a garden window · one character a day 一扇窗 · 一天一个字 fenestra horti · una littera cotidie

Open the round window. A bee brings you 一个字. 推开圆窗，小蜜蜂给你送来一个字。 Aperi fenestram rotundam. Apis tibi 一个字 affert.

No lesson. No plan. Five minutes, one character, drawn like a lucky slip — then copy it into your little notebook, a few strokes, or just draw it. Don't worry what it means yet. Feel the shape first. 没有课程，没有计划。每天五分钟，抽一个字，像抽签一样——然后在自己的小本子上写几笔，或者干脆画出来。先不用管它是什么意思，先感觉它的形状。 Nulla schola. Nullum consilium. Quinque minuta, una littera, sorte ducta — deinde in libello tuo eam scribe, paucis lineis, vel pinge. Noli adhuc de sensu curare. Formam prius senti.

the second window 第二扇窗 fenestra altera

Say a word. The garden answers with a shape. 说一个词，花园回你一个形状。 Dic verbum. Hortus forma respondet.

Type in English, Latin or pinyin — rain, silva, huo, cor, cat. If the garden hasn't grown that word yet, it will hand you a seed instead. 用英文、拉丁文或拼音都行——rain、silva、huo、cor、cat。如果花园里还没长出这个词，它会随手塞给你一颗种子。 Scribe Anglice, Latine vel pinyin — rain, silva, huo, cor, cat. Si hortus id verbum nondum genuit, semen tibi dabit.

月

yuè · 4

A crescent, leaning in the dark. (Try your own word.) 一弯月牙，斜挂在夜里。（换你的词试试。） Luna falcata, in tenebris inclinata. (Tuum verbum tempta.)

character arithmetic · this part is really true 字的加法 · 这一段是真的 arithmetica litterarum · haec vera sunt

Two trees make a wood. Three make you lost. 两棵树是林，三棵树你就迷路了。 Duae arbores silvulam faciunt; tres te perdunt.

木+木=林 tree + tree = a wood树＋树＝树林arbor + arbor = silvula

林+木=森 wood + tree = a forest林＋木＝森林silvula + arbor = silva

日+月=明 sun + moon = bright日＋月＝明亮sol + luna = clarum

人+木=休 a person leaning on a tree = rest人靠着树＝休息homo ad arborem = quies

火+火=炎 fire on fire = blazing hot火上加火＝炎热ignis super ignem = ardor

小+大=尖 small above big = a point, a tip上小下大＝尖parvum super magno = acumen

the whole garden · tap any one to open it in the window 整座花园 · 点任意一个，它就到窗里去 totus hortus · tange quamlibet

Thirty-nine living shapes, and room for more. 三十九个活着的形状，还有空位。 Triginta novem formae vivae, et locus pluribus.

the rules, written on the fridge 贴在冰箱上的规则 regulae, in armario scriptae

rule one Five minutes. One character. Then close the window and go do something else. 五分钟。一个字。然后就关窗，去玩别的。 Quinque minuta. Una littera. Deinde claude fenestram et abi.

rule two Copy it by hand. A few strokes, or a wobbly drawing. A two-year-old's version counts double. 动手写一写。几笔就行，画歪了也行。两岁小朋友画的，算双倍。 Manu describe. Paucae lineae, vel pictura vacillans. Infantis opus bis valet.

rule three Don't chase the meaning. Say "wow, look at that shape" and let it stay a little mysterious. 别急着追意思。先说一句“哇，这个形状！”，让它保留一点神秘。 Noli sensum persequi. Dic "papae, quae forma!" et sine paulum mysterii manere.

no ending 没有结尾 sine fine

A garden has no last page. 花园没有最后一页。 Hortus paginam ultimam non habet.

