User:Takatoriyama

Takatoriyama 鷹取山 is the place near my house where I can see Mount Fuji! Maybe it is only a postage-stamp size Mt. Fuji from there, but it is still my favorite place to walk to during free time. This place, is the quarry for the stone used in the wall of the moat of the Emperor's palace in Tokyo. Today, many of the smooth overhanging rockface from which the quarried stone was taken are used by rock climbers to practice their skill.

The mountain's name "Takatori" (鷹取) is that of a type of hawk. 鷹 "taka" meaning "hawk" and 取 meaning "take". This is a description then, of a bird used to "take" other birds during a hunt. There is also a kind of pun: 取 "tori" (to take）is a homophone of 鳥 "tori" (bird).

山 "Yama" means "hill", also sometimes "mountain", but mostly "hill". I think most foreigners learning Japanese think Yama it is always a mountain, but most "yama" are not always so impressive as Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji is not Fujiyama (富士山), but Fuji-san（富士山）.

To be polite, "san"（さん）is added after people's names, much like how "Mr." or "Mrs." is added before people's names in Enlish. If you visit you may be called "Smith-san" or "Robertson-san" (which sounds very funny!) "ro-bato sonsan" → "Robot Sonsan". Maybe some kind of walking robot like Asimo&#65311;

But, Fuji-san's "san"　山, is not the same "san" さん we use for being polite to people. It is the imported On-yomi Chinese reading (音読み) of the kanji meaning "mountain". Newspapers use more 音読み words, while conversation tends to use more Kun-yomi (訓読み) words which are derived from native Japanese Yamato language. So, words in On-yomi sound much more formal. Maybe that is why Fuji-san is called "san" instead of "yama"?