Love

by Nao

ai, ai-suru, ito-shii, ito-oshii, ito-oshimu

The heart is in the character, which means love and affection. Ai is a noun. Ai-suru is the verb “love.”

By the way, all the hyphenated readings above are composed of today’s character and hiragana. For example, suru consists of su and ru.

Ito-shii means beloved, darling, dear, or sweet. Ito-shii and ito-oshii are almost the same, but the adjective “adorable” can be added to the meaning of ito-oshii. A relevant word is ito-oshimu, which means to love, to think tenderly, to cherish, or to value.

Exceptional reading is mana. I remember only two words: manadeshi and manamusume. The former is one’s favorite pupil; the latter, one’s beloved daughter.

Some of your beloved or favorite things or persons begin with the character. Aiken is your pet dog. Aisha is your car that you love. Aijin is your lover in the sense defined in Collins COBUILD, which says that “someone’s lover is someone who they are having a sexual relationship with but are not married to.” In addition, the word implies that they are having an illicit love affair.

Aichi is a prefecture in the central Japan. Its capital is Nagoya. See Wikipedia to get some information about it.

Ehime is a prefecture in Shikoku. Ehime also begins with the character. Its capital is Matsuyama. See Wikipedia for its information.

1. Draw the sweeping stroke on the top. Draw it from the right.
2. Draw the dot from the left.
3. Draw the dot in the middle.
4. Draw the sweeping dot from the upper right.
5. Draw the dot on the left.
6. Draw the hook touching the pervious dot. After changing the direction of the brush, finish the stroke with a sweeping stroke.
7. Begin to draw the heart at the center. Draw the dot on the left.
8. Draw the curve with an upward turn at the end.
9. Strike the dot above the curve and make it head to the next dot.
10. Draw the dot beside the thorn-like ending of the curve.
11. Begin to draw the lower part of the character. Draw the sweeping stroke from the center to the lower left.
12. Draw the hook consisting of the short horizontal part and sweeping stroke that is parallel to the previous sweeping stroke.
13. Draw the sweeping stroke from where you start the last two strokes to the lower-right corner of the character.