I’m sorry if it sounded a bit confusing. Im asking that because I just memorized all hiragana and katakana since I’m an absolute beginner, and when I practice writing, I notice that the angles in my traces, or the size of the risks I make are not always very close to the charts I see. For example う,あ and ふ, like am I supposed to get the curvature of う just like this? or the lenght of the first trace of あ just like this? or the angles of the third and fourth risks of ふ just like this?
sorry for the confusing question again, but I don’t really know how to explain it differently
7 comments
Just like English there’s a certain amount of leeway to handwriting. I would look up samples of Japanese handwriting to get an idea.
There are some cases, such as the “い” being angled too sideways and easily mistaken for “こ,” but even some Japanese people have bad handwriting, so I don’t think you need to worry so much about the details.
However, if you write through lines that should not go through, it might be difficult to read.
For example, if the right side of the character “ほ” is written like “ま” and the vertical line on the left side is slightly separated from the right side one, it might be misread as “しま”.
Having said that, if the shape is roughly correct, I think Japanese people can recognize the character, so don’t worry about it😉
It’s not all that important. As long as the strokes are in the right places, roughly the right shape and lenght, and drawn in the right order, they’ll be recognizeable. I recommend you try to look for reference pictures of others’ handwriting (that’s just ordinary handwriting, not calligraphy or anything fancy)
The only time you need to be careful is with
ソ and ン ,
シ and ツ,
う ラ (the sharp angle or ラ is not always that sharp when writing by hand)
As long as it’s recognizable it’ll be fine. Following the recommended stroke order can help legibility. Also the kana will be in the context of the surrounding words, so even if it is unreadable or ambiguous it should be obvious what it should have been from that context.
Thank you all for the help!
It all depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. You can follow pre-printed character diagrams, handwriting samples, 教科書(textbook) typefaces. All in all, the most important part is maintaining the proper size and proportions. Following the correct stroke order aids legibility a lot.
The following is not necessary. However, if you want stroke-width variability like you see in those neat Japanese calligraphy videos, then you’re going to have to use a pencil, or a very thin (0.5 mm width or smaller) gel pen (regular ball-point pens in the West use oil-based inks and produce a uniform stroke).
All I can say is to do the best you can. You don’t have to make it look perfect(but if you can then good for you!). I’ve only ever seen like one or two Japanese people with decent handwriting, and I’ve found that foreigners tend to write neater because they get so paranoid about it. As long as you’re reading is recognizable as the character intended, it should be fine.