梅雨
つゆ · tsuyu · JLPT N3 · noun
rainy season
🌧️☔ 梅雨 = plum + rain: the rains that come as plums ripen in June
The rainy season arrives in early summer, just as ume plums ripen, so it is named plum rain. The reading tsuyu is a special reading of the whole word, not built from the two characters. Hook: tsuyu sounds like two-you, two damp months coming for you.
雨 — pictograph: sky 一 + cloud 冂 + four water drops
雨 is a pictograph showing rain falling from a cloud under the sky. The top horizontal stroke represents the sky, the enclosing shape depicts a cloud, and the four small strokes inside are falling raindrops. Its meaning 'rain' has stayed consistent since oracle bone script.
ばいう · baiu · JLPT N3 · noun
rainy season
🌧️☔ 梅雨 = plum + rain: the rains that come as the plums ripen
梅 is plum and 雨 is rain. The early-summer rainy season in Japan falls just as the plums ripen. The same word read つゆ (tsuyu) is more common in everyday speech, and ばいう (baiu) is the on-reading used in weather reports.
雨 — pictograph: sky 一 + cloud 冂 + four water drops
雨 is a pictograph showing rain falling from a cloud under the sky. The top horizontal stroke represents the sky, the enclosing shape depicts a cloud, and the four small strokes inside are falling raindrops. Its meaning 'rain' has stayed consistent since oracle bone script.