Many of you probably know that many Japanese words are written using one of more kanji, each kanji having it’s own meaning. Sometimes the meanings of the individual kanji do not seem to relate to a word formed using them but usually they do. Take for example 電話, “denwa” or “telephone”. The “den” (電) means electricity and the “wa” (話) means conversation (roughly). The thing I love is that sometimes you come across words and the meanings of the kanji they can be written with give you a new perspective or sense to the word concept.

Example: 大抵 (taitei) means “usual” used in a sentence like “on usual days…”

大 has meaning of “big” and
抵 has meaning of “resist”

Learning that, I started to see the “usual” as being “big resistance” (ie. to change).