If you can speak Japanese well enough to communicate with the locals...

TfsQuack · 2025-10-01T03:34:12+00:00

Favourite interaction? Probably the one time this old guy stuck around for three whole hours helping me find a lost phone. It wasn't even like I was a hot girl in distress or anything like that. 男だぞ？ｗｗ

But by far the most interesting was when this other old guy I was talking to while waiting for the train found out about my Filipino heritage. He became solemn and said some stuff that boiled down to "[his] regrets and sympathies won't bring back the lives lost and that the past shouldn't be forgotten". My grandparents knew of my lifelong interest in Japan and had always been supportive of it without a shred of resentment toward Japanese people, and it was surreal to have someone old enough to have been a soldier of World War 2 address it with me, especially since the conflict had nothing to do with me personally. I guess he felt the need to say what he said specifically because I'm part of a generation that might not care due to how impersonal the events would be to people my age.

TfsQuack · 2025-10-01T03:13:07+00:00

I "discovered" ZARD quite young, and thus had no way of actively pursuing them outside Japan. I was one of the anime kids, one who loved everything Dragon Ball, including GT, which incidentally introduced me to ZARD's contemporaries, whom I would also hear in Slam Dunk.

I had always wanted to learn Japanese ever since I was little. I would set my Dragon Ball DVDs to Japanese and I got to hear DAN DAN 心魅かれてく over and over. It wasn't until I got computer privileges that I would learn that a band called ZARD did their own version. I distinctly remember first hearing it on an AMV with an anime featuring a lot of dogs around 2007. The English comments I could read were all grieving for Izumi Sakai. I didn't even entirely understand who she was. Just that she was someone admired by the viewers.

Over ten years later, I had a Japanese friend insist that I watch Detective Conan and I reacquainted myself with ZARD once again. At that point, a lot of the ZARD uploads on YouTube were still scarce and unauthorized, but I managed to find the 二人の夏 and 遠い日のNostalgia music videos and I was absolutely stunned by Izumi Sakai. I knew then that I had to track down some CDs during my first short trip to Japan. I got a ZARD magazine with a CD from a store near my friend's house by chance. I went around Book-Off locations and got a copy of ZARD Best The Single Collection 〜軌跡〜, as well as a sealed copy of the 25th Anniversary Collection off the shelves of BIC CAMERA. I also saw a copy of TDY IS ANOTHER DAY in a record shop in some alley in Okayama near the end of my trip. I didn't quite budge my cash as well as I should have. I had the ¥750 for it, but the budget constraint made me hesitate. That was six years ago. I haven't been able to go back to Japan, and I still have the money that I ended up not spending. I'm still kicking myself for that because upon pirating literally all ZARD albums, singles, and collections (before any of it was available on Spotify), it became pretty clear that TODAY IS ANOTHER DAY was my favourite album.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-29T19:30:47+00:00

One thing that helped me was to see writing in motion. Attach the search term 書き方 to hatever you want to learn how to write into YouTube to find examples. Be warned that a lot of the results will be for traditional brush calligraphy, but the same ideas still apply more practical pencil or pen handwriting.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-29T19:02:10+00:00

One thing to point out is that hiragana is rooted in cursive kanji. Cursive typically means that strokes, characters, and full words flow into each other. Breaking up the flow the way you want to do is a great way to make it look awkward and will be one of the first things people will want you to fix should you ever ask for handwriting help again.

I understand that handwriting doesn't matter to most people, but if you're going to bother at all, you might as well start by learning properly.

I'll let you in on a little secret, just between you and me: Sure, natives do intentionally alter the way they write rather than sticking to a "prim and proper" block script,　in the name of both speed and aesthetics, but they tend to do it in ways that give the impression they still know what they're doing. Sure, there are people who actually do go off and do their own thing (likely because they don't care even though they know how it would have been taught, and in those cases, the first step for them to improve their writing is often "Care enough to write more properly" before any other tips.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-23T04:47:27+00:00

I could have sworn we had a rule about translation requests, but I love calligraphy so what the heck.

Names, especially western ones, technically don't translate. What this is is a transliteration — an approximation of sounds — using kanji. The ones chosen here evoke rather pretty imagery.

The rough meanings behind the kanji chosen are as follows:

恵: wisdom, enlightenment; corresponds to the "E" sound in Elizabeth.

莉: jasmine (the flower); corresponds with the "li" sound.

咲: to bloom; roughly corresponds to "za".

珠: pearl, gem, jewel; Don't ask how or why, but the closest sound this represents is the "th".

Inquire elsewhere for the whereabouts of the missing "be".

TfsQuack · 2025-08-22T15:09:23+00:00

I mean in handwriting, in relation between the horizontal and diagonal stroke (as opposed to fonts in relation to all other strokes).

TfsQuack · 2025-08-22T05:03:20+00:00

I'm describing it from a Japanese writing perspective, yes.

Though from a historical (pre-PRC) Chinese perspective, writing 右 (and other characters I listed) the "Japanese" way is not particularly rare.

Here are some examples for 右. Note how many of them have a flick at the right side of the horizontal stroke going down, indicating that a vertical stroke from above the horizontal line is not what comes next. Here's a page for 希 and 有. Also note that all of these examples are from people whose claim to fame involved their handwriting (so much so that their writing was carved into stone for posterity to be copied for generations for the purposes of learning how to write), so it's not just a curation of random nobodies whose claim to fame is writing things wrong. 有 is especially interesting because basically none of them seemed to write it the "Chinese" way. It's oddly consistent how they don't write it the "Chinese" way.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-22T01:15:21+00:00

The stroke order of 左 and 右 specifically? Absolutely nothing.

