踊 - Stomp Your Feet and DANCE

Readings & Meanings:

おど（る）

ヨウ

a dance, to dance, to jump

Common Usage:

盆踊り

日本舞踊

Examples:

夏は盆踊りの季節だ。

日本舞踊の先生の家を訪ねた。

ちびまるこちゃんのアニメの歌"踊るぽんぽこりん"は一時期流行った。

Translations:

Summer is the season of the O-Bon Dance.

I visited the house of the traditional Japanese dance teacher.

The song "Odoru Ponpokorin" from the anime of Chibi Mariko-chan was really popular for a while.

Radical:

I didn't recognize it for the longest time, but We've got Ashi-hen on the left: 足.

Phonetic element 甬 on the right consists of 用 (pierce or business) and 人 written a different way. The idea is of a person stamping their feet; 甬 alone means narrow road.

The 足 radical reinforces the stamping the feet idea. To dance is to stamp your feet.

Bonus:

Chibi Maruko-chan is an old anime, probably pretty good for studying. I've never watched an episode. I can wholeheartedly recommend this song to you, though. It's catchy. I can't embed it, but go to this link for a video and romaji lyrics: http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/chibimarukochan/odoruponpokorin.htm

As for the translation of ぽんぽこりん: I couldn't find a translation anywhere, which is really odd for an anime song. From my sources, ぽんぽこ refers to a big, swollen belly, usually an animal's. The tanuki statues at restaurants in Japan usually have these kinds of stomachs. ぽんぽこりん just has a cute suffix. I suppose the translation would be "dancing belly," but, well, the entire song is incoherent and doesn't really need to make sense.

The anime is rather silly, I'm told, but interesting. Take a look at this clip, which I was able to find.



Can you figure out what the boy is doing?

References:

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