I originally posted this as a question in the daily thread, but figured I could share it as its own post to make it more of sharing my experience and for discussion.
So I am a casual and beginner learner, and have just been using duolingo for fun on my ipad. I decided to add a Japanese keyboard so I could practice typing, and realized when doing so that I also had access to the scribble/handwriting function for japanese. I have an apple pencil and use it a lot for drawing and writing already, and I figured I could give it a try. This also isn’t just for the kana/kanji practice sections on duolingo, but is something attached to the keyboard+pencil, as I can use in any app that has text input.
I know it isn’t going to create perfect handwriting (and personally I know my japanese handwriting isn’t great :P!) but it has been a fun and rewarding addition to my otherwise simple routine- it is very motivating to be able to make an attempt at writing some kana or kanji and have the keyboard recognize what I was trying to write. It has helped me a lot with remembering stroke order, shapes, and the characters, as the likelyhood of it guessing my kana correctly goes drastically down the worse my order and writing is (as well as if I am trouble/worried I simply double check if I am writing them correctly).
It is fairly good (in my opinion anyway) at catching me using the wrong order/shape, but sometimes it’ll accept something “close enough” anyway. It also teaches you to learn how to write faster, which to me is a bit of a plus. But when you’re going slowly, one kana at a time it has a tendency to not recognize some inputs. I have a particular difficulty with trying to get it to understand whether I am writing a small or normal sized kana(the original versison of this post was a question asking about if this was a user error I just need to improve on or if it was a problem with the program).
Or if I am writing く , へ, or ひ, it may input < , \^ , or U. Or trying to write a ー but it inputs a – . This is usually fixed by just writing faster, so it can use the context of the rest of what I’ve written. However in terms of speed it will also input information before I’m done. This is especially in the case of kanji, the more complex it is, if I am not fast enough or hesitate, it may enter it incomplete.
It is absolutely not a perfect system and have no expectations of it making me good at handwriting. But I’ve found it an interesting and fun way to keep myself practicing and learning. There’s been a few times where I wasn’t using the scribble function but was typing, and while typing kana, the keyboard would suggest me kanji I hadn’t learned yet. So after duolingo accepted it as an answer I would spend, no joke, 20+ minutes in a single exercise trying to handwrite the kanji correctly just by trying to figure it out on my own. Which is not something I do often (see: casual), nor is it something I would necessarily recommend to anyone, but for me the process of problem solving helped me digest the importance of stroke order, and was then even more rewarding when I managed to successfully write it. It also would motivate me to look it up and research a little bit more seriously.
As a beginner who was incredibly daunted by the concept of learning hirigana, katakana, and kanji, from the amount of people who talk about how hard it is/was, this experience has really kept me motivated and I hope when I have more time to dedicate to Japanese that I can improve further and maybe actually better my handwriting. (Of which, I started learning japanese with absolutely NO expectations or goals for myself besides thinking it would be neat to be able to read- thats how casual I wanted it to be.) I know there are sheets you can use to actually improve your handwriting and such, it is just not something I have had the time or energy to dedicate myself to at the moment as I am currently in the middle of preparing for a cross-country move 😛
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TLDR: ipad has handwriting recognition for kanji and I think its imperfect but fun
Does anyone here use the handwriting recognition on ios for japanese? Do you like it? Why/why not? If you do, do you have any suggestions or tips for using it?