[ファブリス]

I'll post links to scans of hand-written letters I've found on google here. I'm really interested in the 'simplified' writings of the kana and kanji.

I'll continue editing this post with more links every now and then so I'll number them so we can comment them or translate some parts.

#1# Natsumi letter (you can read the story Natsumi and Yuki)
http://www.gaijinsmash.net/archives/natsumi_letter.jpg

#2# Ohama letter
http://www.breederdirect.jp/main/happine...letter.gif

#3# Very weird letter...
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Hollywood-Kou...letter.jpg

#4# Hashimoto letter
http://www.breederdirect.jp/main/happine...letter.gif

#5# Kimura letter
http://kato.breederdirect.jp/main/happin...letter.gif

#6# A Happy New Year
http://yonrin.jp/letter.gif

#7# Interesting.. very regular and oblique
http://www.kochinet.ed.jp/ogata-j/hakush.../index.htm

#8# fureai letter
http://www.naozane.co.jp/fureai/letter.JPG

#9# p-letter
http://www.budogu.jp/img/p-letter.jpg

#10# アレルギ ? this one's cute..
http://www.juutaku.co.jp/column/img/letter.jpg

[ファブリス]

Oh, cool, I came accross this japanese website about writing letters :

http://www.nengasyotyuu.com/

Here's a page on basic letter format 手紙の基本形式.

Weird, only yesterday I was working up to making a similar post, not realising there was one here already. I find this interesting too. Not so much from the letterwriting angle as the handwriting angle.

In a previous life (pre-CAD) I was an architectural technician, and used to like to while away my free time practising different styles of architect's hand writing and neat lettering. My own everyday english writing style has always been rather messy, but I've always tried to cultivate a flowing yet stylised style.

The idea of developing a kanji/kana style is similarly intriguing to me. I suppose it could sound a bit pretentious or unimportant, when there's so much ahead to learn that's more substantial, but it seems like it should be something to develop as you learn, rather than artificially, afterwards.

I was going to suggest that those people living in Japan could keep their eyes open for interesting examples written by native Japanese colleagues - not just letters, maybe a page of meeting notes or lecture notes, or a shopping list on the fridge. Nothing confidential of course, just stuff people wouldn't mind being scanned of photocopied.

I guess many people write almost exclusively on computers these days, but I'm sure there's a few interesting handwriters out there somewhere!

Robin

ps: I think your links #1 and #3 are the same?

Also, I found a page of handwriting fonts, but if they're anything like roman handwriting fonts, they won't flow well at all. I guess the flow also depends on whether you're writing vertically or horitontally.

colonel32 Wrote:My own everyday english writing style has always been rather messy, but I've always tried to cultivate a flowing yet stylised style.

The idea of developing a kanji/kana style is similarly intriguing to me. I suppose it could sound a bit pretentious or unimportant, when there's so much ahead to learn that's more substantial, but it seems like it should be something to develop as you learn, rather than artificially, afterwards.

I've always liked foreign alphabets, ciphers and calligraphy from when I was a kid, but my handwriting was so appalling that when I was about 13 I decided to redesign it letter by letter and learn how to write in that style, which I did. I think this fascination with writing is a major inspiration for learning kanji and my style is semi-calligraphic, in that I've gone to a lot of trouble to learn the formal stroke styles as well as well as stroke order.

I'm not that bothered about getting into pure calligraphy (i.e. brush) I just want my everyday writing to be smart and stylish, if possible. I use a black gel pen at the moment, I haven't found my ideal writing implement for kanji yet, those japanese Pentel brush pens are delightful but difficult to control, I find, and there's a limit to how small you can write with them - such big writing is not very practical.

Perhaps people might like to share scans of their own hand-writing, I'd be very interested to see how people write.

I've been looking for authentic Japanese handwriting samples, just to compare to mine. It's reassuring to see that even Japanese people don't write the kanji or kana as nicely as they look printed out. (Then again the same applies to alphabetic scripts.)

[ファブリス]

Thanks colonel32, I fixed the link. There's a really nice story about the first letter actually so I put the link to that too.

Yes, I liked that story.

And don't forget ziggr's Chiho Saito postcard. Sorry if I embarrassed you by drawing attention to it, but I liked that story too :)

Oh god. Don't use my horrible Japanese handwriting as an example! ^_^

But here is the handwriting from her reply, written by a native Japanese hand:



I love how her 糸 radical zig-zags around in 手紙. Looks like she abbreviates 6 strokes down to only 3. I was always disappointed in how my own 糸 never seem to look right, but after looking at hers, I don't worry about it so much.

--Z

I handwrite 糸 the same way.

However, I'd like to find out what other shortcuts are conventional because I know mine aren't. Being Greek, I sometimes substitute Greek characters for kanji components, like lower case delta for the speech radical theta for sun/day, omicron (a circle) for mouth.

ファブリス, thank you very much for finding and posting those letters. But some of them load very slowly; and there is always the possibility that the sites in question might change, and then your samples would be lost. So why not download the files, put copies on your server, and then link to those?