Tip or Ahead

by Nao

saki, ma-zu, sen

The noun saki means ahead or future. The way ahead is also saki. If you have been to Japan, you might have seen a sign saying, “kono saki ikidomari,” which means this road leads to a dead-end. Kono means this and ikidomari means a dead-end. Yukisaki means a destination. Ki is in hiragana. With the same characters in the opposite order, sakiyuki means future.

“Osaki ni dōzo” means “after you.” On the contrary, if you say, “osaki ni,” you are politely saying that you’re about to go somewhere or do something before somebody. The prefix “o” makes a noun sound polite.

Both saki and sen become part of compounds.

“Te no saki” or “tesaki” is the tip of your hands. With the same characters, tesaki sometimes means minions or underlings. We hear this word in gangster movies.

“Tesaki ga kiyō” means dexterous. Kiyō means dexterous, too.

Atosaki means “back and front,” “past and future,” or “the process of doing something.” People often fail to see it.

Mesaki is right before your eyes. Myopic attitude is described as thinking about “mesaki no koto,” or something before your eyes.

Sensei is a teacher. You can call a teacher “sensei.” When we are referring to or speaking to a teacher, we add “sensei” after his name.

1. Draw the sweeping stroke in the upper-left corner.
2. Draw the horizontal stroke touching the previous stroke.
3. Draw the vertical stroke crossing the second stroke.
4. Draw the longer horizontal stroke from the left to the right.
5. Draw the sweeping stroke heading toward the lower-left corner.
6. Draw the curve with an upward turn at the end.