淡水
たんすい · tansui · JLPT N2 · noun
fresh water
💧 淡 = bland or light, 水 = water: water that is not salty
淡 means bland or light, the opposite of salty 鹹. Freshwater is water with little salt, like rivers and lakes, as opposed to seawater.
淡 — water radical 氵 + 炎 (flame, phonetic)
淡 combines the water radical 氵 with 炎 (flame), which serves mainly as the phonetic component. The original sense relates to water that is thin or weak in flavor — diluted. From this it extended to mean bland, light, faint, or pale, as in pale colors or weak tea.
水 — pictograph of flowing water
水 is a pictograph depicting a stream of flowing water, with the central line representing the main current and the side strokes showing splashing droplets or ripples. In oracle bone script it was drawn even more clearly as a wavy vertical line with branches. It retains its original meaning of 'water' and also serves as a radical, often appearing in the compressed form 氵.