There is a stage, early in learning Japanese, when the writing stops being a code to decipher and starts being a thing your hand does. It happens on paper, not on a screen, and it happens faster with the right paper.
Readers of this site come to Japanese writing from two directions. Some are learning the language and want their hiragana to stop looking like a child’s. Some are learning the brush and have discovered that you cannot write a character beautifully until you can write it correctly — stroke order, proportion, the difference between シ and ツ. For both, the tool is the same: a practice book with squares in it, a pencil or pen, and a hundred repetitions.
These are the books I recommend, from blank grid paper to a proper brush-calligraphy manual, in the order a learner needs them.
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Table of contents
Open Table of contents
Why squares matter
Japanese is written in squares. Every character — a two-stroke hiragana or a twenty-stroke kanji — occupies the same square box, and the skill of Japanese handwriting is largely the skill of filling that box well: centred, balanced, neither cramped nor spilling.
Western lined paper cannot teach this, because it has no boxes. That is why Japanese children write on genkōyōshi (原稿用紙), manuscript paper printed with a grid of squares, and why every practice book worth buying is built on the same grid. A learner who practises on squares learns proportion without being taught it; a learner who practises on lines has to be told, and rarely is.
What “best” means here
- Large squares. Beginners write big. Squares of 1.5–2 cm let you see what you are doing; the standard 1 cm publishing grid is for people who already can.
- A model to copy. A workbook should show each character written well, with numbered stroke order, next to the empty squares. A blank notebook is for after the model has been learned.
- Correct stroke order. Surprisingly, some workbooks get it wrong. The ones below do not.
- Enough paper. A hundred pages is a month. Fifty is a fortnight and a frustrating re-order.
The honest shortlist
Four books, for four stages.
1. A large-square genkōyōshi notebook — the blank foundation
Genkouyoushi Notebook: Large Japanese Kanji Practice Notebook on Amazon · ~$7–10
Blank grid paper, bound. Each page is a field of large squares, each square lightly divided into quarters by a dotted cross — the same cross Japanese children’s paper uses — so that you can see whether the character sits centred and whether its left half is the same size as its right.
What it does well: The squares are big and the cross is faint enough not to intrude. It is cheap enough to fill and buy again. It works for every script — kana, kanji, and for planning the layout of a brush piece before you commit ink.
What it doesn’t: It teaches nothing by itself; you need a model to copy from (a workbook below, or the stroke-order diagrams in our kanji series). The binding is paperback; it does not lie perfectly flat.
Honest verdict: The one book every learner should have open on the desk. Buy two.
2. Japanese Hiragana and Katakana Made Easy — the kana workbook
Japanese Hiragana and Katakana Made Easy on Amazon · ~$12–15
The two phonetic scripts, ninety-two characters in all, one per page: a large model with numbered stroke order, the characters’ sounds, a row of traced examples and then rows of empty squares. This is the format Japanese first-graders use, in English.
What it does well: Stroke order for every character, which matters more for kana than most learners expect — a さ written in the wrong order looks wrong even when it looks right. Large squares. Covers the confusable pairs (シ/ツ, ソ/ン) side by side.
What it doesn’t: It is a drill book, and reads like one. There is nothing about the history or beauty of the scripts; for that, read What Is Hiragana? alongside it.
Honest verdict: Two weeks of daily use and the kana are yours for life. Do this before any kanji, and before the brush.
3. Japanese Kanji Made Easy — the first kanji workbook
Japanese Kanji Made Easy on Amazon · ~$15–18
The same publisher’s kanji volume: the characters a beginner meets first, each with a model, stroke order, readings, a couple of common words, and rows of squares to fill.
What it does well: The selection is sensible — the numbers, the elements, the everyday characters, roughly the first year of a Japanese school’s list. Stroke order is shown stroke by stroke, not as a single diagram with numbers, which is clearer for characters of ten strokes and more. Each character gets enough squares to matter.
What it doesn’t: It is a handwriting book, not a dictionary; if you want to learn hundreds of kanji quickly for reading, a flashcard system does that better. The model characters are printed in a textbook font, which is correct for pencil and not quite what a brush does.
