Hello, I am a SUPER new learner, I only have
あえいおうかきくけこさた memorized so far and am starting with Hiragana.
Anyways, having a good time learning, but I had a question: does handwriting vary a lot when writing characters? Are the characters usually perfectly written, or can they vary slightly like English letters do? For example, maybe the line in うis a bit more to the right and angle a bit more. Small things like that where it’s still recognizable.
Does it apply to each language? Maybe only one?
I appreciate the answers! Just a small question I have
9 comments
You can always just search for something like “hiragana handwriting” on google images and have a look around.
Japanese handwriting has MUCH more variance than (non-cursive) English, and don’t get me started on kanji. Some characters can be written fundamentally differently, not even counting good vs bad handwriting.
lmao reading あえいおう in that order hurt my brain until I recognized that you wrote it in the alphabetical ordering
Japan has a different order: あいうえお
The fonts vary a fair bit, some look completely different. や、き、さ、ふ are some of the offenders. I personally find a lot of handwriting, especially that make to look fancy, almost unreadable.
There is a stroke order for all Japanese characters that do a pretty good job of making sure you produce something that looks vaguely correct though, it’s worth learning that alongside the characters if you’re intending to do writing 🙂
What’s up, newbie buddy! This is a good question, I appreciate seeing the answers as well.
Yes the writing varies from time to time. I find very stylized Asian ingredients’ labels pretty hard to read sometimes. But the same goes for pretty much all languages, and that is if it you can read it, it’s fine.
I would also recommend learning the proper stroke order for the kana, because you will have a neater product and also remember it easier.
Honestly I think hiragana/katakana and chapter 1 for Duolingo is a good place to start. It will teach you the basics you need to move on to more engaging content.
You should know that hiragana and katakana evolved from kanji. For example I’m pretty sure あ came from 安 written in cursive. That’s the extent to which handwriting can vary, to answer your question.
Based on my small experience speaking to Japanese speakers. Their handwriting is just as bad as some random English speakers. One person showed me their handwriting and I was that meme of the guy squinting at the small paper.
I try to keep my proportions on each individual character as close to the same as I can when handwriting. But I am also still a beginner.
https://www.thejapanguy.com/learn-hiragana-stroke-order/
I used this site to learn Hiragana stroke order. It’s pretty easy since you have 2-3 strokes per syllable. Write those 10 times for a couple of times for all syllables (of course spread it over a couple of days) and then you won’t forget and you’ll write them quite consistently. And yes don’t worry to much about small variations, the site shows that as well sometimes.