Japanese with Manga
Learning through examples in manga

The correct ingredient with 正解

Kanji Explanation: Separating and understanding with 解

Manga panel from からかい上手の高木さん showing example of The correct ingredient with 正解.
からかい上手の高木さん » Volume 14 » Page 44

Takagi challenges Nishikata to guess what ingredient is inside a riceball in her lunch box. Seeing a bit of salmon from the other riceball, Nishika goes with salmon as his guess.

高木:
「正解(せいかい)はウメでした。」
“The correct answer was apricot.”

正解(せいかい) notes the one and only correct answer.

Key Points

  1. 正解(せいかい) = “correct answer”

    • 正(せい) adds the idea of correctness, and 解(かい) is the answer or solution.

    • Here it means the one answer that was actually right in Takagi’s guessing game.

  2. Why は is used after 正解(せいかい)

    • は sets the answer as the topic before telling what it was.