardless, I've never heard the word used myself.

Stepping away from our primary examples for a moment, 落とす is a fairly common compound verb. Using what we learned, can you try to guess what these words mean?

切り落とす

to cut off

見落とす

to overlook (to fail to see)

洗い落とす

to wash out

読み落とす

to overlook when reading (to fail to read)

打ち落とす

to shoot down

取り落とす

to take then drop

泣き落とす

to persuade with tears (to let tears drop... or, there is a rare sense of 落とす to mean "to seduce" "to win over")

How to parse 込む

How do you review vocab words?

I have a particular method which I recommend highly. I use renshuu as my centralized dictionary and flashcard tool. While I'm going through my flashcard schedules, I try to identify when I truly know the answer, and when I am actually guessing one of the four multiple choice answers. If I am guessing, I know I do not actually know the word, so I now press the "don't know" button. If I don't have much to review, I might hit the "don't know" button for all of the new words for that day, as well. In renshuu, when you hit "don't know", not only does the mastery level go down a little, but at the end of the quiz, they are all provided directly underneath the gatcha game, so you can review them all together.

How I review them is I write them all down in pen, jotting down their meaning and their reading if I really don't know it, and then try to combine these random words into a sentence. From personal experience, 2-4 words per sentence is ideal. I then draw a little thumbnail next to the sentence of what is happening, as a mnemonic device. Another mnemonic device is what I call a "radical map", which connects all of the words based on shared radicals. It may take some creative thinking and ingenuity, and if you have less than eight words to review, you may just have to make a normal mind map to connect them anyway you can, but since doing this, I've become much better at recalling which kanj are used for the words.

Why is 2-4 ideal? Why do I need mnemonic devices? Because, I do this first thing in the morning, and then at night I take a fresh sheet of paper and write down the sentences, underlining each vocab word. If necessary, I'll re-draw my thumbnail and my radical map in order to help jog my memory. As with SRS, even if it is quite difficult to recall, if you manage to push through that difficulty and recall the information, that connection will be all the more stronger for it. However, we don't have all day. If after five minutes, you truly can't recall anything else, I call it a day and check my answers. Anything I missed, I might copy a few times, get a cup of coffee, and try again.

I do this once more the next morning, before the next set of vocab words. If I'm in a hurry, though, I'll just jot down the vocab words by themselves with their meaning and reading. It is an incredibly effective tool to both learn and review, and I highly recommend it. In the future, when I make an "extra practice" post, I am using this method.

Vocab Under Review:

• 溶く・とく・to dissolve (c.f. 溶かす to melt, both transitive), to mix (water and flour, etc), to beat (eggs, etc)
• かみそり・razor
• 反駁・はんばく・refutation
• 敷く・しく・to spread out
• 提示・ていじ・presentation (of id etc)

水とバッターと小麦粉を溶いて、生地になるまで練って、めんぼうと使って伸ばして、ケーキ型に敷きましょう。

Mix the water, butter, and flour together and knead until it forms a dough, then roll out with a rolling pin before laying it out over the bottom of your baking tin.

警備を通すため荷物をTSAに提示したとき、かみそりを取って「これ禁止されている、取り上げます。」と言ったけど、前にちゃんと規則を読んでそんなルールはなかったから反駁した。

When I was presenting my luggage for inspection in TSA security, they took my razor and said that it was prohibitted. But before coming I read all the rules and regulations and knew there wasn't such a rule, so I protested.

Vocab Words Under Review

• 合わす・あわす・to match (rhythm), to meet two ends
• 堪える・こらえる・to bear
• 匙・さじ・spoon
• 配置・はいち・to be deployed, to be stationed
• 挿す・さす・to insert (plants)
• いよいよ・more and more, finally
• 未だに・いまだに・even now

未だにアメリカの兵隊が沖縄に配置されているなんて、ふざけているじゃん。治安より、アメリカ製の戦乱を堪えた兵士が熱帯の島に息抜きもらっているだけじゃないか。

The fact that even now there are American troops stationed in Okinawa is ridiculous. Rather that providing "public safety", aren't they just letting the soldiers lucky enough to survive all these American-made wars goof off on a tropical island?

いよいよ暑くなっていて、ひまわりの花苗を挿そうと思ったけど、スコップ去年どこかに落としてしまったから、穴を匙で彫らずを得ない。そのため、ひまわりは直線に並んでいなく、となりさんのひまわりの線と合わしていない。

It's finally getting warmer so I wanted to put my sunflower seedlings in the ground, only I seem to have misplaced my spade last year and had no choice but to dig holes with a spoon. Because of that, they aren't in a straight line and they don't line up with my neighbor's sunflowers at all.

＊Sentences are fictional

Vocab Words Under Review

• 便・びん・flight
• 連想・れんそう・mental association
• 包む・くるむ・to wrap (in)
• 過失・かしつ・accident
• 重役・じゅうやく・important position
• 増殖・ぞうしょく・increase

便に過失があれば重役でさえ困る。

If there's an accident on a flight, even the directors start sweating.

ミントと勢力が強いから何もしなければ増殖して芝生を治める。

Mint has a lot of vitality, so if you don't do anything, it will propagate and take over your yard.

包まれた赤ん坊見ると、ブリートを連想する。

Whenever I see my swaddled baby, I also think of burritos.

Vocab Words Under Review

• 安静・あんせい・repose
• 寿命・じゅみょう・lifespan
• くどい・repetitious
• 純情・じゅんじょう・naivete
• 基地・きち・base (military, expedition, etc)
• 同席・どうせき・being present
• 候補・こうほ・candidate
• 物価・ぶっか・price of commodities
• 行政・ぎょうせい・executive, administrative
• 復元・ふくげん・restoration

行政の候補はくどくTransの人についてギャアギャア言っているけど、一人でも物価の一言を言わない。

All of the candidates for the Executive branch are all complaining about trans people, meanwhile not a single one utters a word about the price of commodities.

エベレストの基地は今復元されています。

The Everest Base Camp is being restored.

寿命を伸ばすため、ちゃんと安静すべき。毎日同席が健康より大事だと思われる人が純情だ。

In order to prolong your lifespan, you need to properly rest. People who think showing up to work every single day is more important than their health are naive.

Note: 無欠席・むけっせき・perfect attendance

Vocab Words Under Review

• ずっしり・profoundly
• 気体・きたい・gas
• 休業・きゅうぎょう・suspension of business
• 休講・きゅうこう・concellation of classes
• 稽古・けいこ・practice (rigorous, meditative)
• 純粋・じゅんすい・pure
• 蒸気・じょうき・steam
• 機械・きかい・machine
• 札・さつ・banknote

気体を圧力で詰め込んで蒸気を作る機械の構造を授業で習ったはずだけど、休講されました。

We were supposed to learn how the machine that makes steam by pressurizing gas works, but class was cancelled.

銀子に純粋なLSDを染み込んだ札が提出されて休業することになりました。

A bill soaked with pure LSD was turned into the bank, so it it was decided business would be suspended for a while.

ずっしり仏さまを理解するまで滝の下に稽古する。

Until I more profoundly understand the buddha, I will practice under a waterfall.