Tips on telling ツ and シ apart

[lazysunday]

ツ and シ are driving me crazy. Especially when handwritten or in a fancy font.

I am also going nutty with ソ and ン

Is there a hard and fash rule/tip that will be a giveaway or am stuck with guessing by context...

[strugglebunny]

I've had the same issue. i'm still not perfect (sometimes I have to think about what I'm reading) but notice that ツ tsu is more "bunched" together than シ shi. The long line in Tsu also is more vertical that in Shi most of the time.

Same with ソ＆ン. So ソ is bunched together and more vertical while n ン is flatter and more spread out.

Hope that helps a little!

[jemstone]

i find that the てんてん (dot dot) for ツ (tsu) is more horizontal, while for シ (shi) is more vertical, coincides with what strugglebunny said.

[jkeyz15]

ugh...i have think you have the backwards jem

[jemstone]

er... hah... ya... fixed it. =P

[ThisistheHenry]

The technical difference actually has nothing to with stroke angle, but rather stroke direction (although that tends to lead to a difference in angle).

The characters ン (nn) and シ (si) both are written with the last stroke (the long one) going from bottom left to upper right.

The characters ソ (so) and ツ (tu) are written with the final stroke running from the upper right to the bottom left.

ALWAYS follow this rule when writing these by hand! ALWAYS! And look closely when trying to tell the difference.

With many fonts it is possible to tell which direction the strokes, and that is what "defines" the character. However, it is generally faster to look at the angle (with the strokes in "shi" and "nn" being more horizontal, and the strokes in "tu" and "so" being more vertical)

Hope I was of some help!

[Shumiston]

While you're reading look at the symbol and think of its stroke order. That will tell you wheter it is chi or tsu.