Honest verdict: The right first kanji book for the hand. When you meet a character here that you like — 心, 道, 和 — write it in pencil until it is easy, then find it in our kanji series and try it with a brush.
4. An Introduction to Japanese Kanji Calligraphy — from pencil to brush
An Introduction to Japanese Kanji Calligraphy (Tuttle) on Amazon · ~$18–25
Kunii Takezaki’s Tuttle manual is the bridge between the workbooks above and real shodō: a course in writing kanji with a brush, built around a set of characters shown in the standard script (楷書, kaisho) with stroke order, brush technique notes, and practice sheets.
What it does well: It treats the brush stroke as a movement, not a shape — where to press, where to lift, how fast — which is exactly what pencil workbooks cannot teach. The characters are shown as a calligrapher writes them, with the swelling and tapering a brush produces. It assumes no Japanese.
What it doesn’t: The character set is small; this is a course, not a reference. The practice sheets are in the book and you will want to photocopy them onto hanshi-weight paper rather than write in the book. Older edition; presentation is plain.
Honest verdict: The book for the learner whose pencil kanji have become reliable and who wants the brush. Read it with Best Japanese Calligraphy Book for Beginners for the wider picture.
What to skip
- Workbooks that print characters in a rounded “cute” font. They are pleasant to look at and teach the wrong shapes. A model character should look like a textbook or a brush, not a logo.
- Apps as a replacement for paper. Apps are excellent for recognition and recall. They do not train the hand, because a fingertip on glass is not a pencil on paper, and the square that forces proportion is missing.
- Tracing-only books. Tracing feels productive and teaches almost nothing; the hand follows the line instead of remembering it. Look for books with traced examples followed by empty squares.
- Genkōyōshi with tiny squares (the standard 400-character publishing sheet). That is for writing essays, not for learning.
How to practise
The method is the same for a six-year-old in Japan and a forty-year-old in Ohio:
- One character per session, twenty times. Not a page of different characters. Look at the model, write once, compare, write again.
- Stroke order, always, from the first repetition. The order is the shape. A character written in the wrong order is a drawing of a character.
- Fill the square. Beginners write small, in the corner of the box. Write big, to the edges. Shrink later.
- Say it as you write it. The reading, aloud. The hand and the ear learn together.
- Weekly, take the character to the brush. A character you can write in pencil with your eyes closed is ready for hanshi and ink — and it will go better than you expect, because the hand already knows where it is going.
Where to go next
- The script to start with — What Is Hiragana? A Beginner’s Guide.
- A first kanji to write a hundred times — 心 (heart), four strokes, or 山 (mountain), three.
- When the pencil is easy — Best Japanese Calligraphy Set for Beginners, and how to hold the brush, which is nothing like holding a pencil.
- For a travelling practice — a brush pen and a genkōyōshi notebook fit in any bag.
Squares, a model, a pencil, and a hundred repetitions. Japanese children learn to write this way because it works, and it works for adults for the same reason: the hand remembers what it has done, and forgets what it has only looked at.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is genkōyōshi?
Genkōyōshi (原稿用紙) is Japanese manuscript paper printed with a grid of squares, one character per square, usually 200 or 400 to a page. Japanese children learn to write on it, and it is the best paper for handwriting practice because the square forces each character into the same proportions.
Should I practise Japanese writing with a pen or a brush?
Both, for different things. A pen or pencil on genkōyōshi teaches you the characters — stroke order, proportion, the difference between similar kana. A brush on hanshi teaches you the strokes as movements. Most learners do the first daily and the second weekly; the two reinforce each other.
Do I need to know hiragana before kanji?
Yes. Hiragana is the phonetic script that every Japanese sentence uses between the kanji, and its 46 characters take one to two weeks of daily writing practice. Kanji come after, and there are thousands; start with the ones you will read and write most.
Are Japanese handwriting workbooks useful for calligraphy?
Indirectly but genuinely. Stroke order and proportion are the same whether the tool is a pencil or a brush, and a workbook drills them faster than a brush can. A learner who has written a character a hundred times in pencil writes it far better with a brush the first time.
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