Daily Stroke Order Practice

[TehFlashBang]

Hello BunPro Community,

I’ve been learning Japanese for a little over a year now, and I’m still pretty bad at it. Because of this, I’ve decided to make a thread dedicated to improving one of the areas I’m the worst at: writing.

A few days ago, I started picking one kanji out per day to practice my stroke order on. The goal is to go through common characters that one might see, and write it out properly a couple dozen times.

I’m no master at stroke order, I have no practice with cursive writing, and I don’t have anything too insightful to offer, with this mainly being a way to hold myself accountable. Even so, if this thread inspires anyone else to pick up a pen, I’d be more than happy.

For anyone interested in actual calligraphy, matt_in_mito’s thread on calligraphy would be a great place to start, as he’s quite well put-together and has a wonderful thread dedicated to his own daily stroke-order practice.

For today,
2023年11月24日「金」

漢字: 飲 ー Drink, Smoke, Taste
Kun: の.む、-の.み
On: イン、オン
Jisho Page

[Pizzakanji2006]

is wirting important? i have done it since kana

[TehFlashBang]

It’s as important as any other language. If you only plan on going to Japan as a tourist, it’s probably not necessary, but that would be like learning English but never being able to hand-write the alphabet.

[matt_in_mito]

Nice idea. Stroke order is so important in Japanese. So many people don’t understand just how integral it is. Sure, it doesn’t really matter if you get the odd one wrong here and there, but just doing any old order will make your handwriting look really weird and potentially unreadable. Good luck with this one.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月25日「土」

漢字: 後 ー Behind, Back, Later
Kun: のち、うし.ろ、うしろ、あと、おく.れる
On: ゴ、コウ
Jisho Page

メモ：I’ve never been good at drawing the winter 「夂」radical, so it may not be my cleanest work, but it’s worth practicing.

@matt_in_mito

Nice idea. Stroke order is so important in Japanese. So many people don’t understand just how integral it is. Sure, it doesn’t really matter if you get the odd one wrong here and there, but just doing any old order will make your handwriting look really weird and potentially unreadable. Good luck with this one.

The man himself! Thank you for the words of encouragement, I will do my best!

[davebp]

I have found writing to be invaluable in helping to memorize kanji.

Fwiw, I use Ringotan, an iOS app which saves paper and insists on the correct stroke order. It’s not perfect, but it really supports learning.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月26日「日」

漢字: 前 ー In Front, Before
Kun: まえ、-まえ
On: ゼン
Jisho Page

メモ: Posting this a bit late today, I ended up doing it at around 5 am EST, but only got around to putting it here as of now. Oops!

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月27日「月」

漢字：花 ー Flower
Kun: はな
On: カ、ケ
Jisho Page

メモ： I don’t know why, but I really like this kanji. It’s not overly complex, and it’s just fun to draw.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月28日「火」

漢字：鼻 ー Nose, Snout
Kun: はな
On: ビ
Jisho Page

メモ：The other はな、this has probably been the toughest Kanji for me yet. Judging the correct space between the 自 and 田 radicals by eye is not something I’m very good at.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月29日 「水」

漢字：常 ー Usual, Ordinary, Normal, Common
Kun: つね、とこ-
On: ジョウ
Jisho Page

メモ：I had a few problems with spacing again this time around, but got over that pretty quickly. My biggest issue was trying to draw the roof before the triceratops part of the Kanji. Overall, not a bad symbol, and not too hard to write out.

[CursedKitsune]

@TehFlashBang

the triceratops part of the Kanji

The what now?!

Also, out of interest, is there a certain order or logic to which kanji you are choosing? Sorry if I missed a post where you explained that kind of thing.

[TehFlashBang]

@CursedKitsune

The what now?!

It’s the WaniKani Name for it, I thought the name was quite something too when I first saw it

@CursedKitsune

Also, out of interest, is there a certain order or logic to which kanji you are choosing?

As of now, no. I’m sort-of picking Kanji that I’m either currently studying, think look cool, or would probably be pretty common to see in day-to-day life. I’m open to suggestions, though!

