野菜
やさい · yasai · JLPT N5 · noun
vegetable
🥬🥕 野菜 = field (野) + greens (菜): greens from the field
野 (ya) means field or wild, as in 野球 (field-ball, baseball). 菜 (sai) means greens or a dish and carries the grass radical 艹 on top. Sound hook: yasai sounds like yes, sigh — yes to vegetables, with a sigh.
野 — 里 (village) + 予 (phonetic)
Originally written 埜 (forest 林 over earth 土), depicting wild land beyond cultivated fields. The modern form 野 combines 里 (village/settled land) with 予 as a phonetic component, keeping the meaning of open country, wilderness, or untamed.
菜 — grass radical 艹 + 采 (pick)
菜 combines the grass radical 艹 (plants) with 采, which depicts a hand picking fruit from a tree and also supplies the sound. Originally meaning edible plants one gathers, it came to mean vegetables, and by extension any dish or cuisine.