sa shi su se so

Imagine a saw cutting sideways across a piece of wood. This character sounds like the "sa" in "saw".

This character looks like a woman's face, with the two short lines representing the eyes and the long line representing a smile. It sounds like "she".

Imagine a woman named Sue running to the right, with her long hair trailing behind her. This character is spelled “su” and sounds like “Sue”.

This looks like a sitting person stabbing themself, which in Japanese is called seppuku. It sounds like the "se" in "seppuku".

Imagine that the long line in this character looks like the soft side of a person’s belly, and the short line is the belly button. The character is spelled “so” like the first two letters of “soft”.

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