I'm interested in pen-ji but I'm held back by my still poor Japanese reading level.

I'm looking for a comprehensive list of hand-drawn pen-ji characters, preferably in gyōsho (行書) style. It would be ideal if they were already in digital form (gif, jpg, etc.), but I'll take what I can find. Any pointers would be much appreciated.

The closest I have to this is actually in my RTK1 3rd ed. (1986). Index I of this edition consists of all the 2042 characters hand-drawn in pen-ji kaisho 楷書 style. (And I mean truly hand-drawn; in contrast, the so-called "hand-drawn" characters index in my RTK3 (1994) simply uses a looser-looking computer font to print the characters; as an illustration of how these characters are actually drawn by hand, this just sucks.)

Index I of RTK1 3d ed. is truly great, alone worth the price of a used copy of the book, IMO. Unfortunately, the characters in it are a bit small. And of course, they are not in gyōsho and do not include any of the characters in RTK3. (Also, they are not in digital form, but this is a relatively minor issue.)

One more thing: though I like gyōsho pen-ji, I'm not experienced enough with it yet to read it all. Therefore, it would be helpful if the catalog of pen-ji gyōsho characters included some way to identify each character that did not require being able to read the gyōsho (I hope that made sense). This could be the same character in printed form or even in kaisho, or some number, etc.

TIA!

~K


P.S. I value legibility, therefore I don't like sōsho (草書) one bit, and I'm not crazy about gyōsho styles that veer too far in the direction of sōsho. My favorite is a legible, "restrained" gyōsho, like this or even this. Also, I'm not interested here in brush-drawn characters, in any style. My ultimate goal is to learn pen-ji gyōsho so that I can do it with any old pencil or ballpoint pen.

The closest thing that isn't a book is probably to just download a (Japanese) handwriting font. One can learn to read grass script, it just takes practice. I was reading classical Japanese brushwork (including hentaigana) last year, although I'm pretty rusty now.

Jarvik7 Wrote:The closest thing that isn't a book is probably to just download a (Japanese) handwriting font.

In that case, I'll gladly settle for a book. Do you have any one in mind?

None in particular since I'm happy writing in kaisho and have no problems reading gyosho, but I see them (both penji dictionaries and penji training books) at Bookoff here pretty regularly. I saw one yesterday as a matter of fact (105Yen).

By handwriting font I didn't mean a professional font in the style of handwriting, but a homebrew font made from someone's personal handwriting. I've seen several over the years.

I like this: 楷行草 筆順・字体字典 (単行本) ISBN-13: 978-4385150499. I've been using it in my 書道 classes for 3 years now, and it's just downright handy. It has 2 references in it. One set is a penji "dictionary" that shows 楷書, 行書, and 草書 in penji, with variations, in chunks so you can decipher the stroke order variants. Handy for settling stroke order disputes.

The other set is a 書道 "dictionary" showing how characters should look in 楷書, 行書, and 草書 if you write them with a 筆. It doesn't show stroke order, so you have to look it up in the penji side. Kind of a pain, but that's how it goes.

You look up everything by on-yomi, except when a kanji only has a kun-yomi. So if you don't know the on-yomi, you need a way to look up on-yomi, or else you're screwed.

2200 yen, and really darn handy.

For 560 yen, you can get what is essentially the front half of the book, chopped off. Penji only. ISBN 4-385-20074-2. Not so useful if you decide to pick up a 筆 or 筆ペン. (Which is the most fun thing ever.)

Both are by 三省堂.

For Chinese learners (specifically those who use simplified Chinese), there's a handy little book called 多功能3500常用汉字钢笔行楷字帖, or "Multi-functional 3500 Chinese character steel pen semi-cursive regular script copybook." (Nice translation, right? )

ISBN 9787533923990

It has the 3500 常用汉字 ordered by radical, all written in a tight semi-cursive style (行楷 would be in between 行 and 楷) with a pen, with (very little) space to practice. I'm sure it would be of some use to Japanese learners, since so many characters are the same, but of course a Japanese book would be better. The little regular text the book has (it is mostly just the characters) is in Chinese.

rich_f Wrote:I like this: 楷行草 筆順・字体字典 (単行本) ISBN-13: 978-4385150499. I've been using it in my 書道 classes for 3 years now, and it's just downright handy. It has 2 references in it. One set is a penji "dictionary" that shows 楷書, 行書, and 草書 in penji, with variations, in chunks so you can decipher the stroke order variants. Handy for settling stroke order disputes.

