6 Rules for Writing Japanese Kanji CORRECTLY

[@julius4858]

If you force the first 100-or-so kanji into your brain in the correct stroke order, these rules develop automatically. You will see that it gets much much easier to memorize kanji after already knowing a few, because your brain generalizes over the individual parts. You suddenly don't have to memorize 20 strokes for a new kanji, but like 3-4 parts you already know. And at that point, every kanji made up of 3 parts is as simple as the kanji for "3". Literally. Then the difficulty becomes not confusing very similar kanji.

[@michaelirwin7258]

In my case, I forced some of them into my brain, and then my brain broke. Now what do I do?

[@e.m.nanthish9903]

You're boosted my speed bro... ありがと

[@resource.1]

​@@e.m.nanthish9903correct：is ありがとう！

[@rosieweaselby]

West to east strokes hit different when you’re left handed

[@connormchugh8456]

Truly

[@williamkeitaro8910]

Kanji, Chinese characters and even Korean syllabic blocks should always be written in either these way(s): Top to bottom Left to right Outer to inner And it's not just a rule, this is how we just naturally write it, this even applies in the Latin alphabet, just try to write these letters yourself, L, H, P, R, T, and pay attention to how your hands write them.

[@GamingVirtue]

Generally speaking, that is true. Though, for some like myself, P and R are bad examples of this as they can be cleanly drawn in a single continuous stroke, typically beginning in the lower-left corner of the letter's bounds. And I find that infinitely more intuitive than drawing them in 2+ separate strokes.

[@UP2D8]

Ahhhhhh this is GOLD! GOLD I TELL YOU!

[@ManjeetKaur-jr1qv]

I know its not about this video topic, but i just wanna say that you are amazing. Those genki lessons are so so helpful, like you don't even need to go to classroom. And the biggest part is that they all are free, thanks andi! Thnx a lot for letting them free ❤❤❤, i wish future people would also learn from them

[@MissMilaRose]

I was making amazing progress learning Japanese. The moment I realized how fundamentally important learning Kanji was- and how much additional time learning this language would take me- it messed with my head enough I lost my study flow... I need to wrap up Lesson 4 Genki & start lesson 5 😭

[@stefanopagliuca1591]

本当にありがとうございます。 I Hope this could help me ... I've always found harder learning the lines rule instead of memorizing kanji.

[@chargedlem]

This video came at the perfect time! I've been learning kanji for a little while now, but want to be sure to practice writing. Great video as always, thank you!

[@gonbechyan]

The worst part about writing kanji as a lefty is that west to east lines feel so unnatural

[@ToKiniAndy]

And probably end up having a lot of holes in the paper. 😭

[@Im-BAD-at-satire]

Even though I held off learning the language until I can do it in an extraverted way, introverted learnings styles don't work efficiently nor very effectively for me, I plan on learning to write kanji regardless. I was gaven this exquisite Chinese calligraphy set and this video will be everso helpful in this endeavor.

[@ToKiniAndy]

That's awesome! I hope you can enjoy that calligraphy set a lot! =)

[@Im-BAD-at-satire]

@@ToKiniAndy It's a nice beginner set, the company is Corciosy from what I read. Since I don't know what everything is called, I'm transcribing what's listed on Amazon. There's 4 Chinese Brushes, Chinese Brush Rest, Porcelain Bowl, Link Stone, Link Stick, Link 100g, and Reusable Magic Water Cloth. I absolutely love the green shade of the porcelain bowl and brush rest, there's also a mat it comes with but it doesn't give it a name on the listening.

[@briannemeth9417]

Kanji series?! Awesome, dude. Your kanji with brush and ink look really nice! 👍

[@marcoll1912]

I'm halfway through remembering the kanji but this serves as a good reminder since i had forgotten most of the rules. If anyone is stuggling at first it is normal but keep up the effort and you'll do these automatically (and Heisig even starts not including the stroke order around the 500th kanji)

[@angelicasmodel]

The calligraphy on the video is beautiful. I've done a bit of western calligraphy, but not Chinese/Japanese.

[@sherpFPS]

I’m still so up in the air on kanji memorization. Having studied Japanese for less than a year it’s extremely difficult to not feel overwhelmed by kanji alone much less kanji along with everything else I have to learn.

[@TalkingMachine]

kanji is the best part of japanese language. a daunting task maybe , but so much of the japanese culture is distilled into how they choose to communicate with a borrowed chinese logographic script. piecing the puzzle together bit by bit, connecting the dots together as your learn more about the history of the language and ancient culture of people who put their zeitgeist to paper.. and by the very nature of what a logographic language offers, reading japanese is basically Pictionary. so while technically you'll need to know at least 1000 kanji for fluency the reality is you'll know a few hundred and interpret the rest.

