Hand-Written Japanese (Photo)

[astaroth]

This reminds me of the reason why they stress so much to learn stroke order... so when you see something like this you can almost guess it by stroke order alone.

That's true, but it looks to me that in 住 they wrote the second horizontal stroke before the cutting vertical one (one day I will learn the names of the strokes ...). The correct stroke order should be:

[furrykef]

This reminds me of the reason why they stress so much to learn stroke order... so when you see something like this you can almost guess it by stroke order alone.

Except stroke order does seem to be different for cursive writing sometimes, although I'm sure there's a method to the madness. For example, 竜 is based on cursive versions of 龍, which makes sense if you notice the tail of 竜 replaces the right half of the kanji (it makes more sense if you imagine the tail extending all the way to the top). But of course the right half of 龍 was never written bottom-to-top; only the cursive version permits that.

I do see the point, though: the stroke order is still very helpful in seeing these particular characters (though I had no idea what they were until the answer was given).

- Kef

[Mystique]

Just a small observation.

The way the first word is written based on Chinese stroke order (as Astaroth had pointed out), not the current Japanese official stroke order. I noticed some of my older Japanese friends write the same way as the Chinese stroke order.

[astaroth]

The way the first word is written based on Chinese stroke order (as Astaroth had pointed out), not the current Japanese official stroke order.

Thanks for including me ... even though I didn't know it was the Chinese stroke order ...
That's the reason why when I see my Chinese friends writing hanzi I know the stroke order looks ... funny at times ...

[AJBryant]

Thanks for including me ... even though I didn't know it was the Chinese stroke order ...
That's the reason why when I see my Chinese friends writing hanzi I know the stroke order looks ... funny at times ...

I blame the different stroke order (partially) for some of the weird ways the PRC chose to abbreviate some hanzi -- rather than adopting the Japanese abbreviated forms, in many cases they created yet a *third* version of the same character.

Dammit!



Tony

[Infidel]

I correctly guessed the second kanji. The first one wasn't part of my known list yet, so I forgive myself for not getting it.

-edit bah, that first kanji is from sumu, so it was on my known list after all.

[astaroth]

I blame the different stroke order (partially) for some of the weird ways the PRC chose to abbreviate some hanzi -- rather than adopting the Japanese abbreviated forms, in many cases they created yet a *third* version of the same character.

That could be, but at times it was also Taiwanese friends who were writing with a different stroke order, so I thought the rules changed between the two countries (Japan and China) sometime before the Chinese civil war.

[AJBryant]

Yeah, but the point is, the Taiwanese didn't simplify the hanzi -- they use the original forms. It was the PRC (ack, ptui!) that instituted hanzi reform to help with literacy. The only real result, however, is messing up the language -- now Chinese language students have to decide whether to learn the original forms, useful really only in Taiwan or Singapore and in classical texts, or the ugly modern PRC form, useful throughout ALL of continental China and in books published there -- or, perhaps, double their workload and learn BOTH.


Tony

[astaroth]

If I'm understanding right, the different Japanese stroke order came into being because of the simplification (where I mean different with respect to traditional character still used in Taiwan).

About simplified vs traditional debate, there was few weeks ago a nice parallel debate on Room for Debate blog at the NYTimes website. It presents four different points of view about the issue.

that instituted hanzi reform to help with literacy.

Though traditional character didn't refrain Taiwan to achieve literacy ...

[Yudan Taiteki]

Simplified characters didn't do anything for China's literacy either. It makes the characters faster to write, but no easier to remember or read. So things are pretty much the same as before; the elite have no problem achieving literacy whereas the agrarian class (and other poorer Chinese) can't manage to do it.

[Dehitay]

Why is everybody so sure this isn't 2 - British pound - sideways omega - titled sigma?

[sei]

Why is everybody so sure this isn't 2 - British pound - sideways omega - titled sigma?

I have to admit, I did see a British pound when I first looked at it...