近所
きんじょ · kinjo · JLPT N4 · noun
vicinity
🏘️ 近所 = near (近) + place (所): the nearby place
近 (kin) means near, as in 近い chikai. 所 (jo) means place, as in 場所 basho. Put together, the near place is your neighborhood. Sound hook: your kin live in the kinjo.
近 — 辶 (walk) + 斤 (axe, phonetic)
近 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The 辶 radical signals movement or distance, while 斤 (axe) supplies the sound. Together they convey the idea of a short distance to walk, hence 'near' or 'close'.
所 — door 戶 (left) + axe 斤 (right)
Originally a sound: an axe (斤) chopping wood near a door (戶), with 戶 also hinting at the pronunciation. Over time it was borrowed to mean 'place' or 'location,' and later became a grammatical particle nominalizing verbs ('that which…'). The concrete 'chopping' sense faded entirely.