Browsing the blog archives for January, 2012
oka, kyū A lack of consistency in the list of the titles of our blog posts sometimes annoys me, although they are a list of my own decisions. Until last night, I didn’t realize the original title of today’s character, which was “Hills and Heights,” was different from the title of yesterday’s post, “Hill.” I [...]
oka, kyū This is another demonstration of a sōsho style. Compare this with the one in a kaisho style. Oka means a hill or a height. A dune is called sakyū, of which sa means sand.
ata-eru, yo This is a simplified version of a certain character that depicts hands holding up something, hands pulling up something, and upper and lower teeth meeting. In this simplified version, only teeth remain. As these actions suggest, the character means to give, to join, and to relate. It also means a party or a [...]
tei This character makes formal words such as teisei (correction) and kaitei (revision). If you are a beginner learner of Japanese, you can skip these words. However, look at the left part of this character. If you know this is the “speech” radical, which you can find in many other characters, it may be easy [...]
tato-eru, rei Use the phrase “tatoeba” before giving examples. It is equivalent to “for example.” Rei means an example. This character is composed of three parts. Write the sweeping stroke. Write the vertical stroke. Begin the middle part. Write the horizontal stroke. Write the sweeping stroke. Write the hook. Write the dot between the [...]
take, jō Minotake literally means one’s height. It often implies all you have. If someone says, “minotake de ikiru,” they intend to live with all the means which is available and without having excessive desire. Basic information about this character is here. Here is its sōsho style. >>>
nana, nana-tsu, nano, shichi One of the four-character precepts that express one’s resilience is “nana korobi ya oki.” Korobi comes from the verb korobu, which means to fail or to fall. Oki comes from the verb okiru, which means to rise. It encourages you not to give up. It literally suggests that if you fall [...]
tei, chō The bottom part of today’s character, which is written in a reisho style, is what we call upward turns in kaisho. The stroke rises leftward in reisho. Tei in a kaisho style looks like this. >>> One of the meanings of this character is politeness. Some people write very polite letters. Such politeness [...]
hito-tsu, hito, ichi, itsu In calligraphy, ichi (one) is the character you should practice first whatever the styles you write. Today’s style is reisho. Compare this with one in kaisho and one in sosho.
take, jō Let us show you another character written in a sōsho style. Popular words including this character are jōbu and daijōbu. Jōbu means healthy and strong. Daijōbu can be a phrase to cheer you up. We say, “daijōbu,” when we want to mean that it is ok or there is no problem. Here is [...]