kutsuro-gu, kan The last character we would like to present to you in year 2010 is “to relax,” one thing most of our contemporary people forget to do no matter where you live in the world. Whether you think ourselves as productive or not, we are bound to be busy. Being busy has been almost [...]

mukashi, shaku Mukashi means “a long time ago” or “ancient times.” You will find the story begins with the word, “mukashi mukashi.” The phrase is equivalent to “once upon a time” in English folklores. Draw the horizontal stroke. Draw the vertical stroke from the top left. Draw the vertical stroke from the top right. Draw [...]

osa-meru, osa-maru, nao-su, nao-ru, chi, ji Like yesterday’s character, this character means “to govern.” The verb osameru means “to govern” or “to settle a dispute.” The verb osamaru means “to settle down” or “to become stable.” We have another verb with this. Naosu means “to cure disease.” Naoru means “to recover.” You can use Nao’s [...]

he-ru, kei, kyō This character is used in many different ways because it has many meanings. It is primarily known as a character meaning “to go through” and therefore keiyu means via. The verb heru also means “to go through” or “to experience.” If the subject of heru is time, the meaning is “to go [...]

  wa-ru, wa-reru, wari, katsu The verb waru means to split. In math, it means to divide. If the object of the verb is a hard thing such as ceramics or glasses, waru means to break it or to crack it. The intransitive verb wareru is used when it breaks or it cracks. The verbs [...]

reki This character means history or lucidity. So the title roughly expresses its meaning. As we mentioned here before, history is rekishi. Someone’s biography is sometimes called raireki but it sounds formal. Rireki is one’s personal history or career. Rirekisho means a résumé or CV. The adverb “rekizento” means clearly. It’s rather formal. Writers use [...]

kan As you can see in the title, today’s character’s meaning is related to watching. See some compounds including the character to feel the meaning. kankō … sightseeing jinseikan … one’s theory on of life rakkan … optimism hikan … pessimism bikan … a sense of beauty gaikan … the appearance of something such as [...]

hari, shin Hari is a needle. Clocks and watches have two hands. These are called hari. The longer one is chōshin; the shorter, tanshin. Stitches can be counted by hari. Hitohari is one stitch; futahari is two stitches; mihari, three; yonhari, four and so on. Start to draw from the left part of the character. [...]