I’m new to learning Japanese and this is the first language I want to be fluent in writing, reading, and spoken but my handwriting is terrible. I’m nearly done with memorizing speaking, writing, and reading the Hiragana characters but written by me it’s questionable. Also, the written form seems to have so many variations I’ve seen う written five different ways. Generally, the characters are the same but slightly different than everyone else. I guess like cursive for English. So if I wrote a note in Japanese and it was sloppy could it still be understood? I know that is a very broad question with many variables but any input would be great. Also, is there an official standard for Hiragana, Katagana, and Kanji that I could review? I appreciate anyone who read this and look forward to any advice or opinions you have for these questions.
I’m adding an edit here I found a post in the sub regarding standards for writing but I am still interested in the importance of legibility. Not as just as a whole but your personal opinion as well.
3 comments
Personally, and that’s just my opinion, unless you’re either:
1. going to study in a Japanese university, not through a foreign exchange program (which is usually in your native language/expects you to have a lower mastery of Japanese),
2. planning on working an office job in Japan.
Handwriting is basically useless. Just think about it, in your daily life: how often do you handwrite stuff? (this doesn’t count if you’re still studying/work in the academics, of course).
However, I might be uneducated about some stuff. So if someone has a diverging opinion, I’d be glad to hear it.
I think legibility is important. My own handwriting is *terrible*, English or Japanese. But for my notes I’m taking extra time to write the letters properly so I can read them later.
There is, I believe, a ‘right’ way to write hiragana, katakana, and kanji. I’m not sure where I found it but years ago I saw a chart that went over stroke order and how to ‘tell’ how to write stuff if you’ve never had to before. You can probably find charts with stroke order online – and some online dictionaries show stroke order too! I think Jisho.org does.
>So if I wrote a note in Japanese and it was sloppy could it still be understood?
Depends on how sloppy.
>Also, is there an official standard for Hiragana, Katagana, and Kanji that I could review?
Use textbook fonts.
If you plan to live in Japan in the future, you’ll be writing things like administrative forms, patient forms, parcel slips, forms and letters to your children’s school by hand. It’s always a good idea to be able to write legibly.
At work I don’t remember when was the last time I had to read someone’s handwriting but this depends on the job.