Tricks to Learning How to Write Japanese

     When I was learning to write Japanese, one look at all the hundred or so hiragana and katakana characters I was expected to learn was enough to make me consider trying a language for which all I needed to learn was how to throw an umlaut onto a vowel every once in a while.

      When considering the few thousand kanji (Chinese characters) also used in written Japanese, I thought I would have to give up. I asked a Japanese friend for advice in learning and he suggested I learn the way Japanese children learn: by rote. He even gave me an old Japanese “Kokugo” or “Japanese” notebook he had so that I could practice in the same kind of notebook kids use.

      A kokugo notebook has rows and rows of boxes and is designed for one character to be written in each box. The number of boxes on one page of a Japanese style notebook may vary, with older students using paper with a larger number of smaller boxes, and beginning students using paper with relatively large boxes.

      I spent the next week filling the notebook with letter after letter practicing my hiragana first, then my katakana. By the end of the week I had a notebook full of the characters I wanted to learn, but didn’t feel the rote method had worked for me. What I know about education also seems to imply that rote may not be the best method for everyone, but is certainly one method that I think should be incorporated into learning Japanese writing.

      I will introduce several methods by which learner of Japanese can practice writing the characters they need, and hopefully provide a few new tricks to help the hand and mind remember the process, but first I would like to emphasize the importance of stroke order (the order in which each line must be written).

      When I was first taught stroke order, I took it as something of a suggestion, far underestimating its true importance. Now that I am a more experienced writer, I know how much an understanding of proper stroke order can help students remember writing.

      Some of the helpful aspects of learning proper order are:

• Consistency – Stroke order teaches you to write each character exactly the same way every time. Even in English most people write and handwrite consistently. A person’s signature can be used as a means of identification because people tend to write them the same way every time.
• The stroke direction – Although it is not as obvious with a pencil or ball-point pen, many Japanese characters end with a little flare at the end. This flare is important enough that the lower levels of the Kanji Proficiency Exam (an exam offered in conjunction with Japan’s Ministry of Education that tests the Kanji writing and reading ability of native Japanese speakers) asks students whether certain characters flare or not. Another important aspect of stroke direction is stroke thickness. When Japanese characters are written with traditional Japanese calligraphy brushes, a stroke will be thicker at its beginning gradually become thicker at the end.
• Angles – One other important aspect of stroke order is the angle of the strokes themselves. The starting point of each stroke is a very important part of the subsequent angle taken. If the order or starting point is off, the strokes may not intersect properly.
• Balance – The stroke order is very important to maintaining the overall balance and size of the characters. If the stroke order is wrong, the characters size and shape will be off, and may end up going outside of the box.

      Penmanship is very important in Japan and often used as an indicator of a person’s communicative ability. Although when writing a letter to someone, or designing something it may be fun to play with the way a character is written, on important documents it’s good to write legible, natural, well-sized characters. Japanese resumes are generally written by hand so that employers can get a sense of prospective employees’ character writing.

      Let’s move on to various ways that one might practice writing and remembering Japanese letters. One trick I used when at home alone was voicing the letters out. If I were writing the hiragana pictured above, pronounced “a” (as in ah), I would say “ah” as I wrote each of the three strokes. The third stroke is longer and curves around so it might sound like this:

“AAAAA – Aaaaa – aaaAAAAaaaa”

     You might even want to vary your voice or tone to correspond with the stroke going left to right, up or down, or in the case of the third stroke, curving down, then up, then down again in one smooth stroke.

      Another useful technique is writing the characters in the air with your whole arm, or on your palm with your index finger. This way of practicing lets you get your whole body involved in remembering the character. I also like to write the letters with my foot, or some other body part for practice.

      Pairs can also practice writing together with one person giving writing directions out loud and the other following those directions. For some learners, vocalizing the process may help make the writing process easier to remember. Pairs can also play games with the letters, using their fingers to trace the letters on each others' backs and guess what was written.

      Another fun way to do it is using your mouse and a drawing program such as MS Paint to draw the characters will provide you with a different feel than pen on paper. It’s actually quite hard to write the characters smoothly with a mouse and it is definitely worth trying.

      There are lots of ways to practice writing Hiragana and Katakana. Many of them are also applicable to learning kanji as well. However, one important part of learning to write Japanese happens to be the rote method I mentioned in the beginning of this article. Although rote is definitely the least Japanese language practicing methods I discussed, it is one of the most important things you do in order for your hand to become used to writing with the proper stroke order and balance.

     Hopefully with a few weeks or months of practice you will begin to be able to write the characters without having to think about each individual line or stroke. Good luck with your Japanese writing! And here is a video to start you on your way. The video below is very simple and just shows the hiragana characters in succession with the order of strokes indicated with circled numbers. Try writing them while you watch the video. How many times can you write each hiragana letter before the next one comes up on the screen?