Languages › Japanese Japanese Word of the Day: Moto Share Flipboard Email Print boggy22/GettyImages Japanese Essential Japanese Vocabulary History & Culture Japanese Grammar By Namiko Abe Namiko Abe Japanese Language Expert B.A., Kwansei Gakuin University Namiko Abe is a Japanese language teacher and translator, as well as a Japanese calligraphy expert. She has been a freelance writer for nearly 20 years. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on September 23, 2018 Moto means "the origin; the cause; the foundation; the basis." The word is written in hiragana as: 元 （もと） Example Hi no moto wa tabako no fushimatsu datta.火の元はタバコの不始末だった。 Translation: The origin of the fire was careless handling of a cigarette. Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Abe, Namiko. "Japanese Word of the Day: Moto." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/moto-meaning-and-characters-2028675. Abe, Namiko. (2020, August 27). Japanese Word of the Day: Moto. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/moto-meaning-and-characters-2028675 Abe, Namiko. "Japanese Word of the Day: Moto." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/moto-meaning-and-characters-2028675 (accessed May 30, 2023). copy citation