In today's activity, we will learn the kanji (Oriental ideographic alphabet) related to time in Japanese. They are: Now what, morning, afternoon and after.
今
Meaning: Now.
How to learn: When seeing this kanji, the first image that comes to my mind is a magic house. In this house live visionaries who cannot see the past or the future of people, but only the emotional present. When someone enters the house, the visionaries can see “the now”, everything she is feeling at that very moment.
common reading: いま (Ima).
stroke order:
何
Meaning: What (usually used to do questions in japanese.).
How to learn: For me, this symbol is a box under a wooden hut. The box was built not to be opened, and everyone is always curious about what's inside the box. What is there?
common reading: なに (Nani).
stroke order:
朝
Meaning: Morning.
How to learn: The first strokes of this kanji remind me of 車(くるま – kuruma), ie car in japanese. But this car is different, it is a car made for the Sun (日-bi). Can you see this? So the sun arrives by car and pushes the moon (月-getsu) off the horizon. Bottom line… When the sun rises in the morning, it pushes the moon off the horizon, but pushes it using a car. (:-))
common reading: .
stroke order: As we already know how to write the kanji 月 (moon in japanese), I won't show your stroke order. I'm just going to show the stroke order of the car the sun uses. OK?
昼
Meaning: Noon.
How to learn: Midday (12 hours) is the time when the sun (日) and the moon (月) fight the most for the horizon. This time the sun managed to break a leg of the moon, hitting it from below. Despite being bruised, the moon grows stronger at the end of the day and pushes the sun off the horizon. What a fight these two have...
common reading: ひる (Hiru).
stroke order:
後
Meaning: Later, subsequently, later.
How to learn: This kanji was very difficult for me. I spent hours and hours looking at it and trying to see something that would help me memorize its features and meaning. Ultimately, this was the best story I found.
This symbol is a seal coming out of a cave during the rain. The first line represents the raindrops, the second and third draw the cave the seal is coming out of. Note that the clouds in the sky are formed from the fourth to the sixth dash, and from the seventh to the last dash, we have the seal coming out of the cave in the rain.
What made the seal come out of the cave in the rain? She was late for the Elton John show. if she left to go out later, would be late and would not see her great idol.
common reading:ご (Go).
stroke order:
These were the kanji with their stroke order for Hour, Minute, Second, Before and Half in Japanese. On sites like kanjivg you can see the stroke order of other Japanese ideograms. if you liked share and share with your friends and colleagues!