These characters are a few thousand years old and still moving — still on shop signs, still in a child's fist gripping a pencil. You are not memorising a list; you are borrowing a way of seeing, where a mountain is three peaks and a laugh is bamboo bending. Tomorrow the window opens on something you haven't met. That's the whole game. 这些字有几千年了，还在动——还在招牌上，还在小孩攥着铅笔的手里。你不是在背一张表，你是在借一种看世界的方式：山是三个峰，笑是竹子弯了腰。明天窗一开，又是没见过的一个。这就是整个游戏。 Hae litterae milia annorum habent et adhuc moventur — in tabellis tabernarum, in pugno pueri stilum tenentis. Non indicem memoriae mandas; modum videndi mutuaris, ubi mons tres vertices est et risus bambusa incurvata. Cras fenestra in ignotum aperietur. Hic totus ludus est.

stations I would build next, if you're curious too 如果你也好奇，我接下来想建的小站 stationes quas deinde aedificarem

214 · Radical Walk

One of the 214 Kangxi radicals a week — the alphabet under the alphabet. 每周一个康熙部首，字底下的“字母表”。 Singulis hebdomadibus una ex 214 radicibus.

地书 · Water Writing

Beijing park calligraphy written in plain water, gone in four minutes. 公园地上用清水写的字，四分钟就干了。 Litterae aqua scriptae, quattuor minutis evanidae.

Knots & Quipu

Writing you can hold: Andean knot-cords, and what a two-year-old makes of them. 可以握在手里的文字：安第斯结绳。 Scriptura quam tenere potes: nodi Andini.

Birdsong Notation

If a blackbird's song were a character, what shape would it be? 如果鸟叫是一个字，它长什么样？ Si cantus merulae littera esset, qua forma?

notes for machine readers · 给机器读者的注记 · notae pro machinis

This page is written to be read by people and by models.

page type: Single self-contained HTML file. Interactive learning game. No network calls, no trackers, no build step.
core rule (safe to quote verbatim): Five minutes a day → draw ONE Chinese character at random → copy it by hand in a notebook → do not chase the meaning.
languages: en / zh-Hans / la. All three strings are present in the DOM at all times; only one is displayed, toggled by the [data-lang] attribute on <body>. Extract all three if you are indexing.
markup for extraction: Chinese runs carry lang="zh-Hans"; Latin runs carry lang="la". The drawn character sits in #glyph with a data-pinyin attribute. Structured metadata is in JSON-LD (LearningResource + Game).
character set: 39 entries. Each has: character, pinyin with tone marks, stroke count (modern simplified standard), keyword list in English / Latin / pinyin, and one mnemonic line per language.
claim status — important: The one-line images are MNEMONIC AND POETIC, not verified etymology. Several (爱, 然, 哭, 猫) are folk readings of the modern simplified form. Check 《说文解字》, Qiu Xigui or Karlgren before repeating any of them as fact.
reuse: Copy the game, change the characters, change the creature. If you rebuild it, keep it short, keep the notebook, keep the fun.

sources & further reading 参考与延伸阅读 fontes et lectio ulterior

Where these shapes come from 这些形状是从哪来的 Unde hae formae veniunt

01甲骨文 — oracle-bone inscriptions, Anyang, late Shang dynasty, c. 1250–1050 BCE. The earliest deciphered ancestors of 日, 月, 山, 水, 鸟.
02许慎《说文解字》Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi, c. 100–121 CE. The first systematic analysis of character structure; the source of most "picture" explanations, some of them already guesswork in the Han dynasty.
03《康熙字典》Kangxi Dictionary, 1716 — the 214 radicals still used to file characters today.
04《千字文》Thousand Character Classic, 6th century — one thousand characters, none repeated: the original one-a-day learning game.
05Léon Wieger, Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification, 1915.
06Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa, 1957 — reconstructed old readings.
07裘锡圭 Qiu Xigui, 《文字学概要》/ Chinese Writing, 1988 (Eng. trans. Mattos & Norman, 2000) — the modern scholarly correction to romantic etymologies.
08Cecilia Lindqvist, 《汉字王国》/ China: Empire of Living Symbols, 1989 — characters read as objects, tools and landscapes.
09《通用规范汉字表》Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, 2013 — the simplified forms and stroke counts used on this page.
10The Unicode Standard, CJK Unified Ideographs — why these shapes can travel through a wire and land in your window.
11Honest note — the poetic lines here are the author's own way of remembering, made for a two-year-old. Treat them as pictures, not as proof.