泳 - SWIMMING Forever and Ever

Readings & Meanings:

エイ

およ（ぐ）

swim

Common Usage:

水泳

泳ぐ

寒中水泳

Examples:

僕は水泳が苦手だ。

僕は泳ぐのが苦手だ。

気合を入れるために、お正月早々、海で寒中水泳する人もいる。

Translations:

I'm not good at swimming.

I'm not good at swimming.

There are even some people who, in the early morning of New Year's Day, go winter-swimming to get in the spirit of things.

Radical:

水 shows up here double-time. First, 水 is on the left, in its San-zui form of three droplets.

Then, we see 永, which I just discussed in the last post. 永 on its own means forever, but its origin is in a pictograph of many rivers.

Think of 泳 as something you do at length, in many rivers.

Or you could think of a tired swimmer at swimming practice, thinking to himself "Practice today is taking FOREVER."


Side note: this is a good example of how radicals can help you. If you know that 永 is pronounced えい, it's easier to remember that 水泳 is pronounced すいえい.

References:

http://www.kanjinetworks.com/indices/radindex.html
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/node/kanji/e.htm