Shi and Tsu Katakana

7 comments

1. シ – strokes are written left to right, ending with the long stroke on the bottom

   ツ – strokes are written top to bottom, ending with the long stroke on the right

   If you write them naturally you might join up the strokes, which helps to distinguish them.

   Same for ン and ソ. I now have more trouble with ソ vs リ because the stroke order is the same.

2. The top strokes on シ slant more to the left, compared to the top strokes on ツ which sit more upright. It’s a pretty easy to differentiate them, even if your handwriting sucks

3. The others have given good advice, but I want to make something clear(er?) regarding shi vs. tsu.

   The katakana for shi should have all three strokes starting from the same invisible vertical line. That is, all three strokes should have their leftmost point fall along a vertical line.

   The same is true for tsu, except it’s a horizontal line going along the topmost points.

   Hope this helps!

4. Draw first two strokes horizontally and you get シ. Draw vertically, it will be ツ. [Here](http://mksd.jp/astroz.html) is an example from computer fonts, just for reference.

5. Tip. The strokes in シ follow the direction of し and the strokes in ツ follow the direction of つ.

6. The way I was taught by my english speaking parents was to image they are fingers and shi points to “she” as if she is standing beside you and tsu points to “you”

7. 😭