Radical 一

3 strokes

one 一 (1) + two 二 (2) = three 三

A composite character, made up of “one” and “two”. One and two are represented by the unicorn and the biplane. Take a look at the picture to fix the story in your memory: the unicorn has indeed made a nice three-point landing, but he relaxed too soon!

The soundword is “sand”. remember that with soundwords you go as far as the first vowel sound, and then see if there is an “n” or “ng” sound following it. In this case there is, so the pronunciation is sān, not sā.

When writing this character note that the second stroke is slightly shorter than the first, and the third is slightly longer.

Clearly you don’t really need stories to remember the meanings of the characters 一, 二 and 三. The stories are given to help you remember the pronunciations and to get you used to how the pictures and stories work for both basic and composite characters.

The unicorn lands his biplane on the beach perfectly so that all three tires touch down simultaneously. / Unfortunately he fails to stop before he hits the giant’s sandcastle!