Handwriting

I think everybody has had some friend or teacher whose handwriting is hard to understand. Although the alphabet used is the very same, as time goes on people's handwriting usually turns out to something different than textbook calligraphy. Some are beautiful, some ugly, some hard to understand and so on... And having contact with other handwriting styles helps us to recognize things written in a style different of our own.

Well, that's not only for alphabet (here called "romaji"). Japanese characters naturally have this kind of peculiarity. The shodo masters have what could be called good calligraphy, and Japanese schools usually teach standard handwriting.

Now to the Dark Side...

During classes, I've noticied that many characters written are a little (or sometimes a lot) off compared to the the "standard way". Add the fact that my kanji comprehension not good and I end up often copying what teachers write on the blackboard just like copying a drawing, having no idea of the meaning of the word of even which character is that. Sometimes I figure out later what's the character, but usually not.

Well, I'm not criticizing... that's natural, but it's kinda complicated when it's not the characters you're used to. And as I've never seen real Japanese common handwriting before, I still don't have the sensibility to distinguish some characters while Japanese (and some foreigners that have stayed for long) can do it easily. However, in some cases handwriting is so strange that even Japanese have trouble trying to find out what's written (deja vu...).

That's a thing usually overlooked on Japanese classes, but that people coming to Japan will face someday... hehe... Anyway, classes about handwriting pratically don't exist... the only way to get used to it is having contact with it and learning little by little, right?

Now some examples to show what I'm talking about. Surely, since I tried to copy them like drawings at first, my examples are even worse than the original writings... Also, those are not standard handwriting, just some interesting examples I have.

First, the writing for the kanji "ji" (magnetic) used in words such as "jiki" (磁気 - magnetism) or "jiba" (磁場 - magnetic field).

Second, the kanji "zatsu" (miscellaneous), used in words like "zakkan" (雑感 - miscellaneous thoughts) or "netsuzatsuon" (熱雑音 - thermal noise).


Some questions to finish. The kanji drawn on the left is equivalent to (a), (b) or (c)?


The answer is (a)... "aida" (during, between)

Second and final question: The kanji drawn on the left is equivalent to (a), (b) or (c)?


The answer is (b)... "kaze" (wind).

Well, imagine those things appearing during classes, for example... You have to copy, pay attention (at least to catch the reading of the character) and understand the thing later...

For those who have read the previous post... I guess it may be just impression, but I think there're more police cars around this area lately... XD