How to Write Kanji (Chinese characters) Beautifully – 4 Tips

“I want to write kanji beautifully!” Most people think so, for sure. However, what should we do? For example? This time, we will learn the shape and components of kanji. After that, we will think about the balance of the visuals of kanji. At last, I will introduce the way to write kanji beautifully and textbooks.

Everyone wants to be able to write kanji beautifully.
In China and Japan where people ordinally use kanji, they start to learn kanji at elementary school. They learn the way to write basic kanji at school, such as 練字 (lianzi) in China and 習字 (shuji) in Japan. Moreover, they value characters with a special artistic quality and calligraphy is also popular, such as 書法 (shufa) in China and 書道 (shodo) in Japan.

That is why, in this section, we will write about kanji to people who do not use kanji on a daily basis such as those from Europe, the U.S, Philippine and Vietnam, and who learn Japanese and kanji and think of a way to write kanji beautifully.

In English, there is a word “penmanship,” and people who use alphabets in their mother tongue learn the way to write alphabets beautifully, calligraphy and copying at school. More seriously, they have an Alphabet calligraphy including decorative ways to write alphabets such as ornamental letters in German.

However, in contrast to letters which basically express sounds such as the alphabet, kanji expresses meanings and sounds, so the character form of kanji is complex, and the number of kanji is extremely numerous.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that when you know kanji for the first time and try to write them, you have a hard time writing them.

First, we recommend practicing writing kanji using manuscript papers sold at stationery shops. Manuscript paper is a sheet with 10 or 20 square (□) grids, 20 square per line. Not only writers and specialists but also common people used to use it to write something. However, nowadays computers have become widespread, there are almost no opportunities to use manuscript papers outside of school.

On manuscript paper, a character/letter is written in a square (□). Kanji are basically square shaped characters. So, we have to practice to write kanji to fit neatly inside a square (□). By doing so, we will be able to naturally write well balanced kanji, which are square shaped characters.

You can buy your favorite manuscript paper at stationery shops easily, because it is not so expensive. Other, if you search for “原稿用紙 (genkou youshi): manuscript paper” on the internet, there are many websites that you can download it in PDF or other formats, so you can print it out. You should print manuscript paper larger, because it is not suitable for practicing kanji with too small squares. And you should use pencils or mechanical pencils to write and rewrite characters.

Kanji is basically square shaped and most kanji. The structure of most kanji can be separated “left and right” or “top and bottom.” The separated elements each have the meaning or sounds of kanji characters. Kanji are created by combining these elements. It can be said that the more complex a character is, the more it is made up of such constituent elements.

For example,

語、話、記、識、訳

The left side (called “へん (hen)” in Japanese) of these kanji is “言.” It means “word.” The characters including “言” in the left-hand have a meaning related to language, knowledge or intelligence.

胴、銅、洞、恫、桐

The right side (called “つくり (tsukuri)” in Japanese) of these kanji is “同.” This is a component of the kanji that represents the sound “dou/tou

家、室、宿、宅、宮

The top (called “かんむり (kanmuri)” in Japanese) of these kanji is “ウ.” The characters including “ウ” on the top have a meaning related to buildings or houses.

買、貢、貧、費、貴

The bottom of these kanji is “貝.” These kanji including “貝: shell” have meanings related to money or property because shells were used as money in the past.

As just described, most kanji are shaped with basically a “left and right” and “top and bottom” structure. When you write kanji, it is important to arrange the shape while thinking about the structure and meaning. On the other hand, there are kanji with fewer strokes, which are not square shaped and difficult balances to strike. For example, large downward kanji (“小” “止” “久” “人”), large upward kanji (“了” “丁” “寸” “子” “不” “千”) and these kanji  (“女” “丈” “夕” “寸” “勺”) are difficult to write with a good balance. It is good to keep that in mind when practicing.

There are many types of kanji, from ones that are simply written with a line such as “一,” to ones that are written with dozens of lines such as “鬱.” Each line written in this way is called 筆画 (hikkaku) or 画 (kaku: stroke). “一” is a kanji with 1 stroke, “二” is with 2 strokes and “鬱” is with 29 strokes. And regardless of the number of strokes, there is a general order in which kanji are written. The order is called 書き順 (kakijun) or 筆順 (hitujun: order of strokes).

Writing with the right order of strokes is very important to write kanji beautifully. The order of strokes has been compiled based on experience over a long period of time.  Writing in the order of strokes not only allows you to write well-balanced kanji naturally, but also makes you smoother, easier, and faster to write. If the shape of the kanji you write is weird, the order of strokes may be wrong.

Some people may think that it is hard to memorize the order of strokes of so many kanji, but it is actually not necessary to do it for each kanji. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, it is very simple, so once you memorize it, you can write most kanji in common. Practicing writing kanji, you can memorize it at the same time. We usually hold a pen or an ink brush in the right hand. When we write kanji, we move a pen basically from left to right, top to bottom. And when the lines intersect, we write the horizontal line first. If you do not understand or if you want to know about it more, you should look it up in a kanji dictionary, a stroke order dictionary or a website that explains with animation.

If you want to know how to write kanji beautifully in detail, you should buy calligraphy textbooks at a bookstore to study. Many of them are for elementary or middle school students, but do not underestimate them. This is because everyone who uses kanji used them to study and memorize them…

Some people think that the speed and amount of writing characters is more important than the beautiful shape. However, no matter how fast you can write, there is no point in reading the notes you wrote later if you cannot figure out what the characters look like. Also, sometimes we write letters so that others can read them. When we look at beautifully written characters, we sometimes imagine the personality of the person who wrote the characters. Japanese people have the proverb, “文字は人なり (Mojii wa hito nari): Handwriting Reflects a Person’s Character and Feelings in Their Subconscious.” If you study kanji and want to write them beautifully, please talk to TCJ teachers.