Emaki · all 1,500 words

下手

へた

bad at, poor

Mnemonic

A low hand, which is exactly what being bad at a thing amounts to. Hey へ, ta た, that was awful. Singing, in my case: へた.

Worth knowing

上手い うまい and 上手 じょうず are the opposite. The reading is irregular, so learn 下手 へた whole.

Built from

under, below
A mark sitting below the line, the mirror of 上.
hand
A hand with the fingers drawn out from the wrist.

Words sharing these kanji

under, below under (the supervision of) to go down, to come down hallway to come down, to hang down, to fall underground subordinate to lower, to turn down to look down, to overlook hand to help partner, opponent

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Emaki is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Kaishi 1.5k or its authors. The word, reading and meaning come from the Kaishi 1.5k deck, used with their permission. The mnemonic, the note and the kanji breakdown are original work, published under CC BY-SA 4.0.