I have a general sense by now, but there are some in RTK 3 that just leave me scratching my head.  When I google the kanji + stroke order, the kanji in question is sometimes so obscure that I only turn up stroke order results for Chinese characters. 

If I could double-check my hunches on how to write it while figuring out my story, that'd make me incredibly happy.

Again, if it's too much work, that's okay, too. 

Especially any character order involving 厂.

I just look it up once and then put it in the story. usually 'vertical before horizontal' suffices.

gavmck wrote:

If my Japanese wife sees me writing kanji and I get the stroke order wrong she always corrects me. Maybe it's because she went to a calligraphy class. If you ever decide to take up calligraphy, knowing stroke order and direction will be useful. And if you get into "bad habits" by getting it wrong it my take a while to relearn.

I don't think the possibility of a knee-jerk reaction from people who are observing is a sufficient justification for rigid following of stroke order. In the Japanese education system, stroke order is programmed in much the way as religious teachings are: it is because it is. Even teachers when generally asked why one stroke order is chosen over another, are rendered incapable of any response other than, "...because that's the stroke order!"

Perhaps my argument is misunderstood. I am in no way saying that the principles of stroke order are not important. They were designed for efficiency and speed when writing with the system of characters, and it is important to understand the underlying fundamentals of stroke order.

What I am saying, however, is that zealous obedience to stroke order that is enforced by the education system is as illogical and unfounded as most other doctrines. I'll explain in further detail.

• Stroke order's primary purpose is to allow a character to be rendered properly with as minimal motion as possible, thus creating the character with optimum speed, as well as set up preparation for writing the next character by ending on a stroke that allows the next character to easily be begun.
  - I want to place emphasis on that last point. Where the next character begins is subjective to whether or not one is using 縦書き (vertical) or 横書き (horizontal) writing styles.When one us using 縦書き optimum conservation of hand movement and speed is achieved by beginning a character at the top, and ending at the bottom so as to begin the next character beneath it. In 横書き however, if that same style is employed then a character will end at a bottom stroke, and require the hand to move upwards to begin the next character, since the character is placed to the right rather than beneath it in 横書き. For 横書き then, it can be seen that minimum hand movement is achieved by ending a character with a stroke to the right when capable, so as to immediately begin on the next character beside it.
I will use the simple character 「女」 illustrate this point. If writing using 縦書き, then the official stroke order wastes hand motion, as it ends in the center, towards the right, requiring an extra half-character of motion to begin the next character. An alteration of the stroke order, however, allows the character to end in the bottom left corner, the optimal position to begin whichever character is immediately beneath it. However, if using 横書き, then the official stroke order is more efficient, as noted before it ends near the top right, an optimum position for beginning characters situated to its right.

• Official stroke orders were not designed using measurements of exactly how much motion was used (total distance required to carry out a stroke order). In light of this, when tests are done that measure the exact distance required to write a character, many of the official stroke orders are slower and more wasteful of movement than alternatives. This is, of course, once again subjective to 縦書き and 横書き respectively.

• In calligraphy, where the desired outcome is aesthetic rather than a matter of speed and efficiency as in writing, stroke order does make a visual difference due to the fact that ink and brush are being used. However, only significant breeches of the order tend to make a visual difference, as minor alterations are imperceptible. Let us also take into account that in calligraphy, variations of stroke order are purposefully utilized to produce different effects. Rather than being 'wrong', it is simply an artistic style to create a certain aesthetic in whatever the artist is trying to accomplish. Also, let us take into account the question of the differences in official stroke orders between Mandarin and Japanese. Even simple characters such as 王 and 何 are written differently. Calligraphy using Japanese stroke orders are incorrect when compared to the calligraphy of China, and vice versa. How is one to possibly say that one is correct, and the other wrong?
We should also note that these variations in stroke orders between Mandarin and Japanese have little to no perceptible effect on beauty, legibility, nor speed of writing.

• Regarding input into an electronic dictionary: I am not sure if I really understand. If you already know the stroke order of the character, then why would you even be entering it? If you know the stroke order I'd assume you'd already know the readings or compounds its in to enter it directly. Even if that's not the case, almost all input methods I've tried or used do not require the exact stroke order. Anything close will usually bring about the desired character.

I suppose my entire point is that each person should use whatever stroke order he is most comfortable with and feels the best. If that's the official stroke order, wonderful! But too often I see people force themselves to use the official order even when they're not most comfortable with it, simply because the think of it as "official" thus carrying the belief that they HAVE to do it or it's wrong. Nonsense.

Ohhhh, I think I understand now. You mean when you see a new character and want to look it up, and just use the general stroke order rules to input it in correctly? I was thinking more along the lines of after already researching the exact stroke order, then inputting it that way, which is why I was like, "Huh?"

But of course I am not advocating completely random stroke orders like starting at the bottom I am just saying that input isn't a problem if someone chooses to do a slight variation in a stroke order. IE: changing the order of strokes for 女 since input will recognize it regardless of if you start at the top or begin with the horizontal bar.

ninetimes wrote:

Especially any character order involving 厂.

I actually learned the difference cause it bothers me like.

成る　＆　感じ　＆　威

Ｇｏ　｜　－

ＡＮＤ
返す　 goes - |

Last edited by howtwosavealif3 (2010 June 29, 4:12 pm)

This may come in handy: http://kanjivg.tagaini.net/

I found it while looking for the same thing, for my Android app. It's a giant XML blob containing SVG stroke information (in the proper order) for tons of characters, certainly covering the ones in RTK1 and probably RTK3 at least.

Edit: I recommend extracting the information from the XML and storing it in a database, of course.

Last edited by alexsuraci (2010 June 29, 5:50 pm)

I got the impression they were offering to write it, then scan it.  Hence put together...

bluemarigolds: unless you are native Japanese and/or have practiced a lot of Japanese calligraphy, chances are that your writing will not be correct for demonstrative purposes.

It takes a lot of skill to write the characters as they are in the RtK books (the hand drawn ones). Even "mouth" can be incredibly difficult to write properly for a beginning calligraphy student.

Most of us who learned to write Japanese kanji still write it like Japanese children. Very squarish characters, lack of balance, no energy or contrast, and so on.

I don't mean to discourage you but to produce the kind of hand written stroke order characters you can see in RTK 1 it takes some serious calligrapher skills.

The few stroke order images I have seen are based on Japanese fonts ("serif"/"mincho" style). But it takes a lot of time to decompose them to create the step by step images. Even if you were very good at calligraphy you may underestimate how much work it will be to produce step by step images for 2000 characters, scan them, compose them properly under Photoshop or equivalent, etc.

Anyway I wish I hadn't written point number three, since that makes me sound like an ass.

I'm just stating the facts.

If you're writing a book about designing logos, you don't ask a student to create example logos, you ask a master. Likewise here.

ファブリス: Have you taken a look at KanjiVG? It worked great for me, it'd be pretty trivial to draw them with <canvas> just by parsing the paths, and then you could draw/style them however you want.

Yeah, good stroke order is important for fast handwriting (and legible fast handwriting).

(However, I don't think that extends to the bizarrities like the difference between 右 and 左, and 返 and 感.  If you remember them that's OK, but I don't know if it's strictly necessary.)