To Eat

ta-beru, ku-u, ku-i, gu-i, shoku, shoku-suru

Ta-beru and ku-u are the Japanese verb for “to eat”. The suffixes beru and u are okurigana.

Shoku is a noun. It means food, appetite, eating, meal, and diet. For each meaning, a relevant compound exists. By compound, I mean a word that is composed of more than two characters. For example, the compound, shokuyoku is appetite. The yoku means desire.

The compounds, chōshoku, chūshoku, yūshoku, are the Japanese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, respectively. The chō means morning, chū, noon, and yū, evening.

Nisshoku is the Japanese compound for a solar eclipse. Gesshoku is for a lunar eclipse. In classical usages, the shoku of nisshoku and gesshoku is another character, which means to be eaten by worms.

As a contemporary trend, dieticians are stressing the importance of shokuiku or nutrition education. They believe that shokuseikatsu (eating habits) has a big influence on health. Seikatsu means life.

Although this character is a nine-stroke character, we draw this with ten strokes in kaisho style. The technique to draw the first two strokes is similar to eight (hachi).

When you draw it with a pen, regard the seventh and the eighth strokes as one stroke, and just make an upward turn at the bottom.

1. Draw the sweeping stroke from the top to the lower left. By putting the tip of the brush along the left side of the stroke, you can make it look like a sharp edge. Make it narrower at the end.
2. Draw the sweeping stroke from the top to the lower right. You can make the hem-like ending by spreading the brush.
3. Draw the small dot under the umbrella.
4. Draw the right-angled hook.
5. Draw the horizontal stroke inside the rectangle.
6. Draw the horizontal stroke at the bottom of the rectangle.
7. Draw the vertical line from where you start the fourth right-angled hook.
8. Draw the stroke heading toward the dot below the rectangle. Make it narrower gradually.
9. Draw the dot sweeping toward the previous stroke.
10. Draw the sweeping stroke that goes between the eighth and ninth strokes. This stroke looks similar to the second stroke.