Traditional characters 7

東 dōng : east (cardinal point).

Stroke order:

Components : 日 rì sun; 木 mù tree.

Etymology : 東 dōng is an ideogram representing the sun 日 rising through the branches of a tree 木. Since the sun rises in the east, this character denotes the cardinal point east.

還 hái (or huán): again, moreover (hái); to give back, to return (huán).

Stroke order:

Components : 睘 huán phonetic element (an eye above a garment, evoking a return); 辶 chuò to walk (the movement radical, written last).

Etymology : 還 is a phono-semantic compound. The radical 辶 indicates the idea of movement (to walk, to move) and 睘 huán provides the pronunciation. The character originally evoked a return, a circular journey. It developed two readings: huán “to give back, to return” (as in 還錢 huán qián “to repay”) and hái “again, moreover” (as in 還有 háiyǒu “there is still more”).

機 jī : machine, mechanism.

Stroke order:

Components : 木 mù tree, wood; 幾 jǐ phonetic element (how many, almost).

Etymology : 機 is a phono-semantic compound. The wood radical 木 indicates that it originally referred to a wooden device (the crossbow or its trigger mechanism), and 幾 jǐ provides the pronunciation. By extension, 機 denotes any mechanical device: 手機 shǒujī “mobile phone”, 飛機 fēijī “aeroplane”.

書 shū : book; to write.

Stroke order:

Components : 聿 yù a hand holding a brush; 曰 yuē to say, to speak.

Etymology : 書 is a compound ideogram representing a hand holding a brush 聿 above a mouth or an utterance 曰, evoking the act of putting speech into writing. The primary meaning is “to write”, then by extension “book, written work”.

這 zhè : this (near demonstrative determiner).

Stroke order:

Components : 言 yán speech; 辶 chuò to walk (the movement radical, written last).

Etymology : 這 is an ideogram composed of the movement radical 辶 and 言 yán (speech). It serves as a demonstrative determiner to point to what is close to the speaker. The simplified form replaced 言 with 文 wén (writing) in the character 这.