Have been having a great time with Duolingo; a thing I enjoy is learning/practicing a language in another language, to help me escape English-language patterns of thinking. (I did for years largely live in French, so those patterns also are ingrained.) Duolingo mainly teaches from English but offers bunches of other language–first content, so there's much fun to be had, and it's perfect for doing some exercises in down time or in anxious time, when a person needs something to fidget with. Or in bed, via iPad.
Anyway, I jump in this morning to leave myself a note to look into 望. I have on News 24, trying to pick up whatever I can, and I've noticed shibou (死亡, decease, demise) and kibou (希望, wish, hope).
亡 recalls 亡くなる/無くなる (to die / to be lost, to "become nothing", both of which are funnily appropriate because く looks like the > sign used in computer coding that means piping-to or resulting-in.) 望 is のぞ・む、のぞ・ましい、のず・み, wish or desire, 望み通り, just as one would wish. Recalls Hamlet, ruminating on death by suicide as "a consummation devoutly to be wished".
I also am seeing in 望 rarity, the full moon, or the middle of the (eighth lunar) month—Shakespeare again, the Ides (of March, in Caesar's case)—bougetsu, surname Mochi-zuki (月—why mochi?). 望外 bougai, unexpected (外, outside of). 望遠鏡 bouenkyou, a telescope (the 望-distant-mirror).
No time to investigate now, so I'll have to take a rain-check on the full moon, but...note to self!
