Judo 　柔道　　じゅうどう

柔　means soft.   text to be colored

道　means way or path.  Judo uses a soft and fluid style for combat.

Lets move on to another use of the kanji 柔.

柔らかい　(　やわらかい )  is the adjective meaning soft.

和 shares the sound やわ and can mean peace.

The word 和らぐ　（　やわらぐ　）is a verb that means to soften or ease. For example, 痛みが和らぐ. Ease pain.

Lets go back to Judo and look and the kanji for way or path. 道

水道　（　すいどう　）means waterworks. The path water takes to get to your house. 水　of course means water.

Now lets look at a kanji that looks similar to 道　and shares the sound どう.

The kanji 導　means guide. Quite similar to path or way.

The word 指導　( しどう ) means guidance. Another example, 導入　( どうにゅう ) means to introduce or innovation.

指　= finger or point.

入　= enter or put in.

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I have been studying Japanese in this lackadaisical kind of way off and on for awhile and now that I have put my studies in a blog, I can use it as a way to keep myself at it. At least once a week I will put up an example of what I have been studying. I will try to keep it at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) level 2, but it is a stroll through Japanese so who know where I’ll end up. My study method will be to pick a word and forge a path from that point using the kanji, sounds, or meanings that are associated with it. Each post will be related to a word in the past post unless I hit a dead end or go on some weird tangent.

Since I am not a Japanese or English language expert and I welcome corrections for any of my mistakes in both languages.