Learning to write

[gkocik]

Hi,

recently I had to reset my progress on Bunpro. Initially I managed to go through N5 but I noticed that I was struggling a lot with some things I technically should have known. Especially reading kanji was problematic because I never tried to learn to write them, so I was confusing them all the time. I think mnemonics don’t work for me and the only way for me to remember them is to learn each line by writing them over and over again. So I started doing that and I very quickly remembered why I hate writing and drawing. I have terrible hand control, I can’t draw a straight line no matter what. Proportions are also wrong. So at this point I started questioning whether I should continue or stop.

I guess one way to answer this question is to share my progress and ask for feedback. But please, honest feedback. If the lines are wrong tell me. If proportions are wrong tell me. I’m aware of a lot of mistakes I made by writing this two simple sentences yet every time I start to write them I just can’t fix them.

First two sentences: can you guess what’s written? How hard was it to read it? Any feedback? Any tips?

If that is ok I would like to continue this thread and post new images from time to time to get more feedback and check on progress.

Thank you all for help!

[someoneyoudontknow]

One thing to remember when learning to write is you’re usually copying from a computer or textbook with perfectly neat font, when in reality native Japanese too often don’t have perfectly straight lines and perfectly even spacing.

Make use of the grid notebooks that let you really practice each radical within 4 quadrants.

The picture you posted looks absolutely fine and easily readable (especially compared to some of my students’ writing )

頑張って〜

[emi.pikados]

Are we allowed to recommend additional resources here? I have another app that I LOVE, for learning to write Japanese. It does hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

[polevata]

So three nitpicks since you asked for criticism (although as others have stated, it’s fully legible as is)

1. For multi-part kanji like 私 you REALLY want to make sure the parts get into each other’s space. I can see you’re already shortening the right side of the tree, and that’s great, but think about slightly shifting the trunk to right of center, and shrinking the width of the two upper branches to emphasize the ム and make room for it to get even closer.

2. Your れ is a bit smaller than the other hiragana. Try making the bulge a bit wider and taller to match the other characters.

3. Make sure the first stroke on your て tilts upwards, not downward.

Overall though, very good initial work, and I wouldn’t sweat the details too much unless it’s for your own satisfaction. This is more than sufficient for presenting to others.

[Asher]

Of course, recommend away!

[bunnypro]

I’d like to recommend Ringotan as a way to learn and practice how to write hiragana, katakana and especially kanji.
Apologies for jumping the gun if this app is also the one you recommend!

[flaneur]

I recommend Kanji Study, it’s helped me lots, not just writing and learning the stroke order for kanji, but also one of its add-ons goes in-depth on etymology and explaining the meaning and reason why a word is written that way (or how the etymology for a word is unknown or how the writing has been corrupted). I believe it’s only on Android for now, but you could get around this with Android emulators. I think there’s either a free trial or a set number of cards are free. It can be a bit pricey, but it’s worth the money.

I’ve heard wonders of Ringotan and even have it installed, but I haven’t tried it myself yet.

Other than that I can also recommend the grid notebooks or printing your own, that way you can practice on notebooks that were intended for kanji and not latin characters (Oh how I hate writing Japanese on those).

[frogg]

Seconding Kanji Study! I’ve been using it for over a year. I’m only writing on paper when in class (once a week) and yet I’ve found I’ve been able to write some kanji from memory and have overall good handwriting (compared to my classmates) achieved from sole digital practice.

[nightuser_ru]

Can also recommend Ringotan. It has multiple built-in paths and the approach it uses seems better than a simple OCR.

[travv0]

Throwing in my recommendation for Kanji Study as well, I just learned about it a few days ago and it’s everything I could want in a kanji app. Shame it’s Android only, but if you have an Android device, I definitely recommend checking it out. I dropped my Anki kanji deck in favor of it which is saying something because I had like 2500 cards.

[Reporterdem]

@gkocik

First two sentences: can you guess what’s written? How hard was it to read it? Any feedback? Any tips?

I can read it fine!

I think one important thing to remember is that we all have differences when it comes to handwriting and sometimes it will look like ‘scribbles’ / incorrect, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong so much as that’s just the way we write it. So I wouldn’t worry about it too much unless you think something very clearly looks off to you about what you’ve written.

This is less of a study tip and more generalised, but if you’re looking to retain the knowledge through writing, then one of the things I do is keep a written log of all the manga volumes and/or novels I’ve finished. That gives me a naturalistic way of having to write in Japanese, but I’m not having to think up setences to write or find something to copy down.

[Mathias_Tichota]

First two sentences: can you guess what’s written? How hard was it to read it? Any feedback? Any tips?

As a person that is not that much yet proficient in Japanese, I could understand it perfectly. You certainly write prettier than if I have tried to.

[upadhyayjb32]

For random kanji, I like looking at the jisho.org kanji pages. It very clearly shows the difference between computer characters and handwritten characters and shows you a different computer font when you hover over it. Please look at the page for 人 for example!

