円

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circle

On-Yomi: エン — Kun-Yomi: まる.い、まる、まど、まど.か、まろ.やか

Elements:

circle, yen

Heisig story:

This kanji, also used for Yen, is one you are not likely to need to study formally, since you can hardly get around in Japan without it. The connection is that the yennies, like pennies, are circular in shape. In any case, the elements are: glass canopy . . . walking stick . . . one.

Koohii stories:

1) [aircawn] 10-2-2007(154): The shape of a Yen coin.

2) [fuaburisu] 28-1-2006(40): A poor old man is almost killing himself trying to lift a huge glass hood with his cane (using it as a lever), to get to just one yen coin. Note : the kanji refers to a circular, round object, but also to the Japanese currency (pronounced "en").

3) [Matthew] 27-5-2007(27): A pictograph of a bank teller's window. The circles are the coins which are passed back and forth for deposits and withdrawls.

4) [mantixen] 30-9-2008(15): Sometimes I wear my top hat under my hood and it makes my head look like a circle.

5) [meolox] 24-2-2008(14): You may wonder why this character is pronounced 'en' yet is said 'yen' in the west, well this is because when it was first romanized the obsolete ゑ character was used and as such became yen in the west.

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