日记
rìjì · HSK 4
diary
📓 日记 = sun/day (日) + record (记) → daily record
日 means day or sun; 记 means to record or note down. Put them together and you get a day-by-day record — a diary or journal.
日 — pictograph of the sun
日 is a pictograph of the sun, originally drawn as a circle with a dot or stroke inside representing the sun's substance. Over time the round shape was squared off into the modern rectangular form. It means 'sun' and by extension 'day'.
记 — speech radical 讠 (言) + self 己
记 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 讠 (the 'speech' radical, simplified from 言) signals meaning related to words or recording, while 己 ('self') supplies the sound. Together it conveys writing down or remembering — noting things in words.