不便
ふべん · fuben · JLPT N4 · noun
inconvenience
🚧 不便 = not (不) + convenient (便): the un-handy state
不 (fu) negates, and 便 (ben) is the same character as in 便利 (benri, convenient). Swap 利 for a leading 不 and convenient flips to inconvenient. Sound hook: fuben is benri with the ben kept and a fu of refusal in front.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
便 — person 亻 + change 更
A semantic compound: 亻(person) beside 更 (to change/replace). The original sense was a person making things easier or more convenient by adjusting them. From 'convenient' it extended to 'then/thereupon' (biàn) and to bodily 'discharge' (as in 大便).