Kanji to Kana: Sabaku no Gaara

[Just Some Guy]

Wondering if I can get a hiragana translation of the following kanji:

瀑

This is the second kanji from 砂瀑の我愛羅 (Sabaku no Gaara). When I put it into a kanji to kana converter (http://www.j-talk.com/nihongo/) or the Babel Fish translator (http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr), this kanji is always left un-translated which leaves me even more curious. Mainly I've just been trying to figure out how to type the names using the Windows IME, hence the converter. So far I've got:

Japanese: 砂瀑の我愛羅
Romanization: suna [?] no ware ai ra (suna [?] no ga ai ra)
Meaning: sand [?], self love [?] of
Wikipedia Translation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaara): Gaara of the Sand Waterfall

With this I can type all but the second character. Can't say I really understand how suna [?] becomes sabaku or ware ai ra becomes Gaara though unless there's some odd rule I haven't learned yet. And I'm also I'm not getting the meaning of Gaara or why it's not romanized as Gāra either though I suspect this is due to some databook spelling.

Edit: Hmm... I just realized ga produces the same kanji as ware so that might help explain Gaara.

[Yoshitsune]

瀑 is pronounced "baku" meaning waterfall, found in the word bakufu (waterfall), here the word Sabaku means sand waterfall, but the word for desert in Japanese is also sabaku but with a different kanji.

so:
砂(sand)瀑(waterfall) - Sa baku = sand waterfall
砂(sand)漠(wide) - Sa baku = Desert

Japanese kanji can be pronounced many ways, so 砂(sand) can be suna. But depending how it's used, by itself, it's suna, with something else it can be sa, or sha.

我愛羅 - self, love, last kanji in the word carnage

His name literaly means a self-loving carnage, and again, kanji have diff pronounciations so,
我 - ore, or GA
愛 - ai, or A as well since it's a stem from that sound
羅 - RA meaning silk but from word 修羅 (shuura - carnage)

[Just Some Guy]

Ah, a very informative reply. The word I had for waterfall was taki (http://www.nuthatch.com/kanji/demo/6edd.html) which wasn't getting me anywhere; it seems bakufu (http://haiku.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp/%7Eshiki/kukai/kiyose-summer.html) is a less common synonym that I would have never found on my own. I also would have never guessed at shuura. Been running into similar oddities since translating other kanji names like Hitsugaya Toushirou and (Kurosaki) Ichigo. So tough. >_<

Anyway thanks for the info. :p

[marora]

wow. the two of you have convinced mw to take japanese classes at my local comunity college.

[The Black Knight]

I was gonna say the same thing. sabaku meaning desert is written as 砂漠

[Yoshitsune]

wow. the two of you have convinced mw to take japanese classes at my local comunity college.

aww, awesome! It's really worth it, since it's not too hard to learn and it's a fun language to learn!

[The Black Knight]

yeah speaking is a piece of cake.........Writing is what makes it one of the most complex languages (to write) in the world.

[Yoshitsune]

yeah speaking is a piece of cake.........Writing is what makes it one of the most complex languages (to write) in the world.

Well speaking is kind of like writing if you think of the words in your head before you say them. You write them in your head, and then spew them out sometimes, so you do need to sort of know what your structure will be before you say it.

[The Black Knight]

I'm not neccesairly talking about structure but more with the kanji-kana combinations and readings, that can sometimes get confusing.