0

What is the font used in the JLPT?

This is particularly helpful for the 100,000s of students who write the JLPT every year as different fonts can have wide variation, and as kanji font has been shown to affect learning.

Here are two examples:

typical JLPT reading sample 1 typical JLPT reading sample 2

arturomp
  • 123
  • 5
  • 'Used in the JLPT' where? I assume it uses a variety of fonts in different places. – sundowner Jan 23 '24 at 09:24
  • Can you please give an example? – Gui Imamura Jan 23 '24 at 12:08
  • @sundowner not the most welcoming eh? assuming doesn't get us very far. also, not sure what that a good answer to that question would mean, or how you think of JLPT locations... – arturomp Jan 23 '24 at 14:36
  • @GuiImamura absolutely, my bad, I assumed being on the same page about this and I shouldn't have. I've uploaded two. – arturomp Jan 23 '24 at 14:37
  • 5
    I’m voting to close this question because it is not about the Japanese language. – istrasci Jan 23 '24 at 16:59
  • 7
    I don't see anything unwelcoming or unhelpful about sundowner's question. You later provided two different examples with different fonts, and surely there will be more as well (for headers, captions, within images, etc.) So the assumption was accurate, you were asking about multiple fonts in multiple parts of the test without specifying one in particular. – Leebo Jan 23 '24 at 17:28
  • @istrasci this seems like a double standard given the amount of questions re stroke order (not unique to Japanese) and fonts in the site, but up to you! ;) – arturomp Jan 24 '24 at 02:51
  • You're new to this site. Why are you picking a fight with the good folk here? You might as well have asked what font the Declaration of Independence was written in: that's neither a question about American history or the English language. Stroke order? Well, while stroke order may not be unique to Japanese, Chinese stroke order and Japanese is rather different. But, it's not a point of interest to me. I think our guidelines are pretty clear and if you look over them you should be able to understand why this question was closed. Picking a fight with us isn't solving anything though. – A.Ellett Jan 24 '24 at 03:05
  • @A.Ellet I'm defn not new to stack exchange, and I'm a big advocate for both the mission of (even this) SE and the expected behaviours. Curt responses with questions that aren't either earnest or clear (e.g. "where in the JLPT?"), imho, are not welcoming to newcomers, which I try to be and expect in all SE. I admit I should have been clearer and given a sample, and I would have been happy to address specific questions re headers, etc., but the initial comment does not seem conducive to that – arturomp Jan 24 '24 at 03:15
  • I'm not saying you're new to stack exchange, but you are new here. And @sundowner 's question was totally legit. Where in the JLPT are you referring to? When the question was asked you'd given no examples. Sorry you were so offended. Curtness is not a fault, particularly when it gets to the point of the matter. – A.Ellett Jan 24 '24 at 03:18
  • to clarify, I was going off other q's (e.g. 1, 2) and the many stroke ones which do seem allowed. I've also seen what seem personal opinions re kanji font impact on learning that may not actually pan out – arturomp Jan 24 '24 at 03:22
  • @A.Ellett wouldn't you say that as much as stroke order is unique to Japanese, fonts for a language isolate is unique to that language? also, to clarify, not trying to pick a fight. happy to be posting here after years of being an observer. looking forward to fruitful participation. I do want to make sure that if we're for some reason allowing curtness/brevity (admitting my own brevity led initially to a misunderstanding), it's at least one that will make SE better, which didn't feel to me to be the case – arturomp Jan 24 '24 at 03:24
  • @arturomp: I don't see any double-standard. Stroke order ≠ font. Different "forms" of kanji also ≠ font (though different fonts may use different forms of a kanji). The basic premise is that discussing things like stroke order and different forms helps learners understand the Japanese language better. Discussing font disfluency as in the link you provided may also have some merit, but knowing which font is used on the test does not really help anyone IMO. (You'll notice I also voted to close the "personal opinion" topic you linked). – istrasci Jan 25 '24 at 00:37

1 Answers1

2

The first image is 教科書体 (Textbook font)

This is a family of fonts that all follows the same style, just like in English Serif is not a specific font but a series of font whose design follow the same principle. 教科書体 is used, as the name says, in textbooks to mimic the ways characters are written by hand to teach kids proper writing(Although there are still variation between print and writing, which I'm not gonna mention here). Any 教科書体 would give you a similar style.

The second image is 明朝体 (Min dynasty font)

I'm not an expert on the history of fonts, I just recognize them.

You can find a list of commonly seen font styles here:

https://www.vanfu.co.jp/yougo/page.php?w=書体（和文書体）

dvx2718
  • 3,269
  • 5
  • 18
  • 1
    This 明 is from the Ming dynasty. Curiously, the same style is known in China by the name of another dynasty, Song (宋). – aguijonazo Jan 23 '24 at 17:39