If you want to learn more about Japanese typography, you can check out the following resources!

Konnichiwa, everyone!

I am Takayo, a Shodo tutor. Today, for the first time, I decided to write a column in English. Because I will be teaching Japanese from January 2024. Perhaps thanks to anime and games, the number of tourists coming to Japan has increased and there are not enough teachers, so even I, a shodo teacher, have a chance to teach as a Japanese teacher. When I was offered this job, I attended training seminars on how to teach Japanese. I am not only teaching Japanese, but I am also a shodo teacher, which is part of the Japanese language, so I am writing the first of a series of columns because I wanted my students to know some tips on how to write hiraganas and kanjis well when the opportunity arises.

If I find any good materials in the future, I will write about them in this column, so please keep it fun. Today's first instalment is about how to write kana well. There is a writing order for kana and kanji. (Kakijyun/Hitsujyun) It is usually difficult to find a hiragana chart that shows the stroke order, but some calligraphy materials have a chart of kana without stroke order at printed characters, so I will introduce them here.

This is a table of hiragana and katakana that can be downloaded online from the Japan Foundation, which is also the source of the Japanese language teaching materials I teach. This resource is also in colour and has illustrations so it is easy to understand.

A few conventional hiragana charts show the stroke order, or if there are, they are in block form, and we have seen students on shodo courses who could not write well even when they tried to copy them, I have included a chart that Japanese first graders use as a reference when learning hiragana.
This hiragana table clearly shows the order of writing, but it is not handwritten, so it is not helpful.

These hiragana and katakana charts are materials given to students in Japanese shodo courses. They are beautifully handwritten and printed with the stroke order, so they can be used as a reference when writing hiragana and katakana. The order of writing is not properly marked, probably because the number of pixels uploaded here has become rougher.