Leaf

by Nao

ha, ba, yō

One of the problems that translators of Japanese sometimes face is how to distinguish countable nouns and uncountable nouns. This character is one of the examples. Paying attention to collocations might help you. When somebody says, “ha ga shigeru,” it means that leaves grow thick. “Ha ga irozuku” means that leaves are colored.

Kotoba is language.

In the preface to the book called Kokin wakashū, the Japanese poet and the editor of the anthology, Kino Tsurayuki (872-945), declared that Japanese poetry has been turning seeds of feelings into a myriad of leaves of words (man no koto no ha). The oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry is Man‘yōshū. It includes some love songs.

1. Draw the top-left dot.
2. Draw the horizontal line crossing the first dot.
3. Draw the sweeping dot from the top right.
4. Draw the long horizontal line from the left to the right.
5. Draw the vertical line in the middle.
6. Draw the vertical line on the right.
7. Draw the short horizontal stroke to connect the two vertical strokes you have just drawn.
8. Draw the L-shape.
9. Start drawing the lower part. Draw the long horizontal line from the left to the right.
10. Draw the vertical line crossing the previous stroke.
11. Draw the sweeping stroke from the previous strokes intersect. Let it sweep toward the lower left and make it thinner gradually.
12. Draw the sweeping stroke heading toward the other corner. Make it broader at the end.