Anyone tried Kanken?

Dating can be quite disastrous.
Maybe you are back soon to the predictability of Kanken :joy:

I’ll look into it. Thanks.

I may learn what the 部首 are first so at least I can identify them. Kanji Alive has a spreadsheet of about 200 radicals but the ones you need to know are marked.

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I’ll take a look at that app. Thanks!

I need some help. I decided to from now on, to write right angled lines with an offset like is shown the stroke diagram. So corners don’t meet exactly. I was writing radicals such as 口 as a perfect rectangle before. Altough people in this thread stated I wouldn’t be penalized on the kanken, I want to try to get it right. I have a question about a few characters.

In 危 does stroke 4 start a little to the right of the start of horizontal stroke 3 (so stroke 3 has a little piece jutting out to the left) or does it start a little above the horizontal stroke 3?

Similarly, In 限 does stroke 3 start a little to the right of the start horizontal stroke 1 or does it start a little above horizontal stroke 3?

I think the answer is the first case in each example but the kakijun site confuses me sometimes. Thanks!

Edit: Pretty positive the answer is the first case in both examples. But it is very hard to really get this perfect in like a 9 mm box writing space. I think I’ll keep this in mind but if I don’t get the little overruns and such right, I am not going to erase the kanji and start over. But maybe with practice I’ll get used to it and write more accurately.

I measured the Kanken answer sheet and it is 1 cm wide,
it is better to go for 10 mm squares even if it does not sound like a lot of difference,
actually it is much easier to have that additional space compared to 9 x 9 mm.

In 危 and 限 stroke 4 starts a bit above the horizontal stroke 3, in both kakijun and 漢検漢字辞典.

Thinking about writing with a soft brush it is difficult to imagine otherwise because you can’t control the upper edge so much as to be able to line it up complete to the horizontal line and then it would end up as a cross I think in most cases.

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Okay really confused now. Because almost all apps like kanji study on android and imiwa? on iOS which show stroke order animations (looks like pen or pencil, not brush strokes) displays the vertical lines that start after a horizontal one on the left side as being a little to the right of the start of the horizontal stroke. Kakikun shows brush strokes as being a little above as you stated. Are the apps wrong and kakikun right? Can one be right for pen and another be right for brushes? My head is hurting. I want to finally get this right. Even if it is not absolutely necessary for Kanken, I want to get used to the right strokes. If someone can confirm the correct way, I’d appreciate it. Edit: just looked in the Kanken kanji dictionary and like you said, it shows like in kakikun. So are the apps wrong?

Sorry for rambling on for so long.

About the box size, I think I am using 10mm not 9mm boxes. I made a mistake stating that previously. It is still difficult to get the offsets right, like on small 口 radicals on kanji with many strokes and are cluttered. I am using a 0.3 mm pencil too. Maybe I just need more practice.

(I think in order to be really sure someone with experience in calligraphy has to answer that, but I am trying explain it better.)

Using simple logic and what I know about typeface design I think the most convincing theory is:

Kanken uses 教科書体 typeface families, that is closest to traditional handwriting with a brush.
Most other printed material these days and typefaces used in electronic screens are using 明朝 or gothic typeface families.
They are following a different logic for readability and aesthetic reasons.

For example the you can see here, is distorted in order to have a more equal overall greyscale impression in a small size.
Legally it would not be possible to write a name like that in an official document but in reality you almost only see that version.

This has to do with typeface design and especially gothic fonts (which I think are used in iOs because of apples preference of a minimalist aesthetic) are even taking the liberty to omit some はね endings in order to look clearer (like in 雲 the 雨 part has no はね)
I noticed that because the standard font of Anki was set to a gothic type and some of the はね where missing.

As you can see, these two 教科書体 uses different directions on the mentioned corner.
There is no absolute rule on how to design these details, it is depending on the design idea of the typeface designers and can change a lot between different typefaces.

I think you can choose what fits best to your personal style, because the Kanken does not rate that.
Eg I like minimalism so I tend to write more in a gothic style.

This is interesting to read:
https://hayataki-masaharu.jp/web-typography-in-japanese/#.YTqq050zbRa

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Honestly, I think you are looking way too deep into the realm of calligraphy expecting clear yes/no answers while they simply don’t exist.

If you go to any bookstore in Japan you will find a series of books meant for children or adults teaching how to improve your handwriting (also books focused on pencil, pen, brush, etc). But they all preach different things, because there is no clear “correct” way of writing when you get into so tiny details.

Just a couple examples:

This is a very famous book, they preach adding those “45 degrees brush-looking checks” makes your calligraphy looks more “adult” and less childish.

