Message from Iroha

Hello, I’m Iroha. 

I share the beauty of handwritten Japanese with those who wish to learn the language from outside Japan. But I don’t simply teach the correct stroke order or how to form each character — I also introduce seasonal phrases and expressions rooted in uniquely Japanese ways of seeing the world, and I write them by hand myself.

I truly hope you will try writing Japanese by hand, too.

Today, we can type Japanese easily on our computers and smartphones. Kanji can be converted with just a tap. Even for us native speakers, opportunities to write by hand have become rare — and when we do, we often realise we’ve forgotten how to write certain characters.

But if you’re someone who wants to understand Japan, the Japanese language, and the culture behind it, I encourage you to take pen or pencil to paper. Write vertically in a notebook — just try it. As you write kanji and hiragana by hand, you’ll begin to see why the stroke order exists. It’s designed to flow naturally when written with a brush, in vertical lines. For hundreds of years, the Japanese people have written this way. Generation after generation has quietly refined how to write more beautifully, more clearly, more effortlessly.

By writing Japanese characters with your own hand, you are not only touching a long cultural history — you are helping create a new chapter in it.

Never before have so many people around the world been interested in learning Japanese. Japan, long isolated at the eastern edge of the world, has never experienced this kind of attention. If people like you continue to learn and even write Japanese by hand, your writing becomes part of a new page in our history.

Would you like to help shape this new story of Japan, together with me?

Beauty, balance, and mindfulness — I’m here to share with you not only the art of writing Japanese, but also the rich cultural traditions behind each character. I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

– Iroha