The character '達' is missing a horizontal stroke!

Updated: 2024/10/21

This series, [Commonly Misspelled Characters], introduces characters that middle and high school students often get wrong, based on the corrections and grading guidance provided by Shime-no, an instructor for essays and compositions, to sound an alarm for students and examinees.

Many people actually get '達' wrong. Where do they go wrong? They turn the inside of the 'shinnyo' (radical) into '幸' (happiness). In other words, it is missing one horizontal stroke at the bottom. Too bad.

This is an educational kanji taught in the fourth grade of elementary school, but surprisingly, both middle and high school students often get it wrong. Perhaps there are even adults who have learned it incorrectly.

'達'

If you look closely, it's different, isn't it? The inside of the 'shinnyo' is not '幸' (happiness).

If you are making this mistake, let's relearn it like this.

The original kanji inside the 'shinnyo' is this.

'羍'

This has the on-yomi reading 'tatsu'. Yes, this represents the reading of '達' (tatsu) (a phono-semantic character). It is '大' (big) with '羊' (sheep) underneath. This '大' changed into '土' (earth) and combined with '羊'. That is why there are two horizontal strokes.

It is not '幸'.Since the bottom is '羊', there are two horizontal strokes.

Furthermore, '羍' represents a lamb being born smoothly, and '達' is said to mean 'passing through' smoothly, 'letting through', or 'reaching'. If you are interested in the origins of these characters, you should check a kanji dictionary.

For those worried about 'how to write a statement of purpose', this 'Shime-no style template for creating a statement of purpose' is recommended!