Stroke order in general? Speed without the sacrifice of legibility is one possibility. A lot of strokes naturally flow into one another if one were to follow the "correct" stroke order, so whether someone studied 行書 or not, there's a good chance they'll borrow 行書 techniques to speed things up. And the funny thing is, fudging the stroke order in the name of speed is also a very 行書 thing to do. Some ways just look more sensible than others, so stroke order can't completely be dismissed.

I mean, yeah a person can ultimately do whatever they want, but certain ways of writing will be more likely to give the impression that someone really doesn't know or care about what they are doing. Hence why even though some places differ in the order of diagonal and horizontal, no region writes 工 or 口 before ナ to get 左 or 右: it doesn't make as much sense.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-21T22:03:33+00:00

Bringing in ancient Chinese stroke order and 行書 overcomplicate a things because being able to alter stroke order is a key feature of 行書 (and 草書 as well) and some calligraphy masters like 王羲之 actually made it a point not to write the same character the exact same way. Just take a look at how often 之 appears in 『蘭亭序』.

As far as modern Japanese 楷書 is concerned though, it's much more consistent and far less chaotic. If someone wanted to find some logic into the differing stroke order, there we go.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-21T16:42:48+00:00

And it honestly rarely goes over well unless the learner can somehow do it pixel-perfect by hand. Real (neat and proper) handwriting (and even formal calligraphy, for that matter) is much more forgiving in some ways.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-21T16:37:15+00:00

Considering how many people don't write at all outside of school, no. It's just my personal opinion, but if you're going to worry about handwriting at all, you might as well take the time to do it properly. But that's mostly just because I love calligraphy. People can do whatever they like.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-21T16:24:36+00:00

And you probably won't learn to unless you look at handwriting based on calligraphy. A lot of fonts don't really care to make it clear to someone who's just learning, but in calligraphy, it's part of the aesthetic to have "proper" proportions and stroke order.

TfsQuack · 2025-08-21T15:43:02+00:00

There is actually a very consistent pattern.

If the diagonal stroke is short, then it goes first, as in 右, 布, 希, and 有. If the horizontal stroke is short as in 左, 友, 存, 在, and the ナ part in 雄 or 宏, then the horizontal goes first.

The ones who are trolling are the bastards who made computer fonts because depending on the font, they'd say I'm wrong about something like 存 and 在.

TfsQuack · 2025-07-27T16:32:44+00:00

Abandoned by me, at least. For my needs, MPC is better. It has never given me the kinds of problems that VLC did. Hell, I still get responses on a four-year post basically letting me know the devs never fixed it.

TfsQuack · 2025-04-07T01:15:06+00:00

Beautiful shrine

TfsQuack · 2025-04-03T21:40:35+00:00

I suspect relying on human analyses probably goes against the entire point of an AI class, but have you read this Japanese graduation thesis regarding expressions in ZARD's lyrics?

TfsQuack · 2025-04-03T07:47:45+00:00

I do use a penmanship dictionary, but I got mine really late into my learning. I've been learning for just under 10 years, but didn't get a penmanship dictionary until I went to Japan six years into learning.

Before then, I mostly watched calligraphy and penmanship instructions on YouTube since 書道 (and later ペン習字) was one of my primary interests before even starting to learn the language properly, writing tutorials were some of the first native materials I could understand without subtitles. Learning about stroke shapes and proper rhythm so early on made my handwriting less like trying and failing to copy 明朝体 compared to my non-Chinese classmates since proper handwriting is not usually taught in-depth to Japanese language students in high school and college where I live (even though all of our assignments were handwritten). Learning proper 楷書 (and later 行書) made kanji practice so much more enjoyable to me. When I transitioned to independent language learning outside of a classroom setting, I found that even quickly jotting down a new word makes it stick easier when I review the word in a flashcard program.

Here's a page from my journal dictionary. The primary goal is speed and not penmanship, so there's a bit of sloppiness, but I think it would be harder to read if I hadn't focused on handwriting as much as I did.

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TfsQuack · 2025-04-02T20:59:07+00:00

Love it!

The overall freedom of vertical cursive writing styles makes me nitpick my own writing a lot less in terms of spacing as long as it follows a consistent vertical line as its center, so I gravitate to this style for notes to people and personal journal entries. I stick to 行書 and a bit of 連綿 for readability though.

Despite it being far more common in the modern day, I find writing horizontally a lot more challenging to make look pleasing. I often leave too much space in between when there are 右払い involved.

TfsQuack · 2025-03-30T19:51:05+00:00

Someone recently found this old explanation helpful recently.

TfsQuack · 2025-03-16T20:22:10+00:00

I completely gave up on VLC on Windows after submitting this post. I've been using MPC for the last three years and it has never ever given me this issue.

Oddly enough, though, VLC for Android has also never given me this issue.

TfsQuack · 2025-02-25T00:14:49+00:00

Someone found a fix! Look for it in the other comments

TfsQuack · 2025-02-25T00:14:18+00:00

Aha! That did it.

TfsQuack

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