This is perfect. Before I read your post I had found this one:

http://snipurl.com/verlp

...but from what I can glean from the amazon.jp pages, I like the one you cite better. Thanks!!! By the way, I'm jealous of the classes you're taking. Where I live I haven't found anything (though, in fairness, I'm really looking for a class in pen-ji rather than classical 書道).

bflatnine Wrote:For Chinese learners (specifically those who use simplified Chinese), there's a handy little book called 多功能3500常用汉字钢笔行楷字帖, or "Multi-functional 3500 Chinese character steel pen semi-cursive regular script copybook." (Nice translation, right? )

ISBN 9787533923990

It has the 3500 常用汉字 ordered by radical, all written in a tight semi-cursive style (行楷 would be in between 行 and 楷) with a pen, with (very little) space to practice.

I'm very interested in this (even though I'm learning Japanese), mostly because the semi-cursive style as you describe it, "between 行 and 楷", is probably exactly the style I like most. Thanks for the pointer!

What's a good place to buy this book if you live in the US (Massachusetts)? Ordering it from amazon.cn would probably require a home equity loan. Is there a chinese equivalent of Kinokuniya NYC?

CHINATOWN

Jarvik7 Wrote:By handwriting font I didn't mean a professional font in the style of handwriting, but a homebrew font made from someone's personal handwriting. I've seen several over the years.

This sounds really intriguing. A combination of such a font and the dictionaries posted by rich_f and bflatline covers all the bases.

The Google searching here has me stumped all around... I must not be hitting on the right keywords or something.

First, after a surprisingly long slog with Google I managed to find this page.

The font (HGS 行書体) shown in this page is the best pen-ji-gyōsho-style font I've managed to find; it still looks a bit mechanical to me, though. I'm sure the "homebrew" fonts you're referring to look more "handwritten", but I could not find a single one of these.

Here's where I draw a complete blank with The Google. Admittedly, I'm not the most adept Googler ever, even for more straightforward searches, but this one is really waaay out of my league. So, to those of you with greater Google prowess, what search keywords (in Japanese, of course) would you use to find the download page for a "homebrew handwriting-based pen-ji-gyōsho-style font" like the ones Karvik7 is referring to?

If I don't succeed finding one of these "homebrew fonts", I'll settle for HGS 行書体 (I'll even pay for it, though free is better, of course). But I'm even having a hard time finding a download page for it! (I hope that this is due to my extremely limited ability to read Japanese, and not to plain stupidity.) My searches tend to turn up what look to me like lists of font choices within MS apps; for instance. I figure that there must be a big difference between "HGS 行書体" and name of the ttf file that one downloads and installs. Or something.

If some cares to hurl some cluebricks my way I'd appreciate it...

[Katsuo]

There's a couple of pages of fonts here.

Just a quick errata fix: the 560 yen book only has 楷書 penji. So it's great for basic stuff, not so hot for what you want to do. Get the 2200 yen book.

The 行書 in the first page you link to matches up very well with the 行書 examples in the 2200 yen book. (The HGS 行書体 font.)

Not sure where one would find a "penji master." I find that a lot of what I learn in straight-up calligraphy translates pretty well to plain old handwriting, though. And even studying Chinese calligraphy (which is what I do) will help.

My teacher is flexible enough to let me pretty much study whatever I want. She'll correct my technique and check over my characters to make sure my spacing is good and my characters look good. She's not picky about what characters or what style I'm actually studying, so I've been studying 行書 lately. Great book on it here: ISBN: 4-8195-0163-1.

In the past she's helped me with clerical style, so you can get an idea for just how great of a teacher she is. (And clerical style is pretty tricky.)