How to Learn Japanese Stroke Order

Self-taught Japanese learners often overlook stroke order, but I'm here to guide you into the authentic Japanese mindset and technique.

This guide will cover the fundamental rules of Japanese stroke order and introduce useful resources for practice. Mastering stroke order will make your Japanese writing look increasingly authentic.

1. Go top to bottom

Every Japanese character begins at the top and proceeds downward. This is logical, as Japanese text has traditionally been written from top to bottom.

Adhere to this rule by always starting at the very top of any character: Beginning at the top is crucial for correct stroke order.

English speakers write letters from left to right, correct? That's because our text flows left to right.

So, for Japanese characters, you begin with the topmost stroke, the one that sits highest. For instance, in the character for "two," 二 (に), you draw the top line before the bottom one.

Here's a valuable tip: Visualize your kana and kanji placed on a grid—using graph paper initially can help you practice correct spatial arrangement.

Imagine them all against a grid. The highest elements are in the top row. The middle-height elements are in a second row. The lowest elements are in the bottom row. Start by drawing what's in the top row.

While drawing the top row, you must follow all subsequent rules before moving down to the middle row, and so forth.

Exception: This rule applies to standard-length strokes. Diacritical marks (the small dots and dashes that alter character sounds) are never drawn first, even if they are positioned at the very top of the character (see rule #5).

For example, when writing the kana character ご, you draw the main C-like shape first, and then add the two small dashes (which change the syllable from "ko" to "go") at the very end.

These sound-altering dots and dashes are called diacritical marks. Even when at the top, they are always drawn last.

2. Go left to right

This is quite simple, right? When drawing 二, you draw both lines from left to right. With these two rules, you can now draw 二 perfectly! You could probably even draw 三 (さん – three) if you felt ambitious.

Exception: Right-to-left diagonals take priority over equivalent left-to-right strokes and are written first. For example, the character for "father," 父 (ちち), is drawn in this order: (1) top left dash, (2) top right dash, (3) right-to-left diagonal, (4) left-to-right diagonal.

3. Draw horizontal lines first

This rule works together with rules #1 and #2. The very first stroke in a character will be the one farthest to the top and left, and it will be a horizontal line.

With multiple horizontal lines, you draw the highest and leftmost one first—starting strokes from the top left, extending lines rightward and moving downward.

The horizontal lines rule supersedes the first two rules in one case: If vertical lines drop down through all the horizontal lines, the horizontal lines are drawn first.

It doesn't matter if the vertical line extends above or farther left than the horizontal lines.

Exception: If a vertical line is present but doesn't run completely from top to bottom, it is drawn according to the first two rules. Horizontal lines aren't necessarily drawn before shorter vertical lines.

Let's use the character for "year," 年 (とし), as an example. The order is: (1) right-to-left diagonal on the top left, (2) top horizontal line, (3) second highest horizontal line, (4) short vertical line drawn down, (5) third horizontal line, (6) long vertical line drawn through all horizontal lines.

As you see, that short vertical line followed the top-to-bottom rule. The horizontal lines only take precedence over the very long vertical line passing through them.

4. Draw very long lines second

You know those characters with long, curling lines? There are many in hiragana. These are drawn second, even if they start at the top. For instance, the long curling lines in す、ぬ、め are all drawn second.

Any long line that passes through several other lines is drawn after the smaller lines it intersects. This helps maintain proportion and spatial orientation.

5. Add minor dashes, dots and other trimmings last

All the small symbols that change syllable sounds (for example, the little dashes next to a character like ぱ) are drawn last.

6. Draw the dividing line first for symmetrical characters

That sounded a bit complex for a simple rule, right? It's not as difficult as it seems. Sometimes you'll find a kanji character with small wing-like dashes on either side.

For example, you'll likely recognize the character for water 水 (みず). This character is drawn in this order: (1) Middle vertical line, (2) left wing, (3) right wing.

Notice the wings still follow the left-to-right rule.

7. Draw boxes in three strokes

I'm sure you've seen small boxes in beginner-level kanji. They're everywhere, so this rule is another important one. Just look at the character for the number four, 四 (よん/し).

The left side is one line. The top and right sides of the box are one continuous line. And the bottom side is one line. Count them—that's three!

8. Write boxed characters before closing the box up

Let's examine what happens to the contents inside those boxes.

When drawing 四 completely, the correct stroke order is: (1) left line drawn top to bottom, (2) top line drawn right and down to form the top and right sides of the box, (3) left line inside box drawn top-to-bottom, (4) right line inside box drawn top-to-bottom, (5) bottom line drawn left-to-right.

