Understanding the kanji 相 as "government minister"...? One of the on'yomi readings of is . If I'm doing my legwork right, when it's read this way, it has an indication of government involvement, in words like (and here, I'm relying on my dictionaries--I have no idea if these words are commonly used?) "emperor's assistant" "prime minister" ← I thought the word for this was Apart from my prime minister question above, I'm struggling to understand what is really meant by "government minister". Is this a government minister of old? (China, even?) Is this contemporarily used for ministers in the government? What level of minister are we talking about? Any old minister, or is it for special ones?

[]{} []{}

It refers to the head of each []{}(Ministry) of the Japanese Government. The U.S. counterpart of our would be "Department". is the "official" word and is used like a nickname as looks and sounds pretty heavy for everyday use.

To take []{}(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) as an example, its head is officially named []{} but since that is long, it is very often shortened to []{}.

As for the Prime Minister, you will see/hear (therefore need to know) all of []{}[]{}[]{} and []{} in the order of formality. , with or without a family name in front, would be like "Mr. President" in the U.S.

Finally, unless you are planning to be like Donald Keene, you do not need to know the word . It has much more to do with old China than old or current Japan.