I have a kanji question for you!

Okay, I'm VERY much a beginner at translating (so this may be a "d'uh" answer, but)... Well, I was looking at the OST title for FFVII: Advent Children's One-Winged Angel (I'm a FFVII whore), which says: "再臨:片翼の天使～Advent:One-Winged Angel～" Well, I understand "Sairin" as "Second Advent/Coming," and "no Tenshi" as "- Angel"... But I saw someone translate the "片翼" as "Katayoku," which they say is "One-Winged," but I don't get that at all. :\ I thought "片" as "hen" and "翼" was "tsubasa." Well, obviously there's different ways to say things, but..."Katayoku"? Isn't Kata a place? >_

Feel free to ignore this...just thought you might be interested in taking a look. :P ...Uhhhhh, happy Thanksgiving? And try not to mistake any turkeys for peacocks, like Christopher Columbus. ;P What a dumbass.

Kanji can be such a pain in the ass! :P I spend hours looking them up sometimes (a lot of the time...).

As you said, there are different ways to say things. So chalk this one up to readings (ON/kun). The ON reading for 片 is HEN and the kun reading is kata. The meaning of the kanji is leaf, sheet, petal, flake;one, single, one-sided, one-way;splinter, slice, slip.

A lot of times ON readings are used in compounds words. But not always. It seems to me that in the initial position (first kanji), 片, is read as kata　(most of the time, anyway).

The ON reading for 翼 is YOKU and the kun reading is tsubasa. It's meanings are wing, plane, flank; to assist or aid; to be cautious; the next day; a porch or balcony. You'll most likely see 翼 read as YOKU.

At least, that's how I'd explain it. A few websites that will help you when you get stuck are here:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html (go here first; you can look up Kanji and their contexts easily)
http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx (can sometimes be of help when it comes to reading stuff)
A dictionary site: http://dict.regex.info/cgi-bin/j-e/dict

Kanji can be a nightmare, but they're fun. Writing them (which I really suck at) is the best way to get familar with them. Good luck! Don't eat any peacocks! :P

Waha, thank you! That explains a ridiculous amount of things. -__- For the most part, I've just been translating my anime/game CDs that I have, and I was quite confused by this.

Of course, my other problem is to know when something is being compounded. X_x And I like to transliterate things...you know, so I can tell what it would sound like if a kanji was spoken out loud (I tried several ways to get that sentence to work -__-), and then actually translate it.

The two books I've been trying to get (I think you suggested them, but I can't remember) are The Original Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Andrew N. Nelson and Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You by Jay Robin. However, the character one is somewhat hard to find, not to mention really expensive. :\ Have any other suggestions?

Hmmm...I don't have those books. I'll see what I have and email you! :)