[CursedKitsune]

@TehFlashBang

It’s the WaniKani Name for it

Ah, I see. For the sake of learning how to write kanji well it may be worth checking out some native/“correct” kanji breakdowns as it will change stroke order or balance etc in some cases. A good online source is jigen.net - e.g., 常の漢字情報 - 漢字構成、成り立ち、読み方、書体など｜漢字辞典. I can also highly recommend this physical 字源 dictionary. For English language resources the Anroid app Kanji Study is absolutely excellent - probably the best kanji related app in English or Japanese. It may be worth putting the Wanikani link and/or jigen.net link in each post on top of the Jisho link (although already doing daily posts is probably annoying enough that you don’t want to add more work to it 笑).

As far as orders go, the Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Course order is probably the best order for non-natives to learn how to write, in my opinion. The the other obvious option is the Japanese school order, at least up to the end of 教育漢字. Either of those will build up a strong sense of stroke order after the first five hundred or so kanji. However, honestly learning to write can quite boring quite fast so just doing whatever takes your fancy on a given day is probably for the best. Given that you are doing Wanikani you probably wanna stick with kanji you have studied from their order anyway, I would imagine.

Anyway, good luck and keep it up. I am silently reading this thread most days.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年11月30日 「木」

漢字：猫
Kun: ねこ
On: ビョウ
Jisho Page and WaniKani Page

メモ：My favorite animal! I might start doing a bunch of animal Kanji for the next couple days, it’d probably good to know.

@CursedKitsune

For the sake of learning how to write kanji well it may be worth checking out some native/“correct” kanji breakdowns as it will change stroke order or balance etc in some cases.

Thank you for the useful resources! I’ll be sure to check some of these out when I have time, the daily Kanji has been getting later and later (oops!) and I need to reset the schedule on them. Thank you for reading!

[Neon_Kitsune]

@TehFlashBang

I might start doing a bunch of animal Kanji for the next couple days, it’d probably good to know.

What about this one?

[CursedKitsune]

This one is kind of fun and fairly easy to do.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年12月1日 「金」

漢字：鳥
Kun: とり
On: チョウ
Jisho Page and WaniKani Page

メモ：May have to revisit this one at a later date for more practice. Lots of horizontal lines to fit in a vertical space, but I think some of them came out readable.

@Neon_Kitsune

What about this one?

Looks like a good one to try out, Neon_Kitsune

@CursedKitsune

This one is kind of fun and fairly easy to do.

I was just talking about 糸 over on matt_in_mito’s Thread, looks like I got a couple characters to work on over the next couple days!

[Pablunpro]

Nice work! First 鼻 then 鳥, man you are bold! How about 警 or 誓?

BTW, I do love 繭, it’s like a little tale in a kanji.

[TehFlashBang]

2023年12月2日 「土」

漢字：狐
Kun: きつね
On: コ
Jisho Page and WaniKani Page

メモ：Suggested by our wonderful friend Neon_Kitsune, this was a pretty fun Kanji. It took me a while to get it down, and I would often forget the 8th stroke and have to add it back later, but I like how it turned out. Some of them look really good, and I can definitely tell when I slow down and properly write them out, they look a lot better. Working on the left hand side, it may also improve how I write 猫 in the future. Thank you for the suggestion!

@Pablunpro

Nice work! First 鼻 then 鳥, man you are bold! How about 警 or 誓?

I had no idea that going after these Kanji was such a bold choice, but I can tell from the two you sent me that I’m just getting started. I might have to warm up a bit more before I tackle those two, but I’m sure I’ll get to them soon! Thank you for the suggestions!

[Neon_Kitsune]

@TehFlashBang

メモ：Suggested by our wonderful friend Neon_Kitsune, this was a pretty fun Kanji. It took me a while to get it down, and I would often forget the 8th stroke and have to add it back later, but I like how it turned out. Some of them look really good, and I can definitely tell when I slow down and properly write them out, they look a lot better. Working on the left hand side, it may also improve how I write 猫 in the future. Thank you for the suggestion!

I must say that between your thread and matt_in_mito’s thread, I will have to start my own kanji writing practice again. I have a few Campus notebooks with the squares in them for practice and I was doing well for a while, but then stopped for no reason. I have the notebooks, so I should fill them up.