Genkō yōshi: how manuscript paper works and how to practise with it

Genkō yōshi (原稿用紙) is Japanese manuscript paper: a sheet of squares, one character to a square. Most sheets have 20 squares in each line and 20 lines, which is why "400字詰め" (yonhyakuji-zume, "400 characters to the sheet") is the name everyone knows. Japanese children write their first essays on it, many handwritten tests and school essays still use it, and publishing still talks about length in sheets: a piece of "原稿用紙10枚" is roughly 4,000 characters, whatever software it was actually typed in.

For a learner or anyone who writes Japanese by hand, the paper is worth more than its price. It forces you to decide where every character goes, which teaches the layout rules faster than any explanation. And it gives you a physical sense of length that a word count on a screen never quite does.

Before you start

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How the sheet is laid out

A standard sheet is printed for vertical writing (縦書き, tategaki). You write top to bottom, and the lines run from right to left, so the first line of your text is the column at the far right. The narrow strip down the middle of the sheet is where it folds in half; nothing is written there.

Horizontal sheets (横書き, yokogaki) exist too, and some practice pads print a grid that works both ways. The rules below are given for vertical writing first, because that is the default, with the horizontal difference noted where it matters.

The basic rules

Conventions differ a little between schools and teachers, so treat these as the common core. If a teacher or an exam gives you different instructions, theirs win.

Title and name

• The title goes in the first column. Leave two or three squares blank at the top before it starts.
• Your name goes in the second column, placed toward the bottom, with one blank square between family name and given name and one blank square left at the very bottom.
• The body starts on the next column. Some teachers ask for an empty column between the name and the body.

Paragraphs

• Every paragraph starts with one blank square.
• A new paragraph always starts a new column. The rest of the previous column stays empty.

Small kana

• Small kana (っ, ゃ, ゅ, ょ, and small katakana such as ァ or ェ) take a full square of their own.
• In vertical writing they sit in the upper right part of the square. In horizontal writing they sit in the lower left.

This is the rule learners break most, usually by squeezing a small kana into the square of the character before it. On paper it looks fine; in a counted essay it throws the count off and looks careless to anyone marking it.

Punctuation

• The comma 、 and the full stop 。 each take a full square. In vertical writing they go in the upper right of the square; in horizontal writing, the lower left.
• Opening and closing brackets 「 」 also take a square each.
• Punctuation and closing brackets do not start a column. If a 。, 、 or 」 would fall in the first square of a new column, write it in the last square of the previous column together with the last character, or just below the grid in the margin.
• When a quotation ends with a full stop, many school rules write 。 and 」 together in one square. Others drop the 。 before the closing bracket, as most newspapers do. Follow whichever rule you have been given and keep to it.
• ! and ? each take a square, and in essays the next square is usually left blank before the sentence continues.

Long marks, ellipses and dashes

• The katakana long vowel mark ー is written as a vertical stroke in vertical writing, not a horizontal one. In horizontal writing it stays horizontal.
• The ellipsis …… takes two squares.
• A long dash, used for a pause or an aside, also takes two squares.

Numbers and Latin letters

• In vertical writing, numbers are usually written in kanji numerals, one per square: 三十五, or 三五 in the digit-by-digit style.
• In horizontal writing, Arabic numerals are common, and two digits share a square: 35 fits in one square, 1200 in two.
• Latin letters are best kept to horizontal writing. Capitals take a square each; lowercase letters are often written two to a square.

For typed text the same questions turn into full-width and half-width choices, which the guide to full-width and half-width characters covers.

Counting characters

Because each square holds one character, the sheet is also a counter. A full 400-character sheet with a few short paragraphs will hold noticeably fewer than 400 characters of text, since paragraph indents and the empty ends of lines all use up squares.

That is the reason essay limits written as "400字以内" ("within 400 characters") feel tighter than they look. Practice differs on exactly how such limits are counted, especially the blank squares at the end of a paragraph, so if a count matters, ask the person setting the task. As a working habit, assume that every square you have used, blank or not, counts toward the total. You will rarely go over.

Publishers sometimes use the 400-character sheet as a unit of length even for typed manuscripts. Some writers and editors also use 200-character half sheets, often called ペラ (pera). If a request says "10枚" without saying which, it almost always means 400-character sheets.

The paper and books that help

You can print a grid, but a genkō yōshi practice notebook is easier to keep and carry. When you choose one, check:

• the grid: 20 by 20 is the standard, and it is what essays and tests use;
• the square size against your handwriting, especially if you write kanji large while you are learning;
• the direction, vertical, horizontal or both;
• the paper, which should take pencil and erasing without tearing or smudging.

If your problem is the characters rather than the layout, a kanji course book is the better companion. The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course brings shape, meaning, readings and example words together for each character, so it is useful both for practice and for checking a character you have just written. Remembering the Kanji 1 by James W. Heisig teaches you to write each character from an English keyword using its parts, and leaves the readings for later. It suits people who want to write a lot of kanji from memory early on. Both work well with a grid, since writing a character in a square makes you notice its proportions.

More options, including grammar references and keyboards, are on the writing desk page.

A way to practise

You do not need a long programme. A few sheets a week, done with attention, teach the rules better than reading about them.

1. Copy a short text by hand. Take a paragraph from a book or a newspaper column printed vertically and copy it onto the grid exactly. The point is not the content but the placement: where the small kana go, where the punctuation lands, what happens at the bottom of each column. Copying (視写, shisha) is a standard exercise in Japanese schools for this reason.
2. Check against the original. Square by square, compare your sheet with the source. Every difference is either a copying slip or a layout rule you did not know.
3. Write from dictation. Have someone read a short passage, or use an audio clip with a transcript, and write it straight onto the grid. Now you have to decide the layout yourself.
4. Write your own short piece. Pick a simple topic, such as your morning or a place you know, and write one sheet. Aim to fill it without going over.
5. Check your own sheet. Use the checklist below, then type the text and run it through the checker on the front page for slips such as doubled particles or mixed sentence endings. The checker does not see layout, but it catches some things your eye skips.

If you write kanji you are not sure of, mark them and look them up afterwards rather than mid-sentence. Interrupting a sheet to check every character kills the flow, and the flow is part of what you are practising. Okurigana questions in particular are easier to settle in a batch; the piece on okurigana rules explains which forms are errors and which are just choices.

A last check before you hand it in

• Title starts two or three squares down; name in the second column with a blank square at the bottom.
• Every paragraph starts with one blank square and on a new column.
• Each small kana has its own square, in the right corner.
• No 。, 、 or closing bracket at the top of a column.
• Brackets and 。 handled the same way throughout.
• Long vowel marks vertical in vertical writing.
• Numbers in one style throughout.
• Total within the limit, counting used squares.

If a teacher or exam has its own rules, check those first. The paper rewards consistency more than any single convention.