Improving handwriting.

[evanny]

we do everyday homework horizontally, however every week we have a "big one" 手紙、話 and we are given pages for vertical writing. i always forget where to place dots and ゃ っ and all the rest

and that handwriting is ok. hirigana can't be messed up easily to a point you can't make it out.
however i do not like handwriting of kanji when my teacher (japanese native) or any tourist at my shop does it. they often draw them without lifting the pen up so some parts seems "jointed" and for me, who writes them as in books, it is hard to make out.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by evanny

however i do not like handwriting of kanji when my teacher (japanese native) or any tourist at my shop does it. they often draw them without lifting the pen up so some parts seems "jointed" and for me, who writes them as in books, it is hard to make out.

This is the perfect example of why knowing stroke order is important.

[TBox]

In my class, too, the workbook was horizontal. But all assignments were vertical, starting in about the 2nd month of the first semester.

Honestly, when I picked up my first light novel, I fell in love with vertical writing. I find it so much easier to read. At first I was worried I was letting Japanophilia get the better of me, but the feeling doesn't go away even when I want it to. I just find vertical easier, and I'm not sure why.

[WingsToDiscovery]

I just personally don't see why everyone thinks it's so difficult. It's not some mystical thing.

[Nyororin]

To point out the difference and problems with becoming accustomed to horizontal vs. vertical - try writing something of significant length, in English, vertically.
Just do it.

See how weird it feels. See how much slower you are at writing, and how awkward it looks.

It isn`t that it is something incredibly *difficult* - it is that over time, you naturally make ways to connect letters/characters to speed your writing up. The way you finish one letter has an effect on how you begin the next. Even for people who write 100% in "print", there are some hints of a script style in some parts.

With reading, the brain likes to shift to sight reading - in other words, recognizing the pattern rather than actually *reading* everything manually. It is faster and more efficient... But only works when the pattern is the same. It doesn`t shift between horizontal and vertical well.

If you learn these script-like patterns for writing horizontally, and sight-reading for horizontal reading... they will only apply to things horizontal. Basically, you`ve just added another step to your learning that didn`t need to be there - and wasted some time on developing a skill that will rarely be used.

I mean, see how fast and relaxed you can read this - in English...

Arr
nee
dla
 ad
hx
oet
wdh
  i
fys
ao.
su
t 
 c
aa
nn
d

If you are used to reading horizontally, like I would imagine everyone is who reads and writes English... You likely felt very weird reading that.

[ryuurui]

Originally Posted by evanny

some parts seems "jointed" and for me

This is called renmentai (連綿体), I explain it here. Also what Kyle said about the stroke order. My whole article is about this issue.

Importance of the stroke order in writing Chinese characters. | Beyond Calligraphy

[TBox]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Arr
nee
dla
 ad
hx
oet
wdh
  i
fys
ao.
su
t 
 c
aa
nn
d

read this relaxed you can and how fast and ???
Oooh it goes left to right.... ¬.¬

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

To point out the difference and problems with becoming accustomed to horizontal vs. vertical - try writing something of significant length, in English, vertically.
Just do it.

I still don't see it (no pun intended). Just like any new skill you acquire, if you learn to do it the right way in the beginning, it shouldn't be difficult within your limits. You are right, English does look strange vertically. However, that's because I've been seeing English written differently for over 20 years. When I started learning Japanese, however, I had no association of any kind with the language, so it was kind of "it is what it is." The same way we acquire kanji. Kanji has no similarity to the English language, but countless people have learned to read and write kanji well into adulthood beyond what they should be "used to seeing." Basically, for non native learners, Japanese should be a completely new concept so one should not be able to "see" whether Japanese is difficult or whatnot depending on the way it's written vertically or horizontally.

English may be written horizontally, but I feel that being able to flick from left to write has less to do with it than what you think. If I write a sentence like:

"i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!"

You should be able to read that fluently with no effort. Not because it goes left to right, but because our language has associative patterns to the words themselves. That's what I think..

[Nyororin]

I wasn't trying to say that it should be hard to learn to read/write Japanese vertically because it is different than English. I was pointing out that learning it and becoming accustomed to it written horizontally is going to come back to bite you later. I was trying to make the point that you SHOULD be learning it properly to begin with.

At first, lacking any contact with Japanese, it shouldn't be a significant issue to learn to read and write it vertically. It is all new to you... But let us say that you study with it written horizontally and that you practice horizontally - and become fairly proficient at it that way.
This is going to make things harder by adding an extra step or two of getting used to seeing and writing it vertically, as it is the great majority of the time.

Vertical vs. horizontal isn't the issue - learning it in one way, then having to switch later on is. I don't think that vertical is inherently any more difficult than horizontal. I don't feel any particular stress at reading/writing Japanese vertically. But, I learned it in Japan, vertically. I have a feeling that if I had studied Japanese written horizontally for years, I would feel differently.

You should be able to read that fluently with no effort. Not because it goes left to right, but because our language has associative patterns to the words themselves. That's what I think..

Really, this is pretty much what I said with the pattern reading. If you are used to seeing certain word patterns, you are going to be very skilled at reading them when they appear in a similar pattern. This is just another point where learning incorrectly first is going to hurt you.

read this relaxed you can and how fast and ???
Oooh it goes left to right.... ¬.¬

Whether you are able to read it or not is not the point (everyone should be able to read it without significant difficulty as it IS English) - it is just to show how much longer it takes and how awkward it feels to read a language you have become accustomed to in one format in another. If you had, for some strange reason, learned to read and write English vertically like that it would be completely normal to you. However, you wouldn't find much English written like that, so it would be a pointless skill. In the real English speaking world, you would be forced to switch to horizontal and need to acquire that skill.

Learning Japanese written horizontally is similar. Pretty much anything short of certain mathematical and scientific publications is written vertically. No matter how good you get at reading horizontally, you are going to have to switch to reading vertically eventually... So why start out horizontal at all? It is a waste in the long run.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

So why start out horizontal at all? It is a waste in the long run.

I think it's for the convenience of textbook layout designers. Imagine how hard it would be for someone to do a layout for a book that explains a couple paragraphs in English, then switches to vertical examples, and back and forth. It would make textbooks longer and less profitable.

That's almost assuredly the reason all American students learn Japanese in the English orientation.

Is there a way to do web pages vertically? I know you can designate text right-to-left so Hebrew and Arabic display properly. Can you designate top-to-bottom, too? It would be awesome to be able to do that.

Edit Aha! A little googling around reveals there's a property in CSS3 (the new standard currently under development for document appearance on the web) that enables 縦書き.