On the other hand, this other famous book clearly doesn’t have them:

「直線で書けば今すぐ字がうまくなる」on the other hand goes completely wild and says that writing long straight lines is the key to make everything look cool while keeping it easy:
image

I don’t know what exactly you are going for, but if it’s an exam or “no one would ever say it is wrong”, just go for perfect right angles (perfect rectangles, etc) and don’t over think it. It’s by far the safest, cleanest and the most straight-forward.

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Maybe I am overthinking it. When you did your CBT test the other day, did you write with perfect rectangles, etc.? I am taking the time to refresh my writing precision so I thought I wanted to be as correct as possible.

Thanks for the examples. So do you personally write with perfect rectangles and such or do you offset them? Just curious. I guess I’ll do the best I can. After seeing so many examples, I thought I was writing wrong and wanted to correct it. Maybe I’ll at least try to offset the 口, 見, 田 parts.

I definitely try to make perfect rectangles, but I have never thought about that.
At some point I would like to work on my handwriting to make it more natural.

Anyway, thinking nothing about details I tried the Kanken before and failed, but that was not because of that details so I think I will continue writing like I am doing so far.

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As I mentioned on the first time I took it, I really disliked the experience of writing with the tablet.
@Leebo said he didn’t have much trouble, so it could be some wrong pen-holding on my part or simply lack of practice (or different kanji standards, of course)

But in general I was really dissatisfied with the result of my writing on CBT.

Yes I was going for perfect angles, but no I didn’t get them right every single time.
On the corners you can technically overshot it and erase the unneeded part in the end (although a bit tiring and time-consuming). I did that in some kanji I felt specially unsatisfied it, but I actually had a lot more trouble with other “should touch but not cross” strokes, such as 見 or 月

Making both horizontal strokes touch both vertical strokes on the left and on the right while keeping the proportion correct AND the strokes neat (no trembling and such) was simply impossible for me. So considering crossing is a definite no, I just left my strokes not touching in several occasions.
While not touching on the right side is a thing, I don’t think not touching on the LEFT side is. Yet, I just gave up and left it like that a couple times.

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What level are you aiming at now? I feel more confident that both you and synchroPC took the Kanken and used exact right angles and didn’t lose points over it. I just kept seeing all the fonts with the right angles offset and it was making me nervous.

It looks like you weren’t deducted from because of it. Thanks for going into detail on your experience.
I guess I’ll stop trying to get everything to look like perfect 教科書体 for now in terms of the right angle offsets. But I’m glad a spent some time looking into it so I know what is involved.

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Just for curiosity, took a picture of my handwriting.

The first line is how I would write at a paper 漢検.
The second line is how I would write in a real life situation where it’s supposed to look neat (such as filling a form)
The third line is how I would take notes.

I think it’s specially clear for 氵and 訁, but it’s often the case I’ll prefer the “connected strokes” form of a kanji on real life situations, because it is faster and may even look better (more “adult” or “natural”), as long as it’s done correctly.
However, 漢検 instructions explicitly says you are not supposed to 崩す the kanji and connect what is not connected, so I just do it as the book says.

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Cool! You even know how to write cursive. I’m in the middle of tidying up my handwriting since I learned using text recognizers which doesn’t necessarily mean you can write decent on paper. That’s why when I noticed I wasn’t writing right angles correctly, I panicked.

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I am doing the level 4 in October.
The Kanjis themselves are not so much the problem I think but there is a lot of vocabulary I don’t know and I use this as a challenge to learn more.

My life goal was to pass the 2kyu,
now after starting to learn seriously for the first time that seems not impossible.
Actually I started to really like Kanjis and now I am learning in parallel everything that catches my interest or that I find in the wild, which means that my life goal now dramatically shifted to pass the 1kyu, however impossible that is to achieve in reality.
I am doing it for fun.

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Definitely. I think for all the levels past 5, the actual 熟語 are much bigger a pain than the 漢字 themselves. Specially when there are questions like 類義語・対義語 and 同音同訓異字

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Cursive? That’s just like my handwriting naturally when I do anki reviews quick :joy:. I think cursive is a whole nother beast.

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Ah, I never really looked into it. When I saw the squiggly lines, I assumed that is what it is. But I think I read cursive is becoming a lost art since handwriting itself is on the decline supposedly.

I think it’s pretty close, but not quite the same as the standard semi-cursive forms you’d see from calligraphers. (I don’t mean that in the aesthetic sense, but with regard to how certain strokes are written.)

Even in Japan? Well, then again, I don’t know how much effort teachers put into handwriting instruction in schools, and computers are everywhere, so I guess that might be the case.

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