41 votes
Accepted

What does the highlighted portion of this handwritten Kanji say?

It says 聞いてるし. is 略字 (the handwritten simplified/abbreviated kanji) of 聞. Other kanji with 門, such as 問、間、開、閉 etc., can also be simplified the same way: Other examples of 略字: For more about 略字, ...
  • 62.2k
23 votes

What does the highlighted portion of this handwritten Kanji say?

This is the handwritten simplified version of , similar to simplified Chinese . Note however that the simplified Chinese form of the radical has a break, and the "divider" is a single dot-like ...
22 votes

Is exact Kanji stroke length important?

Notice how in some fonts, the letter "A" has little things that stick out, too: But you wouldn't write those little tails in handwriting, would you? Same thing with 唱. I don't think I've met anyone ...
  • 2,882
22 votes
Accepted

Is exact Kanji stroke length important?

These "jumps" that you brought up are not part of the kanji, they are part of the typeface. (More specifically, they may be treated like serifs - or little decorations at the edge of certain lines) (...
  • 7,311
18 votes
Accepted

Recognizing old Japanese handwriting

It's a famous book called ぎやどぺかどる, a translation of Guía de Pecadores (or "The Sinner's Guide") by Jesuit mission in Japan. It reads: きやとへかとる 巻の二 (voicing marks unused) Guia do Pecador - Book 2 (...
16 votes

Is exact Kanji stroke length important?

Not to take away from the general idea of the other answers, but those protrusions on the bottom end of「唱」are not serifs. Noto sans CJK, a sans-serif font - sans-serif means without serifs. These ...
  • 9,036
15 votes

Is there a difference in drawing between the "mouth" and "enclosure" kanji radicals?

The two radicals 口 and 囗 are indeed different, even though they are hard to distinguish in modern scripts/fonts. This "standardization" of unifying the looks of unrelated elements is somewhat ...
  • 47.7k
15 votes
Accepted

Why is there a difference between the hand drawn 道 and the pc font one?

I'm assuming that this is a question on the different shapes of the「⻍・⻌」component of「道」. For reference, the glyph origin of「⻍・⻌」is shown below via the character「過」.「⻍・⻌」is a merger between「彳」and「止」;...
  • 9,036
14 votes

What is this Kanji? I can’t find it anywhere?

That’s likely not a kanji, but rather a hiragana そ (so) in its split/handwritten form (like on the right here):
13 votes
Accepted

Is there a difference in drawing between the "mouth" and "enclosure" kanji radicals?

In printed form, they are the same except for their size. Mouth is smaller than enclosure. Enclosure encloses other radicals or kanji, but mouth never takes anything inside it. Some common kanji ...
  • 3,089
12 votes

How to read this kanji?

It looks to me like [舞]{まい} (dance)...
  • 62.2k
12 votes

Is my Hiragana understandable?

Is my hiragana handwriting understandable? the casual handwriting written at the same speed as when I am writing Latin alphabet. They are very well understandable on condition written at the ...
  • 15.2k
12 votes
Accepted

Sharp vs rounded (tomed) vertical stroke in kanjis

A recent guideline from 文化庁 clearly says this distinction is not important in most cases. See page 53 of this PDF (常用漢字表の字体・字形に関する指針(報告)(案)) (2016): As for 木, you can also use はね (). Some recent ...
  • 288k
11 votes
Accepted

Need help reading old hand-written Japanese

Thanks to naruto, I was able to verify that 社 does get contracted into the shape in the image using this 電子くずし字字典 website. 電気会社員 I found the first two characters of the second line on this page from ...
  • 4,164
11 votes
Accepted

How important are these weirdly written kanji?

This is 馬 in some handwritten font. It's moderately deformed, but it still retains the features of traditional semi-cursive (行書) style. For example, the wavy line at the bottom represents four dots (灬)...
  • 288k
10 votes
Accepted

What's this handwritten character?

Assuming there is not anything preceding these letters that would alter its meaning, that would appear to say: 好きだ I (Like / Love) (You / It) "き" is often handwritten without the bowed ...
10 votes
Accepted

Why is D written as Đ in Japanese handwriting?

You're probably working as programmer or accountant, or you won't actually see many people in Japan write in this style, because those slashes are added to reduce misreading possibility in quick ...
10 votes

Is exact Kanji stroke length important?

Since nobody has mentioned how you should actually write 唱, let me add a picture from a "textbook font" (教科書体) (see Is there an "official" font or other writing standard that should be used ...
  • 47.7k
9 votes
Accepted

Kanji in the Fox Engine logo

This looks like it isn't really related to foxes, but is オタ魂 written as one character. (I would read it オタ[魂]{こん}.) オタ is the abbreviation of オタク otaku 魂 meaning "soul" or "spirit" So, loosely ...
  • 47.7k
9 votes

Is there a difference in drawing between the "mouth" and "enclosure" kanji radicals?

Unfortunately, there's a bit of confusion on this page. The distinction between「口」and「囗」is not how they're drawn, but the functional role they play in characters. While「囗」does indeed mean enclosure, ...
  • 9,036
9 votes
Accepted

Do you understand what is written in this paper?

[Edited to incorporate information from comments] 654号室 ビラルデイ ホセルイス様 郵便物をセンタオフィス にあずけています お受取り下さい 尼北局 (堀田) So they're telling you to pick up your mail (or parcel?) at the ...
  • 62.2k
9 votes
Accepted

Is "爿" a 略字--if so, how is it pronounced/written normally?

Sure looks like 先に to me. You can see the two horizontal lines for the character in your image both come out the other side of the vertical line they cross, unlike 爿, which I had never seen before ...
  • 4,309
8 votes
Accepted

Is my Hiragana understandable?

All of your hiraganas are understandable. However, the shape of 「を」 and 「い」 seem a little strange to me.
  • 5,358
8 votes
Accepted

Is it unusual in a noticeable way to slant your Japanese writing?

In general, writing slightly tilted horizontal lines is considered beautiful. This link has some beautiful handwritten sentences. You can see many horizontal lines are sloping slightly upward to the ...
  • 288k
8 votes
Accepted

Can't recognize the kanji

It's 離. 「[離]{はな}してー」 "Let go of me. / Let me go." (But I have no idea what 「らめー」 means)
  • 62.2k
8 votes

Writing vertically in horizontally lined notebook

進研ゼミ explains how Japanese high school students typically use normal (i.e., having horizontal rules) notebooks for vertical writing: (This is a notebook for 古文, or classical Japanese classes) So you ...
  • 288k

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