OMG your handwritings are so much more beautiful than mine 
Hm, I might try that, thanks for the recommendation!
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Yours look great 
The paper really does help me. I’ve used graph paper in the past. I also use pencil because I make a lot of mistakes 
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For downloading pdf drill pages I can recommend ちびむすドリル, for customisable empty pdf grid pages I really like the grid generator thaos over at Jitaku made. I like to do those on my iPad because it’s less of a hassle and I usually work sitting on my bed (right now too lol).
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@Izabelle @Thubanshee @NeoArcturus Keep all of that beautiful kanji coming!!! Very nice stuff. Never heard of a kanji marathon LOL that does sound painful.
2024-03-04T15:00:00Z
Studied
- Anki reviews
No new kanji
Didn’t practice yesterday and today I realized what happened. My review count got too high and has recently been consistently pushing me over 1 hour study time… more like 1.5 or even 2. I fell into the danger zone where I felt stressed/overwhelmed/unmotivated to do any studying because of all the other things I need to do. Based on my life right now, 1 hour is the smallest effective unit that I can guarantee every day, and it’s also basically the maximum I’m willing to study every day.
It’s annoying but I need to lower my pace 
Slow and steady wins the race 
Going to cut each step in half and see how that works. I’d like to avoid tripling the time it takes me to get through a book, so I’m thinking a maximum of four new kanji a day and then do the practice problems on the day I finish each step. So in practice that’ll look something like: Day A - learn 4 kanji, Day B - learn 3/4 kanji + do the exercises, repeat.
For me, the name of the game is keeping anki low. It just works better.
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It’s amazing that you and @Thubanshee can remember so many complicated kanji. I hope to get there eventually.
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I have a few questions about writing kanji, and I was wondering if anyone can answer them.
First, I noticed that there are different fonts for kanji. In some, the horizontal lines slope slightly up to the right, kind of like how hand writing slopes, only up. In others, all the lines are perfectly straight, more like a computer font. Does it matter which you use, or is it preference?
I wouldn’t mind using an SRS along with my kanji studying, but I would like to go by school grade. Do you know of an App or program that allows for that?
Last of all, do you practice at all with the kanji in words or sentences?
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So, this is my third post in a row but I wanted to post all of my kanji practice. It was so relaxing that I didn’t realize how many pages that I had done until the end.
I also didn’t realize how many kanji I’ve already learnt until now. A while back, I practiced writing kanji for fun, but I didn’t have a set goal. I still want to continue practicing a lot of these kanji for a while to ensure proper stroke order. They seem to be the foundation of a lot of the more difficult ones.
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I think you misunderstand, I copied them😂
I can write only about half of them by memory.
That’s exactly what it is. Just like there are Latin fonts that look more like handwriting and some that look more “printed”, Japanese has those varieties of fonts, too. Some even border on calligraphy, I’ll try to edit in a screenshot of that in a bit.
Edit: Screenshot. You might also want to check out the Jitai userscript.
You mean to practice your handwriting? The app that I use, Jitaku, allows you to order the kanji in a few preset orders or manually. One of the preset orders is by school grade.
Sometimes I write part of my diary entries in Japanese, but not very often (I cannot recommend writing Japanese with a fountain pen lol). But from what I’ve seen, the op of this study log @croooks seems to at least practice writing whole words, if not sentences.
First of all, good job! They look pretty neat. Stroke order is also important if you ever want to write quickly or get into calligraphy. There, the strokes start to blend or flow into each other and having a wrong stroke order makes the whole kanji look wonky.
But if that’s not your goal, stroke order is still important, but you don’t need to get it perfect. Most native speakers don’t use the correct stroke order all of the time.
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Yeah, there’s font variation, same as with English. Usually the default font your computer gives you will be a “normal printed text” kind of font, and that’s a good one to go with for reading – most of what you read in the future (books, news articles, etc) will be in a font like that. For writing, you don’t want to copy a printed font (in the same way that nobody’s English handwriting has the same letter shapes as a printed English font); most resources teaching how to write kanji will show you what they expect a carefully written example of the character to look like.
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No not at all… this is elementary school grade 6. If 10/11 year olds can do it, anybody can 
Keep studying and join me and the children!
