A Pivotal Point

i-ru, kaname, yō

In 1981, the Japanese government announced a list of important Japanese characters. The list is called “jōyō kanji hyō,” whose literal meaning is “a list of commonly used Japanese characters.”

All the readings of listed characters are not listed in the list. I’ll explain this today.

Today’s character is included in the list. This character has some readings like i(ru), kaname, and yō. While both iru and yō are listed as readings of this character, “kaname,” which specifically means “a pivotal point,” is not included in the list.

To sum, “kaname” is not as important as the other readings.

Let’s see some words with yō.

• The main points is yōten.
• An abstract of a thesis is yōshi.
• A summary of an article is yōyaku.

The verb iru means to need.

1. Draw the horizontal stroke on the top.
2. Draw the left side of the rectangle.
3. Draw the upper and right sides of the rectangle.
4. Draw the vertical stroke crossing the upper side of the rectangle.
5. Draw the other vertical stroke crossing the upper side of the rectangle.
6. Draw the lower side of the rectangle.
7. Draw the rotated chevron.
8. Draw the sweeping stroke crossing the previous stroke.
9. Draw the long horizontal stroke.