Radical 文

4 strokes

lid 亠 (25b) + shears 乂 (25a) = culture 文

This character refers particularly to written language and literature.

日文 (6) Rìwén (written) Japanese

This is how we will list compounds from now on. the number 6 in brackets tells you that the other character in the compound (in this case, 日) is Character 6 in this book.

(Inside the ancient tomb) the archaeologist lifts the heavy lid and finds some beautiful ornamental shears— they will tell him a lot about the culture of the time. / “Wonderful”, says the fairy, “those are magic shears that cut the grass by themselves!”

Note the stroke order. this illustrates another general rule: strokes drawn downwards and to the left come before strokes drawn downwards and to the right.

The “drop” is written downwards and to the right in this character. In some typefaces (fonts), however, the “drop” will look like a short vertical line.

Because it is used a lot we will treat this as a basic building block, although you could regard it as being made up of “drop” plus “one”.