Water in Japanese || There's more than one way to read 水!

[Hannah]

So when you get started in learning Japanese, you’ll probably learn:

Water in Japanese is 水 (みず ; mizu)

And when you want to order a water in Japanese, you’ll use the sentence:
お水をください
O-mizu o kudasai
Water please

BUT there are some other ways to specify specific types of water in Japanese, and depending on the word, 水 can have different pronunciations or isn’t used at all, for example:

• お水 (おみず ; omizu) - drinking water
• 冷水 (れいすい ; reisui) - cold water
• 温水 (おんすい ; onsui) - warm water
• お湯 (おゆ ; oyu) - hot water

And then when the character 水 is used in other contexts, the pronounciation can change again, e.g.:

• 水母 (くらげ ; kurage) - jellyfish
• 水面 (みなも ; minamo) - water surface

Confused yet?

[Lyu-Mandarin]

Always confused when studying Japanese but it gets easier!