Your Japanese looks good! With more practice, you’ll be able to write faster, and it will look more “natural.”

[VineBerry]

Check out satori reader, I usually write the words as they come up during reviews to practice

[PurpleGirl]

Hello, I wanted to install the two apps you guys recommended to try them out. I had no problem finding Ringotan, but I found two different apps called Kanji Study. One of them is Japanese Kanji Study by Chase Colburn with over a million downloads; the other one is called Learn Japanese! Kanji Study by Luli Languages LLC and has about 500k downloads.

I’m assuming you guys meant the first one, but could you please confirm it just to be sure?

[travv0]

Yep, the one by Chase Colburn is the one I use.

[amberglade]

I use jitaku on iOS. https://jitakuapp.com/ It’s an srs writing practice tool. You can add you own notes, add vocab to the srs rotation, and has a separate section for adding/practicing 熟語 kanji idioms. Kanji that you miss or are learning show up in a word cloud field with the more recent items showing with a larger font.

It’s nice to have another srs bucket to dump items into when you come across something you’ve forgotten.

Another good option is the delta emulator with Ukkari o Nakusou Bunshou Yomi Training: Yomitore and various instances of the kanji kentei, such as Zaidan Houjin Nihon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Koushiki Soft - 250 Mannin no Kanken - Shin Tokoton Kanji Nou - 47,000 + Jouyou Kanji Jiten, Yoji Jukugo Jiten (Japan) (Rev 1)

Both give you reading practice. Yomitore focuses on reading speed and grammar. The input system requires you to write out the whole kanji/word. In apps like jitaku, you can guess the kanji by getting feedback for each stoke. The recognition algorithm on the DS isn’t perfect but gives you another way to practice.

Gamegengo has reviews if you want to look into it further.

[Silbert]

Very straight lines aren’t necessary! With time you’ll get more fluid, and even then it’s more about how ‘nice’ it looks rather than legibility in your case.
Some others have mentioned this, but the sizing of some of the characters are a bit off. I would recommend writing each character in a square (2x2 or 3x3), that way you can get a feel of the spacing (important especially for kanji). You could also get a handwriting book (or print outs, I’m sure there’s free sources online) that let you trace over the characters and practice on your own to get the feel of them.

[gkocik]

Wow! Thank you all for kind words, feedback and recommendations. I’ll do my best to continue practicing and share improvements soon.

I don’t know if it’s possible to quote multiple and reply to multiple messages at once but I’ll do my best to reply to some of them:

I’d like to recommend Ringotan as a way to learn and practice how to write hiragana, katakana and especially kanji.

I downloaded this app and I’m testing it. Initial impressions are not ideal as I don’t like using touch screens (I always found them extremely imprecise no matter what phone I use) and I can easy cheat (even if I don’t want to) by just seeing that what I’m drawing is not what the app expects. But I’ll give it few more days, maybe I will learn how to use it better.

I recommend Kanji Study, it’s helped me lots, not just writing and learning the stroke order for kanji, but also one of its add-ons goes in-depth on etymology and explaining the meaning and reason why a word is written that way (or how the etymology for a word is unknown or how the writing has been corrupted). I believe it’s only on Android for now, but you could get around this with Android emulators. I think there’s either a free trial or a set number of cards are free. It can be a bit pricey, but it’s worth the money.

That sounds perfect! I noticed that the more context I have the easier it is for me to remember. Android is perfect as I don’t have iOS. I will give it a try

Other than that I can also recommend the grid notebooks or printing your own, that way you can practice on notebooks that were intended for kanji and not latin characters (Oh how I hate writing Japanese on those).

I printed myself hiragana sheets with grid and lines I can follow. Again, initial results are not perfect, but I guess I just need more practice… and paper…

For random kanji, I like looking at the jisho.org kanji pages. It very clearly shows the difference between computer characters and handwritten characters and shows you a different computer font when you hover over it.

Yup, I’ve been using jisho to learn every single kanji I wrote so far - even the ones I posted in my first message. It’s super useful to learn strokes order. I’m still trying to figure out proportions, but that’s me problem and not jisho

Once again thank you all for replies. Sorry I did not reply to each of them but I wanted to keep it as short as possible. I read all of them and checked out all apps and techniques mentioned. Ok, enough talking. Time to get back to work and write some kanji!

[lisaki8]

You’re writing is legible, but as others have noted, there’s room for improvement with proportions. For this, I recommend starting with gakushū no yōshi 学習の用紙, a type of grid paper with dividing lines inside each square specifically for beginners.

When the left/right and upper/lower proportions of your kanji start to gel, you can start using genkō yōshi 原稿用紙, grid manuscript paper.

You can buy notebooks and even packs of the ms paper at stationery stores in Japan. You can probably also find downloadable PDFs online.

As others have mentioned, printed fonts are different to handwriting, and luckily there are lots of books to help you improve your handwriting. Here’s one I really enjoyed using.

Apps can be helpful too, but you really need to train the hand-brain connection to learn to write well and to support memorization of kanji. No pain no gain!