9. Pay attention to detail

This is where you truly set your Japanese writing skills apart. Want all your characters to look like a native Japanese speaker wrote them? Then you must focus on all the small details that give characters their standard appearance.

• Overall size. No kana should be larger than another. Even with different shapes, they must be written on the exact same scale.

• Diacritical marks (“). These small dashes aren't English-style quotation marks, so they shouldn't be written as such. They have a slight curve (but very little) and are always slanted left. They should also be placed consistently. Observe how they appear in standard Japanese writing.

• Curves. Never overlook a curve. If you draw the curved part of ぎ too round (or not round enough) it will look incorrect. The same applies to a character like こ. Don't draw the bottom part round and curvy like the English letter "J," or it will look wrong. Instead, this small curve is more of a slightly rounded flick.

• Hooks. These often go unnoticed by the untrained eye, but missing hooks are a major reason Japanese writing can look awkward. Look closely at characters like み and ひ, and remember to include hooks where necessary.

• Full stops. These characters were traditionally painted with wide brushes, which explains many of their shapes and styles. One important element is how the strokes end. At the end of each line, a traditional brush would be (1) pressed down firmly for a blunt, full stop or (2) drawn out for a lingering line that fades gradually. So, always notice how lines end: Is there a full stop or a long stroke?

• Lingering brush lines. The far-right tip of ん is a lingering, fluid, drawn-out brush stroke.

• Spacing between lines. Within a single character, the spacing between different strokes must be correct. For example, if you draw the horizontal lines of き far apart instead of close together, the kana will look strange.

• Angles between lines. The angles where lines meet must match the standard kana. For instance, メ cannot be drawn with perpendicular lines (like the lowercase English letter "t"). You must get the angle of the vertical line right, the angle of the horizontal line right, and the angle where they intersect can't be too sharp or too wide.

• General angle of symbols. Making the メ character completely upright (again, like "t") would result in a non-Japanese symbol. You must tilt the entire character at the same angle every time.

• Relative sizes of lines. Imagine if the bottom part of the hiragana き was HUGE and the top with the lines was tiny. Everything must be proportional within the character itself for proper and legible writing.

• Relative sizes of component characters. Dealing with a complex kanji? You need to consider all the above details for the component characters within the kanji.

It might be challenging, but when writing the kanji character 露 (つゆ – dew), you must perfect each component. The 雨, 足 and 各 need the right proportions relative to each other within this kanji. You can't draw the 雨 character on top normally or it would look too large—as you can see, it's somewhat compressed and extended horizontally.

In this kanji's context, you can't draw 雨 as you would alone. Keep this in mind to avoid writing disjointed-looking kanji.

10. Get hands-on practice with these resources

That covers all the rules and exceptions. It may seem like a lot of information presented this way, but consider this: You've just read one short blog post, not an entire book.

What you truly need is extensive hands-on practice.

• Try handwriting practice with these excellent hiragana writing practice worksheets. Hiragana is likely the easiest place to begin. After mastering stroke order basics with this simpler system, you can progress to kanji characters.
• To see stroke order animated, check any Japanese character's Wiktionary page. Look at this one for 国 (くに – country) to see what I mean! They have animated gifs showing the stroke order, similar to those you've seen in this post.
• For digital practice, several great apps are designed specifically for stroke order. Some learners highly recommend KanjiQ ( iOS ), which focuses on kanji training with flashcards. Its newest feature is kanji writing practice, where you observe proper stroke order and try it yourself. The app provides corrections as you go.
• My personal favorite Japanese learning tool is Obenkyo ( Android only). This app aims for total Japanese vocabulary reading and writing mastery. You can watch animated stroke order demonstrations, get hands-on writing practice and receive immediate feedback from the app.

While the language learning program Lingflix isn't specifically designed for stroke order practice, it includes personalized quizzes that require typed answers. The program also features subtitled Japanese videos. Lingflix uses authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and transforms them into personalized language lessons. You can try Lingflix free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app. P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

How to Practice Japanese Stroke Order

The steps for mastering Japanese stroke order fall into three main categories:

• Learn the general rules. Japanese stroke order is very consistent overall. There are more rules than exceptions. Once you understand the system, you'll know how to approach nearly any Japanese writing.
• Learn the exceptions. Japanese stroke order is so logical that even the exceptions are essentially mini-rules. You'll find that 90% of the time you draw strokes the same way, and 10% of the time an extra factor requires a slightly different approach.
• Practice diligently—and ensure pen and paper are involved. Stroke order is something that really needs to be done the traditional way. The more you draw strokes in their proper order, the better you'll remember how to form any Japanese character.

So, now you're equipped with everything you need to master the art of Japanese stroke order.

Roll up your sleeves, grab a pen (or paintbrush) and start practicing!