Japanese | Word of the Day

Wassup guys,
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As you may have heard, Taiwan experienced a sizeable 6.1 magnitude earthquake in its northeastern region yesterday afternoon. The seismic activity was enough to topple buildings and injure at least 17 people according to early reports.

Since Japan also sits on the ring of fire, we experience minor earthquakes on a regular basis. Because of our regions suseptibility to this type of natural disaster, I chose "地震/じしん/jishin・earthquake" to be the word of the day. Lets breakdown these kanji.
地震

• 地/じ/ji*: ground, earth
• 震/しん/shin*: quake, tremble, shiver, quiver, shake

*Beware: pronunciation of individual kanji may change depending on context.

Though these kanji may look complicated, I think being aware of each individual definition makes this word easier to understand relative to the instances in which we encounter them in the context of other words.
For example:

地

• 地上・above ground
• 地下・underground
• 地下鉄・subway
• 地球・Earth
• 地図・map
• 地域・area, region

震

• 震う・to shake(verb)
• 地震学・seismology
• 震度・seismic intensity
• 震源地 ・hypocentre region
• 海震・seaquake
• 耐震・earthquake resistance

That might seem like a lot, but the point is becoming accustomed to using context clues; identifying the relationship between the kanji you do know, among the ones you do not. I didn't know the word 耐震 before writing this post, but if 「耐」is associated with "resistance", then its safe to assume that if I encountered it combined with a kanji I'm familiar with...like, 火・fire, 「耐火」probably means "fireproof".

Hopefully that bit of logic is helpful. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? How about any other natural disaster? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. As always, don't forget to like and share this post~

Until next time,
Peace