When print and handwriting disagree

Why the same character looks different

After learning kana, opening a Japanese book or website often produces a moment of doubt — the character looks like it has one stroke too many, or too few.

Nothing is wrong; the typeface changed. Compare a double-storey "a" in print with the single-storey "a" you write by hand. Japanese has the same split, widened by a living brush-writing tradition.

The biggest gap is between screen-oriented gothic faces (ゴシック体) and the textbook face (教科書体) used to teach handwriting in schools.

Joined or separated — three characters

These three vary the most. Both the joined and the separated shapes are in circulation.

Both are correct. For handwriting, though, the textbook style — detached — is the standard.

Others that look different

• ふ — looks like one mass in gothic faces but is actually four strokes: dot, curve, dot, dot.
• な — the lower-right loop opens up or nearly closes depending on the face.
• そ — appears both with an angled top (textbook) and as one smooth stroke (gothic).
• ゆ — the size of the central loop varies considerably.
• Katakana ヒ and ミ — stroke angles shift between faces, though the stroke count does not.

Which one to write

Write the detached, textbook form. It is what Japanese primary schools teach, and separating the strokes keeps your stroke order honest.

The joined shapes are what happens naturally at speed. They emerge once the motion is in your hand — they are not a model to copy from the start.

This is why the writing practice here shows answers in a textbook handwriting face. Showing the screen font would set the wrong target for your hand.

For reading, none of this needs attention. See both shapes a few times and your eye merges them.