Acid or Sour

by Nao

su-i, san

Let’s begin with chemical terminology. If a substance is sansei, it’s acid. Acidity is contrasted with alkalinity (arukarisei).

Acid chemical substances has a suffix –san. Here are some examples.

• citric acid … kuensan
• amino acid … aminosan
• acetic acid … sakusan
• folic acid … yōsan
• nitric acid … shōsan

Another important chemical substance is sanso, which means oxygen.  Oxidation is sanka and to oxidize means sankasuru.

Sourness is sanmi, in which san means sour and mi means taste. The adjective suppai means sour. Sui also means sour, but sounds archaic.

* You can see some phrases in Japanese -> here.

1. Begin to draw the left-hand side of the character. Draw the horizontal line.
2. Draw the left side of the rectangle.
3. Draw the upper and right sides of the rectangle.
4. Draw the sweeping stroke from the first stroke to the left side of the rectangle.
5. Draw the curve from the first stroke to the right side of the rectangle.
6. Draw the horizontal stroke in the rectangle.
7. Draw the lower side of the rectangle.
8. Begin to draw the right-hand side of the character. Draw the hook from the top. When you change the direction of the brush, the brush can be away from the paper. The second part of the stroke is horizontal.
9. Draw the dot at the end of the previous stroke.
10. Draw the short sweeping stroke.
11. Draw the curve, which looks like the letter L.
12. Draw the sweeping stroke.
13. Draw the hook. The latter part of the stroke is parallel to the previous stroke.
14. Draw the sweeping stroke from near the center to the lower right corner of the character.