Writing Japanese by hand can feel like a wall at first: three scripts, hundreds of characters and a stroke order nobody has explained to you. In practice it is an orderly process, and almost everything comes down to what to learn first, how to trace each character, and how to practice without building bad habits. This guide gives you the map; each topic has its own article if you want to go deeper.
1. Start with kana, not kanji
Japanese is written with three sets of characters that live side by side in the same sentence:
- Hiragana: 46 basic characters. Used for native Japanese words, particles and verb endings.
- Katakana: another 46, with the same sounds. Used mostly for foreign words, names and onomatopoeia.
- Kanji: characters of Chinese origin, thousands in real use. Each one carries meaning.
The logical order is hiragana, then katakana, then kanji. If you are not sure when each one is used, start with the differences between hiragana and katakana.
2. Learn stroke order from day one
Stroke order and direction are not arbitrary: they are standardized, and they make characters come out balanced and readable, especially when you write fast. Fixing a wrong order later is much harder than learning it right at the start. The general rules are few (top before bottom, left before right, and not much more), and we summarize them in the stroke order rules.
3. A simple practice method
For every new character, repeat this short loop:
- Look at how it is drawn, stroke by stroke and in which direction.
- Trace it following that order a few times.
- Write it from memory, with no model, and compare it with the original.
The third step is the one that makes it stick: recalling a character without help is harder than copying it, which is exactly why it works. Work in small groups (one row of kana at a time) and review earlier characters before adding new ones. For hiragana there is a concrete plan in how to learn hiragana by writing.
4. The mistakes that come up most
- Mixing up look-alike characters, especially in katakana (シ and ツ, ソ and ン) and hiragana (ぬ and め, わ and れ and ね). They are almost always told apart by stroke direction or stroke count: see similar-looking kana.
- Learning a character by sight only, without tracing it. Recognizing it is not the same as knowing how to write it.
- Skipping stroke order “because the result looks the same”. It shows as soon as you speed up.
- Starting with kanji. Get comfortable with kana first; then move on to simple kanji with the first JLPT N5 kanji.
5. Phone or paper
You do not have to choose: paper gives you control of proportion and hand movement, and on-screen practice gives you instant correction and short sessions anywhere. We cover how to combine them in phone or paper for Japanese writing practice.
6. What if you are only preparing for the JLPT?
The exam does not ask you to handwrite, but that does not mean writing is useless: recognizing the correct shape of a character is part of reading it. We explain it with official sources in do you need handwriting for JLPT N5?.
Where Kaku! fits in
Kaku! is the Android app we built at Kuxar Studio to practice exactly this loop on your phone: you trace hiragana, katakana and N5-level kanji with your finger, and the app checks the order and direction of your strokes. Hiragana and katakana are free; kanji unlock with a one-time purchase. It works with any method in this guide: use it for the tracing and correction step, and paper for writing from memory.
All the guides in this series
Quick navigation: what is kana, hiragana vs katakana, learning hiragana by writing, stroke order rules, similar-looking kana, what is a kanji, first N5 kanji, phone or paper, how to choose an app and JLPT N5 and handwriting.