RTK Lesson 1 Flashcards
One
一
The Roman numeral for “one” stands upright, but the Chinese character lays on it’s side, horizontal.
This, as a primitive, will become floor or ceiling.
Two
二
The Roman numeral for two stands upright, and the Chinese character lays on its side.
Three
三
The Roman numeral for three stands upright, and the Chinese character lays horizontal. Think “1+2=3” to get the strokes balanced.
Four
四
This Kanji is composed of two primitive elements: foot and mouth.
Five
五
Six
六
Top Hat, Animal Legs
Seven
七
The first stroke “cuts” through the second.
*As a primitive, this character will mean “cut”, or “diced”. This is consistent with the way the character is written, and it’s association with the kanji for cut.
Eight
八
The Arabic numeral for eight is one circle on top of a larger circle. So too is the Chinese character one short line followed by a longer line. Also, just like a sideways eight makes the infinity sign, so too does the expanse created by the outward slant of the lines suggest a sense of infinity and “all-encompassing.”
Nine
九
*As a primitive, this kanji will mean baseball team, or baseball. Remember the nine players who make up a baseball team.
Note: To take care with this stroke order, you will never confuse it with the kanji for power.
Ten
十
The Roman numeral for ten is X. X turned 45° gives you the Chinese character for ten.
*As a primitive this character sometimes keeps its same meaning as ten, but sometimes signifies needle.
Mouth
口
This is a clear pictograph. There are no circular shapes in Kanji, and thus this square depicts what should be a circle to represent mouth.
*As a primitive this character also means mouth, in many senses of the word - an opening or entrance to a cave, river, bottle, or even thee largest hole in your head.
Day
日
This is supposed to be a pictograph of the sun.
Remembering that there are no circles in Kanji, we can see this would have been akin to a circle with a big smile in the middle, like those happy sun badges that tell you to have a nice day.
*As a primitive, this kanji can mean “sun” or “day” or “tongue wagging in mouth.” The latter meaning incidentally derives from one of the older kanji which meant “sayeth” that looked similar but the middle line didn’t touch the right side of the box.
Month
月
Story: This is a picture of the man on the moon. You can see his left eye and mouth represented by the two horizontal lines.
*As a primitive, this means “moon, flesh, or part of the body.”
Rice Field
田
This is a birds eye view of rice field. A perfect pictograph.
*As a primitive this becomes brains, as it looks like that intense tangle of gray matter in our skulls.
Eye
目
Another perfect pictograph. Round the edges of this character and you will see an eye.
*As a primitive this maintains its meaning as eye. Sometimes it will be placed horizontally on its side.
