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Hello, this is Emiko.H.
Today, I’d like to talk about the word “optimal.”
The other day, I had a sandwich from SUBWAY for the first time in 30 years.
I used to stay away from it because the ordering system felt a bit daunting,
but I’d heard it’s now much easier with touch-screen ordering—
so I decided to give it a try.
I started by choosing a basic menu item,
then customized it intuitively—
adding more vegetables, extra dressing, and so on.
It was very easy to understand, and the sandwich tasted great.
I’m looking forward to finding my own optimal balance next time!
I mentioned the word "optimal,"
which in Japanese is written as 最適(sai-teki).
Now, let’s take a closer look at the Japanese character 適.
Did you notice that the character 帝 (tei) is tucked inside the right-hand side?
While 帝 is famous for meaning "emperor,"
it also has the root meaning of "to unify" or "to bring things together."
Combined with the "path" radical (辶),
適 represents bringing various elements together for a specific purpose.
In other words, it’s all about customization!
Designing something that perfectly fits your own needs feels great.
By the way, one of my popular lessons,
Customized 25-minute lesson (and the 35-minute version as well),
allows you to combine two types of lessons—
for example, reading aloud + kanji, or kanji in order of appearance in textbooks + handwriting practice.
For lessons longer than 40 minutes, you can choose up to three components.
If you’re interested, feel free to start with a single lesson and try it out!
A special offer for readers of this column:
If you send me a message with the keyword and the lesson name you’d like,
I’ll give you a 5% discount coupon for that lesson.
The keyword is: “帝”
Message deadline: April 30 (JST) 23:59
Coupon validity: 1 month from the date of issue
