田舎
いなか · inaka · JLPT N4 · noun
countryside
🌾🏡 田舎 = rice field + hut: the countryside
田 means rice paddy and 舎 means hut or lodging, so the word is literally a house among the fields. The reading inaka is irregular (jukujikun), often explained as 田 (ina, rice) + 家 (ka, house). Sound hook: in a car, heading out of town.
田 — enclosure 囗 + cross 十 (field grid)
田 is a pictograph of a cultivated field divided by raised paths or irrigation ditches into plots, shown as a square with a cross inside. Its original sense was 'farmland,' which it still carries today, and it also serves as a common surname.