Depending on the font, it’s mainly about getting used to the kanji and learning the stroke order so you can see them. Just like English or any other language! I wouldn’t try to write like the computer – there’s a great anki plugin that shows stroke order in a handwritten style.
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1964372878
Exactly what I’m doing right now. Kanken follows school grade order. I use anki and make all of my cards “by hand”. Front is the character, back is a dictionary entry and stroke diagram using the plugin I mentioned above. When I first started, I used screenshots of the entry in the step series, but I wanted to have definitions of kanji with examples of words using that definition, so I switched to this style.
For example:
Kanken step provides practice problems that test and grow different aspects of kanji. Identify synonyms/antonyms/pairs, identify jukugo structure, identify on/kun readings, write kanji based on the context of a sentence + readings, match kanji to other kanji to make words, stroke order, etc. – it’s very comprehensive and covers everything. When I finish the book (learning the kanji for that level/grade) then I drill problem sets and past tests until I can get perfect scores with ease. Anything I get wrong goes into anki along the way, but I try to limit it to 5 max new cards in a given day to keep review counts low.
Here are two quick examples:
Matching antonym/synonym pairs
Write the kanji based on the kana provided and context of the sentence
Can you tell I’m a big fan of kanken?
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Your handwriting is effing amazing!!! Looks fantastic 
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2024-03-05T15:00:00Z
Studied
- Anki reviews
- 漢検漢字学習ステップ５級
New kanji
窓，創，装，層，操，蔵， 臓
I realized that doing a 4/3 split was dumb and didn’t fit my brain exactly. It helps me to have a clean stopping point and definite progress. So I just focused on doing reviews and then learning new kanji. Tomorrow I will do reviews and do the practice problems for the new kanji I learned today. As a side effect, I actually had more time to slow down and research each 用例 for the kanji, which actually helps me think about them a little bit more deeply and of course exposes me to new words. This might be for the better!
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half by memory is still amazing. Unfortunately,I don’t think Jitaku is on Android, yet. It says it’s still on Kickstarter.
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Thank you for explaining. I’m interesting in the Kanken step books as well. Could you please share a link as I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for.
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I don’t know what country you’re in, but for example:
I started out by taking pictures with my smartphone, but I got tired of that so I now remove the book binding and scan the book and answer key into pdfs so I can make anki cards from any problems that I get wrong.
Basically I use this as my guide on what is necessary to study for a given kanji. If it’s good enough for a Japanese person at that level, then it’s good enough for me. That means memorizing all of the information for each kanji’s entry (minus the 用例 and, later, the kanji’s meaning) using anki. I focus exclusively on one book / resource at a time, so I start with this book and then my results will show me holes or things I need to study more. I can address it with the right supplement material. If I’m feeling confident, I grind practice problems using the problem set book.
After doing all of those, I finish with past tests
If I can get perfect scores or occasionally -1, or even -2 depending on the type of miss, I will give the real thing a go.
If not, then identify where I’m weak and hit it.
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Thank you. I’m in Canada. It looks like Amazon Japan will be the best price, even with shipping.
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2024-03-06T15:00:00Z
Studied
- Anki reviews
- 漢検漢字学習ステップ５級
No new kanji
My day was off from the beginning… didn’t get the timing right and I couldn’t get my mind in the right place to study what I wanted. I was able to do all of my reviews and the step exercise section, but I wasn’t able to review the ones I got wrong and research words that came up that I didn’t know.
This is yesterday’s kanji, so today I will do my reviews and then review the ones I got wrong from yesterday (look at all of that orange 
). I may have to carve out two hours of time and slow down a bit. First hour for reviews, second hour for the day’s task (learning new kanji or doing and reviewing practice problems). I need to be in a state of mind where I feel like I have all the time in the world to do the task. Rushing and trying to squeeze it in during the workday doesn’t do me any good.
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Wednesday through Friday’s practice. Eight new grade 2 kanji. My goal is four new kanji a day plus reviews.
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I really like your characters. Most of them are clean AF. 
Seems like you’re very calm when you practice, too.
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Y’know, I wrote like 250 kanji in the past two or three days and it felt like an accomplishment. You’re amazing!
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