Learn Japanese Calligraphy

The history of Japanese Calligraphy is found way back in the Chinese civilization and the creation of the Chinese writing system. Just about 4,500 years ago. Calligraphy had already been increase astronomically by the time it arrived in Japan sometime around the sixth century, it was around the same time that the Chinese system of writing (kanji) had also appeared on the seen.

When you are going to learn Japanese calligraphy it is good to know its roots. In Japanese, calligraphy is called shodou, or "the way of writing". Whereby in the Western, it is widely practiced by people of all ages and all walks of life in Japan. It is compulsory, that all Japanese children have to learn Japanese calligraphy as part of their elementary school education.

To learn Japanese calligraphy there are three basic writing styles

• Kaisho
  Kaisho literally means "correct writing." What this is saying plainly here, is the style in which each of the strokes are made are very deliberate, and clear creating a stylish form that is very similar to the printed version that one might see in a newspaper. This is the style that students that have to learn Japanese calligraphy study first, seeing that it is close to the written characters that they see everyday, to which they're already familiar with, This however creates a balance that gives them the opportunity to get used to using the brush (fude) correctly.

• Gyousho
  Gyousho literally means "traveling writing" and refers to the semi-cursive style of Japanese. Like cursive handwriting in English, this however will be the style that most people will usually use to write their notes. Furthermore, as with English cursive style, what is written as separated strokes in kaisho style flow together to form a more rounded gyousho. Text written in this style is usually been read by the majority of educated Japanese.

• Sousho
  Sousho means "grass writing" and refers to the flowing cursive style of Japanese. To learn Japanese calligraphy using this style it will be impotant to observe the readability, of a Japanese artist who rarely allows their brush to leave the paper, resulting in a graceful, swooping shapes. Only those trained in shodou are usually able to read this type of script.

Author Bio:
Learie Des Vignes is a language specialist that loves communicating and exploring new languages using different social networks and software such as rocket languages and you can also visit this link http://rocketlanguagesnews.blogspot.com/2010/07/rocket-languages.html

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