思う

⟨omo₂pu⟩ → */əməpu/ → /omoɸu/ → /omou/

From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *əməp-.^[1][2] First attested in the Kojiki of 712 CE.^[3] Also appears in the Man'yōshū poetry compilation, completed c. 759 CE. There are two main theories for its ultimate derivation:

• May be cognate with 面 (omo, “face”), from the sense of how one's emotions appear on one's face.^[1]
• May be cognate with 重 (omo, “weight”), from the sense of weighing different options.^[1] Compare similar derivations of English ponder (as in “to weigh; to think”) and ponderous (as in “heavy, weighty”). However, this runs into problems, since the ancestor of this form is reconstructed as *onpo- (“heavy”).

• (Tokyo) おもう (Nakadaka – )^[4][2][5]
• IPA^(key):

• Audio:

  (file)

思(おも)う • (omou) ^{←おもふ (omofu)?}intransitive godan (stem 思(おも)い (omoi), past 思(おも)った (omotta))

1. to think, to deem
2. 思う: (と〜) to think that

   私(わたし)は田(た)中(なか)先(せん)生(せい)のクラスはとても面(おも)白(しろ)かったと思(おも)います。

   Watashi wa Tanaka-sensei no kurasu wa totemo omoshirokatta to omoimasu.

   I think that Prof. Tanaka's classes were very interesting.

3. to long for, to yearn for

   故(ふる)郷(さと)を思(おも)う

   furusato o omou

   to think of one's hometown

A pattern with which this verb is often used is:

(私は + ) + (と + 思う/思っている).

+ (と + 私は + 思う/思っている).

• When ending in 思う, the pattern expresses opinions which the speaker holds at the time of speaking.
• When ending in 思っている, the pattern expresses opinions which the speaker has had since sometime in the past
• 思っている is also used to express opinions by someone other than the speaker.

While both 思う (omou) and synonym 考える (kangaeru) can be used to mean to think, omou may include more emotional and subjective overtones, whereas kangaeru implies more analytic and objective thought.^[1]

• 考(かんが)える (kangaeru)

• 慮(おもんぱか)る (omonpakaru, “(formal) to consider carefully”)