The first 80 Kanji.

先日、スペインに住む姪に、平仮名と漢字の練習用ポスターをプレゼント。

日本の子供は、小学校の最初の年に50の平仮名と、80の漢字を習う（らしい）。
（そんなことは、忘れていたけれど...。）


80の漢字とはこんな感じ。


一二三四五六七八九十百千上下右左大小赤白青日月火水木金土年
山川花草林森竹空雨気田天石目口耳手足男女子人犬力立見生学校休円
字入出正夕先早王村町中文本名虫玉車糸音貝。


この80の漢字を眺めていると、
６～７才の子供の日常が、いかにシンプルであるかを彷彿とさせて、思わず微笑む。
（いや、"彼らにとっては”それなりに複雑で、とっても不公平な日常なんだって、
分かってますよ。覚えてます。私も経験したもの。）


彼らは（又は、私たちは過去に）いつ、「嫌」や「怒」、「愛」を覚えるんでしょう？

I sent posters for learning HIRAGANA (Japanese phonetic symbols) and KANJI (Chinese characters used in Japanese) to my niece in Spain the other day.

Japanese children learn 50 HIRAGANA symbols and 80 KANJI characters during their first year of primary school.

The 80 KANJI characters are one, two, three, four,　five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, hundred,  thousand,　up, down, right, left, big, small, red, white, blue,　day/Sunday, moon/Monday, fire/Tuesday, water/Wednesday, tree/Thursday, gold/Friday, soil/Saturday, year, mountain, river, flower, grass, grove, forest, bamboo, sky, rain, air, rice field, heaven, stone, eye, mouth, ear, hand, foot, men, women, child, person, dog, power, watch, live, study, school, rest, circle/yen, character, enter, out, right, evening, ahead, early, king, village, town, inside, sentence, book, name,   insect, car, ball, string, sound and shell.

These 80 KANJI characters revealed the simplicity of a six- or seven-year-old child's life, and made me smile. 

( I know their lives are so complicated and so unfair "to them". Oh yes, I know that. I've been there!)

I wonder when they will learn (or when we learned) "hate","anger" and "love"?.