I mark the frame "myself" als failed, when I draw the kanji and the drop on top points in the wrong direction.

the same with "to swim" - failed, when the drop on top of "eternity" points in the wrong direction.

Or when the flower on top does not stretch over the whole span of "dilute" (missing the water to the left)
...

I just don't want to learn something wrong.

Of course you need to write them to prove yourself wrong/failed.

anybody else strict as I am?

Edit: I didn't pass anything that wasn't perfect. In hindsight, I wish I had progressed through RTK more quickly.

People have to judge for themselves how much time they want to spend reviewing vs. the likelihood that they'll fix minor errors without failing the kanji. Reviews can get pretty intense. I'd be inclined to pass a stroke in the wrong direction because it will reappear in many other kanji, so there will be ample opportunity to get it right. Time saved now is more time later for learning to read.

I agree that writing the kanji is a good idea - many benefits. I found that knowing why I had failed a particular kanji made the re-learning part much more effective. Writing them makes it easy to look back and see where you went wrong.

A wrong facing dot, or the top primitive not covering all the lower bits, and so on, are all 'fail' that character for me. I got the character wrong, so I do need to review it.

My Japanese teacher in college would mark a character wrong if the drop at the top was going in the wrong direction. A wrong-facing drop is a fail in my book.

Yeah, I think a wrong-facing drop, or writing the elements in the wrong proportion to one another, (as in your "dilute" example) is just as wrong as writing the wrong kanji altogether.
The only thing you have to watch out for is that there are cases where there are multiple valid ways to write kanji. For example, the drop on the left of 火 can be written in either direction -- maybe in calligraphy there's a proper way it should go, but in my experience, both ways are used. But I guess you have to learn these on a case-by-case basis; you can't always assume that close enough = correct.
Also, those cases where the proper way to hand-write a character is different from the printed form, as in 北.

Not for me. At the end of the day, all that matters is you get your point across when you come to start studying real Japanese. Not even the natives will notice those kind of things.

Yep wrong drop direction = mega ultra fail

the only thing that I'm a bit lenient on myself with is when I accidentally write the Kanji for a different key word but still correctly, ex： SELF => 吾 => SHOW KANJI => 自　

Same here. Wrong drop direction = fail...

Squintox Wrote:Not for me. At the end of the day, all that matters is you get your point across when you come to start studying real Japanese. Not even the natives will notice those kind of things.

Of course they will, the drop direction isn't some minor thing.

Squintox Wrote:Not for me. At the end of the day, all that matters is you get your point across when you come to start studying real Japanese. Not even the natives will notice those kind of things.

Normally one places a smiley after a joke ...

Tobberoth Wrote:

Squintox Wrote:Not for me. At the end of the day, all that matters is you get your point across when you come to start studying real Japanese. Not even the natives will notice those kind of things.

Of course they will, the drop direction isn't some minor thing.

Well, I guess it depends. I wouldn't fail myself if I got a wrong direction in 自, but I would for 守, because it may end up looking like a different kanji. I don't think anyone would notice if you get it wrong in 火　or 金, unless they try.

Squintox Wrote:Not for me. At the end of the day, all that matters is you get your point across when you come to start studying real Japanese. Not even the natives will notice those kind of things.

You are obviously underestimating the 'natives' ability to detect an incorrect stroke.

Try writing 千 or 干 or any other character in a stroke order other than the ordained order.

It will be noticed and commented upon.

Trust me, it has happened to me many a time...

Yeah, natives are more picky than we are usually. My Japanese teacher whined constantly about where my strokes where stopped and where they were swept (can't explain it... everystroke is either stopped or not, for example, the two first strokes in 金 should NOT be stopped, all the ones in 王 should be).

There are a number of factors involved in determining how necessary stroke order is, including what you're using (if you want to learn stroke order, use a brush pen. A number of wrong orders that look just fine with a pencil or non-brush pen will suddenly look hideously wrong), what the actual stroke is, and what the scale you're writing it at is.

Edit: regarding "stops", the way we learned it was as follows: every stroke ends in either a stop, a drag, or a hook. They are as follows:

Stop: cease motion of the brush, then lift off the paper

Drag: lift off the paper while still moving the brush. The stroke terminates when your brush has left contact with the paper.

Hook: like a drag, but with a faster lift and a sudden change in direction as the lift begins.

This is still detectable with a non-brush, but is less intuitive starting out; I just generally recommend brush pens to beginners.

~J

Exactly! The first two strokes in 金 should be drags!

I always thought he was being too picky since we were using normal pencils. However, it actually does make a big difference, the correct endings to strokes make the whole kanji look better.