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About Kanji Characters

Written Japanese uses a mixture of several types of symbols. Kanji characters are pictographic and ideographic symbols adopted from the Chinese language. Kanji are used mainly for substantives, verbs, and adjectives. Kana are phonetic symbols developed in Japan from simplified Chinese ideographs.

The Kana are of two forms: Hiragana are used for the writing of all native words not written in kanji, and are also used to add inflectional endings (okurigana) to kanji symbols. Katakana are used for words of foreign origin, and can be said to have somewhat the same use that italic characters have in English. In principle, it would seem quite possible to write exclusively with kana phonetic characters. In practice, however, kanji are vital to written communications due to the many words in the Japanese language which, although pronounced alike, are different in meaning, and which are distinguished in writing by the use of different kanji.

Traditional Japanese writing once made use of many thousands of different kanji. In recent years, however, the Japanese Ministry of Education has worked to simplify the writing system, and has recommended a basic list of 1,945 "Characters for Daily Use." Japanese newspapers generally limit themselves to these basic kanji. A typical adult will be familiar with about 3,000 kanji.

The full registered version of WRITE KANJI v.2 teaches the writing and meanings of 300 of the most important kanji, which by frequency comprise nearly half of the kanji encountered in typical written materials. This demo version presents 75 characters.

An independent, purely Japanese system of writing has never existed. Kanji characters originated from Chinese writing signs, and most signs have a variety of native Japanese pronunciations as well as modifications of past Chinese pronunciations, depending on the meaning intended. A roughly equivalent situation in English are the etymologically related readings given the word "minute," which if read with one pronunciation means "a tiny part (1/60) of an hour" but if read with another pronunciation means "tiny." Readings from the Chinese are known as "on-yomi," while the native Japanese readings of kanji characters are known as "kun-yomi."

Learning to write kanji characters is much aided by paying careful attention to the precise order in which the strokes are written. The Ministry of Education has published an elaborate set of rules guiding stroke order. The most important of these rules are:

Top before bottom
Left before right
Horizontal lines before a line crossing them: (exceptions exist)
A left-slanting line before an intersecting right-slanting line:
Central part before symmetrical wings:
Outside before inside. The bottom stroke of a four-sided enclosure is not written until the internal strokes are completed.

Many other rules exist which cover virtually all cases. To avoid confusing the beginner, we have not attempted to present the complete Ministry of Education stroke-order rules. Rather, we feel that the most effective way to learn the rules is to learn by doing. It is for this reason that we developed this program.

More than thirty different types of strokes are recognized in kanji characters, of which six are generally considered as basic:


Compound strokes are made using various combinations of the six basic strokes, often modified with a hook:

In printed script (which is the writing style presented in this program), the angles between the basic strokes making up a compound stroke should be clear and distinct. Until you become experienced, it is recommended that you briefly pause between each sub-stroke of a compound stroke. This program checks for distinct angles in your compound strokes at positions such as are indicated by the red arrows.

If your angles are indistinct, this program will not recognize your strokes.

The following example explains the typographical arrangements used in giving the readings and definitions of the characters:

The order of presentation of characters in this program, the majority of definitions, and most of the usage examples are adapted from KANJI AND KANA, by W. Hadamitzky and M. Spahn. (1981, Charles E. Tuttle). This is an excellent textbook for the study of Kanji and Kana characters, and we highly recommend its purchase.

Additional definitions and examples were derived from THE MODERN READER'S JAPANESE-ENGLISH CHARACTER DICTIONARY, 2nd Edition, by Andrew Nelson (1962, Charles E. Tuttle).

KODANSHA'S COMPACT KANJI GUIDE (1991, Kodansha Int'l) was also found to be of considerable utility. Beginners may find this dictionary to be somewhat difficult to use because it does not use romaji; on the other hand, this feature should be considered an advantage since it forces the student to learn kana!

Copyright 2007 by Thomas Yee.
Last revised: September 30, 2007.