[@zenbrandon]

I get it, it was daunting for me too in the beginning! I only have about 180 to 200 memorized right now, but it is possible! It's very tough to start, but the more you expose yourself to kanji in context (like news articles, basic sentences in textbooks, etc) the more second nature it becomes. TL;DR: it gets easier, just start! I used WaniKani and it helped a lot.

[@catmage]

It's a marathon, not a sprint! Even 3 consistent kanji/words per day is better than cramming 25 a day for a month and burning out

[@tanuki88]

find a way to enjoy the process

[@giuseppeagresta1425]

Knowing kanji comes very naturally while learning vocabulary, and imo makes the latter easier as time goes on The real effort is just the one it takes to write them, but even that is perfectly doable with some patience and stidy

[@hristiyanavalkova6665]

Cute little touch 😅! 3:24

[@OKOKOKOKOKOKOK-zn2fy]

In the Kanji for "write" (and characters like it) I have always made the big piercing vertical stroke before I write the last horizontal. I do it that way because the vertical does not pierce the last line. The last line becomes the base of that part of the Kanji. When you start writing them faster, you can adjust where the bottom line is if you make that stroke last. If you draw the bottom line before the vertical piercing stroke, you could blow through it by accident with the vertical and spoil the character. Then, I write the final box shape at the bottom. Is that wrong? I want to get the correct stroke order because my last name is Tuttle. Lot's of pressure for me to get it right. The ghost of Great great uncle Charles is watching my every brush stroke. My family has published virtually all of the English language books on Asian languages for the last 170 years. We donated the land to build what became Yale University in the 1600s.

[@scary.garcia]

he said the vertical stroke is written last in the "part or kanji" so if you combine that rule with rule 6 you will see your stroke order is correct since the radical for brush 「聿」 is one part and 「日」 is another 🙂

[@millerjimd]

I can't imagine being a left-handed Japanese student.

[@prussen9889]

Sup. That’s me

[@Gamer_Wolf19]

Same I'm a lefty

[@ambarlostinthewoods3080]

This Kanji videos are crazy good, keep it up man

[@shaoronmd]

huh... about the "line that cuts thru". I'm Chinese and maybe it's different for Japanese writing, I was taught that when the line cuts thru all horizontal lines, it's last. but if that line ends on another horizontal line, that horizontal line is last like in 書土王 as some examples. Also, your calligraphy hand writing is beautiful... I had too many sleepless nights trying to perfect them and only getting passing grade 😭

[@claudiafrutuoso]

This was a great video. I am looking forward to more videos on the kanji series. Thank you for the great explanation.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Still prefer the keyboard method but always like to know the rules. Start wit a line and end in depression looking forward to the new series

[@ToKiniAndy]

See you there! hehe

[@TomVlox]

really looking forward to the future kanji videos! Thanks for your dedication to making them! 😁

[@r.8902]

glad im starting off with kanji here bc i opened up chapter 3 of Genki I and nearly cried because I had no idea how I was supposed to write the ones in the vocab lol the textbook really drops you into it without any bumpers

[@ivyw5862]

Why did I search this up? No idea, but we’re here now

[@nkdevde]

I often felt that the rules apply more consistently when considering where a stroke ends, perhaps taking priority over where it starts. That way, 口, doesn't break the rules anymore :) Not sure if this works consistently though.

[@Kainthereaper]

Hi Andy, I was curious. Why do you linger on the final part of each calligraphy stroke? In the example for ichi you go left to right, then sorta pause on the final piece, you lift then apply pressure again. Is that a technique?

[@Psico_veda]

When u write "car", by following the rule, u should write the line that comes after tbe box (just below), before the box ...

[@1Saburo]

i think writing kanji is crucial to memorizing what they look like and associating the meaning with a mental map. Along with that, I translate the sentence that includes the kanji and listen to it + read in hiragana. I think that should work alright. But i think maybe you don't need to write ALL kanji to understand all kanji. You only need to write the ones that are more strokes/looks similar to others/you won't remember what it means later. Idk what to do about the radicals though. It's nice for slicing down a big kanji, but the individual meanings of the radicals are usually lost in the kanji.

[@falakb6797]

Hi Andy, I have a question. I’ve followed ur method in ur how I’d learn kanji if I could restart video, and I learned all of the kanji in the first phase. Where to find vocab for them, or should I just find a specific amount of vocab for each kanji? Also how do I know I’m not missing out on any important vocab? Should I just review all of the n5 vocab?

[@ToKiniAndy]

That depends! If you're using our deck, we've already picked the words for you. If not, I'd try to find 1 COMMON word and an example sentence for each "reading" for a kanji. Audio will be helpful. If you find that too time consuming, reviewing the N5 vocabulary list will be a good first step. 😊

[@falakb6797]

@@ToKiniAndy thank you!!

