schoolchildren learn their characters by writ-ing them out, and this is generally acknowledged as the fastest way to master them.
This book has been prepared so that students at the introductory level of Japanese can become acquainted with the written component of the language in the quickest possible way. The overriding priority has been given to active student involvement, with a variety of practice sentences and expressions provided to reinforce the characters learnt at each stage of progress. The book also features grayed-out, trace-over characters to enable the student to gain the correct feel and balance of each character.
This book uses the Hepburn system of romanization. It is important to remember, however, that Japanese is a separate language with an independent set of sounds to English, and hence, any attempt to romanize it can only be an approximation.
Contents
モクジ
e, o, Lengthening Character, Special Combinations
ka, ki, ku
ke, ko, Voiced Counterparts, Practice
sa, shi, su
se so, Voiced Counterparts, Special Combinations
te, to, Glottal Stop, Voiced Counterparts, Special Combinations
na, ni, nu
ne, no, Practice
ha, hi, fu
he, ho, Voiced and Semi-Voiced Counterparts, Special Combinations
me, mo, Practice
ra, ri, ru
re, ro, Practice
ya, yu, yo
wa, o, n
How to Use This Book
ツカィカタ
In both printed and handwritten Japanese, the characters occupy imaginary squares of equal size, with each character centered within its square.
All of the writing practice in this book involves writing characters within squares, and the squares have centerlines to provide the correct balance and feel for writing Japanese.
Traditionally, Japanese is written with a brush or fude, and this fact is reflected in many typographic styles today. Although the fude is no longer widely used, some principles of using a fude still apply to writing Japanese with a pencil or ballpoint pen — in particular, the stroke endings.
The strokes of Japanese characters terminate in one of three ways, as illustrated below.
i) Jumping, to produce a hook at the end of the stroke. This ending is called hane, from the verb haneru, to jump.
ii) Bringing the pen or pencil to a stop while it is on the page. This ending is called tome, from the verb tomeru, to stop.
iii) Lifting the pen or pencil off the page while it is moving. This
