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2/11/2017

Shodo Online Lesson 15, "hand” - Shodo with a Brush Pen



First, download and print a practice sheet here.



Contents



Origin of "hand"

Today, I'm going to introduce several kanji related to hand.
First, let's take a look at the kanji, "手 te" (hand).
It is originally a pictograph of a hand with five fingers.



Now let's practice kanji "手".

手 te



stroke order
1. Left sweep
2. Horizontal stroke
3. Horizontal stroke
4. Hook

On-yomiしゅ shu
Kun-yomiて te
Meaning hand

It looks good if the third stroke is thinner than the second stroke.


Origin of left and right


Besides 手, there are more kanji based on the pictograph of a hand.

The kanji, "left" and "right" are also based on the pictograph of hand.



"左 hidari" (left) stands for the image of a left hand with a tool.


"右 migi" (right) stands for the image of a right hand with a word (or mouth).
Both are used for rituals.


Here's something you should pay attention to.
For the kanji, "left" and "right", the first and second strokes look like same, however as you can see from the pictographs, they originally stand for "left hand" and "right hand".
This difference gives them different stroke orders.
For the kanji 左, the horizontal line is going be the first stroke.
But for the kanji 右, the left sweep is going be the first stroke.



左 hidari



stroke order
1. Horizontal stroke
2. Left sweep
3. Horizontal stroke
4. Vertical stroke
5. Horizontal stroke

On-yomiさ sa
Kun-yomiひだり hidari
Meaning left

As I mentioned before, draw a horizontal stroke first.

There are no particularly difficult strokes, so you can write it without problems.


右 migi



stroke order
1. Left sweep
2. Horizontal stroke
3. Vertical stroke
4. Continued line
5. Horizontal stroke

On-yomiゆう yuu
Kun-yomiみぎ migi
Meaning right

For this kanji, draw a left sweep first.

Please compare with "left".

The 右's vertical stroke is longer, isn't it?

Being careful with this difference, please practice these kanji.



Origin of friends


There are more kanji based on the shape of hands.

Kanji "友 tomo" (friends) also came from the hand.



Two right hands are shaking hands.



友 tomo



stroke order
1. Horizontal stroke
2. Left sweep
3. Continued line and left sweep
4. Right sweep

On-yomiゆう yu
Kun-yomiとも tomo
Meaning friends

Here's an interesting thing.
For the kanji "right", I explained the first stroke is the left sweep.
As you can see, the pictograph of the "friends" is the right hand, which is the same as the kanji "right".

So the first stroke of the kanji "friends" should be left sweep.
But (I don't know why) for the kanji "friends", the first stroke is the horizontal stroke.

It's a kanji mystery!





Next time I'm going to explain the radical "hand".

Please download the guide of today's lesson here




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