[@kaiji2542]

Since I have experience on writing Chinese, I won't have a much harder time since Korean and Japanese have the same stroke order system. That's what I noticed from Japanese but it wasn't really shocking since Japanese uses Chinese Characters but Korean also did have the same stroke order system and I was shocked a bit, I wast slightly not shocked a bit since these languages had their Sino era

[@skewminds3756]

I can’t wait for the next videos! But I don’t want to spend anything of my parent’s money on learning Japanese.

[@Sakurasan2023]

Great video 📹 👍

[@ItsNothingAmazing]

Another W vid!

[@j.thedemonkat6572]

Oooooh, an Anki deck! Thank you!!!

[@nx.7x123]

Hey 👋 where's the Anki deck??

[@cobrettibr]

Awesome thanks

[@ToKiniAndy]

You're welcome!

[@mamoruhikari9414]

Amazing

[@Xinister7]

This Is prolly the easiest video out there to learn/understand kanji and why am I not getting it ? Will I understand it if I watch it again and again ?

[@ToKiniAndy]

I wouldn’t worry about it too much if you don’t get it now. This stuff becomes quite natural the more kanji that you learn. 👍

[@Xinister7]

@@ToKiniAndy ohh ..so I gotta learn some kanji's to get this (⁠・⁠o⁠・⁠)

[@meriembrasse2873]

idk if u can trust the kanji order in duolingo but if there is a box u start with a box , if there is a big long stroke that is in the end , sometimes u if there is strokes inside the box the one that comes from the top is first ? i forgot , if u have strokes inside of a box the one coming downwards is first than the rest 😖😖😖 I can only be more confused

[@coltynstone-lamontagne]

Man I got like 100 kanji in and all these rules came naturally after that (i lost like 50 because i took 3 months off but im back at it again and the rules still feel natural!)

[@Finity_twenty_ten]

As long as it's legible, does it really matter?

[@theskull1030]

0:20 Isn't the remaining 10% of all kanji still a huge number to memorize? TuT

[@Burnrate]

The kanji for field always bothers me, so hard to do right even though I know. I always want to write the horizontal line inside the box before the vertical line.

[@adventureboy444]

While learning how to draw kanji, 右 and 左 seem to kinda confusing

[@-k4349]

I knew a lot fo these from learning Mandarin X_X but some are still hard to guess like for example: 山

[@ToKiniAndy]

When you learn that the bottom part of 山 is a box enclosure, it makes more sense. 🫣

[@addaappleman]

Do you have a lifetime membership option?

[@FlamesTheCatx3]

BIG DUB

[@ToKiniAndy]

Early bird gets the worm!

[@VolodymyrTitarovskyy]

Excuse my french but how the heck will the kanji for 4 as an example look any different if I close the box first? I'm writing it and I don't see it. Actually none of the number kanji look any different depending on my order. (the numbers are the only ones I know so far besides mouth/legs/私は) I can see it helping to make kanji with 500 strokes but I don't see why they'd look any different.

[@ToKiniAndy]

If you write really carefully, they won't look much different. But people rarely write carefully in actual handwriting. I recommend doing a quick search for native Japanese hand writing. When you start writing fast, the order makes a huge difference in the way many (not all) kanji look. If you know that order, you'll be better at deciphering it. But if you don't feel like doing it that way, no one will force you. hehe

[@VolodymyrTitarovskyy]

@@ToKiniAndy Gotcha. Yeah makes sense. Maybe since I'm still learning and don't want to draw scribbles I'm just more careful now with hand writing and after a while I'll start writing faster and it'll be worse.

[@sinti.jonatan]

I didn't understand you! Thanks anyways.

[@Psico_veda]

❤👏🏽

[@disgruntledwookie369]

If your symbols look different depending on the order of strokes that's just sloppy handwriting. The traditional stroke order is the way the it is solely because most people are right handed. As a lefty, this actually makes it harder for me to write quickly and neatly. Even in English I always write horizontal lines from right to left. This is why I can't concern myself with stroke order. Its biased against left handed people and it makes no difference. If I write 100 kanji "my way" I'd bet money no one could tell the stroke order was wrong 🤷‍♂️ it's just typical traditionalist values in China and Japan that insist things must be done a certain way.

[@hcm9999]

You shouldn't guess anything. If you don't know, you should just consult a kanji dictionary. A good kanji dictionary will show the correct stroke order.

[@nigelc.7818]

Waste of time in my opinion. Very rarely do you actually need to write Japanese these days unless its your address on a form or doing the kanji kentei test. Most people need to focus on knowing how to read them before knowing the stroke order.

[@roborobo8370]

I saw your thumbnail, First of all, you look handsome, second of all, I don't want to be only 90% correct, I want to get 210% correct. 🦦🦦🦦🦦🦦