I'm hoping to find a free handwritten (ie looks like ball point or pencil) japanese font so that I can convert a list of the RTK kanji into what I should be aiming to write like. Sometimes I'm good at getting the shapes down in writing, but other times I'm sure that there are better / more natural ways of writing the kanji the way a native speaker would.

I have some handwriting drill books and whatnot, but I'm looking for a font particularly so that I can finish off RTK with an idea of whether or not my handwritten characters approach the legibility of a native Japanese, and to pinpoint which characters I write like a 5 year old with a broken hand.

Any ideas?

The more your handwritten characters look like the proper fonts, the better. Just because most Japanese people suck at writing kanji doesn't mean you should aim to be as bad.

Here are some fonts: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA039499/

I'm not sure how good the handwriting would be considered though.

YOzFont (sample, download page) is the one I've used to make my practice sheets.

BTW, would you like a copy of mine? I'll post a picture when I get home, but basically each line has the character, its number, stroke count, and four boxes in which to practice your writing. Two columns per page, the whole PDF file is about 50pp if I recall correctly. If so, just drop me a line. No point reinventing the wheel!

I would disagree with Tobberoth (or at least, insist on a definition of "the proper fonts"). I would never want my handwriting to look like a Mincho font, for instance. And I don't want my English handwriting to look like Times Roman, either. (Nor, god forbid, Comic Sans <shudder>)

ETA: Moon is another decent handwriting font. There's also Mikachan, but it's a little cutesy for my taste.

E(again)TA: After reading the thread on handwriting books from Amazon.jp, it's a little embarrassing to be recommending one written by a Scandinavian; nevertheless, Learn to Write Chinese Characters has done wonders for my kanji.

There are ペン字 dictionaries which show acceptable handwritten forms of kanji.　学研漢和大辞典 also has 1 picture of the kanji handwritten in each entry, but it's kind of lowres in the EPWING. It's mainly of interest to me so that I can read the messy prescription-slip-like writing of some Japanese people.

Yes, everything can be solved by buying another dictionary.

Thanks for VOzFont. I prefer to learn from "proper fonts" so to speak, but it's always nice to mix things up.

@amthomas: here is a sample of my RTK practice sheets... drop me a line if you'd like the file.

oo some of those fonts are really cute, ~comic sans

thanks heaps

Tobberoth Wrote:The more your handwritten characters look like the proper fonts, the better. (vitriol excluded)

Certainly not. There are many cases where handwriting and print are very different, and are not meant to be written the same. The first example that came to mind is さ. You wouldn't write さ with two strokes, as it is seen in print.　



This site has quite a few handwritten fonts - they might not be good for mimicing, but defintiely usable for other purposes.

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html

For doing RtK reviews, my favorite font by far is the Kanji Stroke order font found here http://sites.google.com/site/nihilistorguk/

Although I bought RTK, 4th edition, I still went to the Japan Foundation Library to find an earlier edition, to photocopy the appendix of Hand-drawn Characters that is included in the earlier editions of RTK. I really helps my kanji look natural.

(I don't have a scanner or I'd send it to you. Maybe someone else here has it...?)

annabel398 Wrote:YOzFont (sample, download page) is the one I've used to make my practice sheets.

After seeing the link from Annabel, I installed the fonts and the "change kanji font" script. I've been using the YozFontN04 with my reviews and study for a few weeks, and I think my handwriting has improved. It's easier to follow sample handwriting than it is to try to guess handwritten forms from regular typescript. I just write on the backs of receipts and tea bag covers; I haven't made practice sheets.

The script to change the font is at the link below. It'd probably be more convenient than looking up the characters in the index.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=5289#pid5289

Tobberoth Wrote:The more your handwritten characters look like the proper fonts, the better. Just because most Japanese people suck at writing kanji doesn't mean you should aim to be as bad.

I have to disagree there, If you write "water" as it appears in it's three stroke form on the side of characters like it is in print it will just look idiotic

Machine_Gun_Cat Wrote:I have to disagree there, If you write "water" as it appears in it's three stroke form on the side of characters like it is in print it will just look idiotic

氵Why?

bodhisamaya Wrote:

Machine_Gun_Cat Wrote:I have to disagree there, If you write "water" as it appears in it's three stroke form on the side of characters like it is in print it will just look idiotic

氵Why?

It just looks unnatural and doesn't follow the flow of how regular strokes work

Machine_Gun_Cat Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:

Machine_Gun_Cat Wrote:I have to disagree there, If you write "water" as it appears in it's three stroke form on the side of characters like it is in print it will just look idiotic

氵Why?

It just looks unnatural and doesn't follow the flow of how regular strokes work

That's how every Japanese person whose handwriting I've seen writes the stroke. No one makes the "tick-mark" type last stroke unless they are using a brush.

Who writes "a" or "g" like they appear in Times Roman font?

There are typographic and handwritten differences in every character set I've learned (Greek, Latin and Japanese).

Raichu Wrote:Who writes "a" or "g" like they appear in Times Roman font?

There are typographic and handwritten differences in every character set I've learned (Greek, Latin and Japanese).

I've actually been writing my a's like type font for years, but I don't think it looks unnatural. I think if you were to write every character as displayed in MS Gothic or similar however, your writing would certainly be legible, but it would have no character (no pun intended).

10 Beautiful Japanese Fonts

seifip Wrote:10 Beautiful Japanese Fonts

Thanks for pointing this out, and the following isn't any comment on your effort.

When the blog author writes that "Meiryo (Free) is my favorite Japanese font ever." he loses any stylistic credibility he might have, in my eyes. That's one of the ugliest Japanese fonts around, IMO. Really blocky and without any grace at all, it's scalability notwithstanding.

@markal: Meiryo has it's problems and it would probably lose to some of the TypeBank gothic fonts in print, but it's a great font and the best Japanese font for display on a computer screen. It's highly readable, quite stylish, Verdana-like latin characters look great alongside the Japanese ones.

I understand that you may not like the font (BTW, what's your favorite Japanese gothic font), but there are many designers who love it, and I think that the fact that it got the Tokyo Type Directors award in 2007 justifies my words.

I have to agree with seifip, Meiryo is very nice for a computer font. Reading on wikipedia or news sites, you're going to enjoy how readable it is. I wouldn't want to write like that, but that's not the point.

I'm sure you guys are right about it's utility value. I'm not looking at the big picture like you are and maybe that is the way fonts should be evaluated overall. When you look at a word or a sentence in Meiryo it's just butt ugly compared to say, the Epson Kaisho font. However, I realize you wouldn't want a web page or maybe even a long reading passage in the latter.

Edit: Oh, seifip and now I see that you are the author of the blog, also. Well, no disrespect was intended by my opinion and I'm sure you know a lot more about the design aspects of fonts than I ever will.

I'm quite an advocate of aqua_pfont/aqua_font! It's kinda cute to write! It depends really, whether you're still at the stage of trying to get the right proportions, or whether you're more at the stage of trying to develop an overall handwriting style... if you are at this latter stage, then aqua_pfont is a viable option to imitate!

I think Meiryo looks really nice and clean. Quite stylish actually.