I use Skritter for practicing Japanese. For the character 条, the software advises that the vertical stroke should "hook". This is not correct. That stroke should not hook when written in Japanese. Also, the two strokes on either side of the vertical stroke should be connected with the vertical stroke, not separated. In other words, the bottom half of the character needs to be a 木.

The software appears to be displaying the proper Chinese strokes, but since I am using Skritter Japanese, I would prefer it to use Japanese strokes. Could you be advise? Thank you very much.

Actually, the written form of 条 does hook in Japanese. See:
http://kakijun.jp/page/07127200.html

There are quite a few instances where the written form and the typed form are different in Japanese.

Another example is 第 (or any character with the bamboo radical on top). The bamboo radical at the top has its sixth stroke going down toward the left in the written form, but toward the right in a typewritten character.

If you want to check the written form, you can search for "(character) 書き方" and you should find some examples of how to write it.

The problem is not that I don't know how to the write these particular characters or that printed and handwritten forms sometimes differ. I do, which is how I was able to notice the problem.

I disagree that 条 hooks. For example, please see this photo I just took from a kanji writing book for Japanese grade school students:
http://goo.gl/O2wIr

You may note the caption of "はねない" for that stroke.* If you hook that stroke on the kanken, you are going to get your answer marked wrong.

*you might also notice 「ホとしない」

I don't know what book your picture is from, maybe it is trying to teach a particular form of writing, but the Japanese government's own writing style guidelines say both the hooked and unhooked forms of 条 are acceptable. Look at page 8 of the 3.38MB pdf linked off this page:
http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/kokujikunrei_h221130.html

Unless this question were posed to the Kanken organization, I don't think you can claim you'd be marked wrong if you write it with the hook.

Also, for the Kanken, I'd trust their own sources more than this book you took a picture of. 条 is apparently level 6, so if you have one of the books listed at http://www.kanken.or.jp/tosyo/grade/6.html
it would be more trustworthy.

I saw your PDF. You didn't understand what you read. The paper does not set forth "writing style guidelines". Actually, that section of the paper discusses differences between printed mincho and handwritten kanji. It is descriptive, not prescriptive, in the sense of "these are some variants you might see". Note, for example, the handwritten samples of 年 just above it. Is it your position that the right-most handwritten variant of 年, which contains a horizontal stroke where a vertical stroke would be, is prescribed by Monbusho? Find me the textbook or curriculum that teaches that. Or, how about the 雨 with the teeny-tiny top horizontal stroke, or a "hook" on 木 and 来? Same challenge. (you also may note that the 条 was in the section on つける/はなす rather than はねる/とめる)

Since you asked, the picture in my last post was from a book published by 旺文社 called 小学漢字1006字の正しい書き方. So, the "particular form of writing" it is trying to teach is the 正しい one. Here is a picture of the publication information:
http://goo.gl/3uus6

Similarly, here is a snapshot from another book I have, 小学漢字１００６ published by 学研教育出版:
http://goo.gl/WTBEs

Publication information is here:
http://goo.gl/5Bl6l

Please note the instruction of 「とめる」for the stroke in question.

I picked both of these books up during my second long-term stint in Japan, and the publication dates of 1999 and 2001 might give you an idea of how long I have been at this. If you wish to argue that the educational publishers of 旺文社 and 学研 are ignoring the Monbusho, please let me know if that is in fact your argument.

Unfortunately, I do not have a study book for 6級 of the Kanken because I do not need one. However, if you are determined to continue insisting that Monbusho prescribes a "hook" on 条, I am happy to take a trip down to the 日本語補修校 my children attend and take a snapshot of the kokugo textbook used in the 5th grade classroom. My balls are in your court.

It is clear with the evidence you have given that writing 条 without a hook on the vertical stroke is considered correct and in fact the typical way it is taught.

The question regarding 条 now seems to be "Besides the common unhooked form, is it acceptable under modern Japanese writing standards to teach/write 条 with a hook?"

While I thought from my initial knowledge and searching that hooked form was correct for writing, I did note in my previous post that both the hooked and unhooked forms seemed to be acceptable to the government. I did not ever say the government said it was wrong to write the unhooked form in any of my posts.

I referenced the pdf on the bunka.go.jp site because I am currently outside Japan and don't have access to anything more authoritative or on-target at the moment. I will be back there next week, at which time I can go to a bookstore to look at the relevant Kanken books and ask people where to get the final word on this.

Once I find out what is considered the most authoritative source for correct Japanese writing, I will be glad to share it. I have noticed other instances in Skritter where a Kanji has a questionable stroke order or writing style, but there is not a more consistent/authoritative online source than the kakijun.jp site that I have found that I could refer the people responsible for correcting errors in the Skritter database to. Since this thread calls into question relying on that particular source, one definitely needs to be found.

I have seen the hooked form of 条 in writing in Japan, so I want to check if that is because it was taught that way in the past, or if it is the result of mainland Chinese that have gone to Japan for work/study (as 条 does hook in mainland China). It would not be the first time I've seen simplified Chinese characters mixed into Japanese writing. I often see ⺮ written incorrectly in mainland Chinese students' Japanese writing. The 条 variant in Taiwan (條) definitely does not hook according to guidelines there.

Re: the PDF, I've had Japanese teachers write 雨 with a short top stroke, so they either learned or picked up that habit somewhere. I haven't seen 年 written as it was on the far right on p.8 of that PDF outside of some old Buddhist texts, so I doubt I will find a modern teaching resource that teaches it that way.

Anyhow, I will report back about an authoritative resource Skritter could use to compare Kanji stroke order/style in the database against next week.

"The question regarding 条 now seems to be "Besides the common unhooked form, is it acceptable under modern Japanese writing standards to teach/write 条 with a hook?""

Well, that was never the question. My question was, "could someone please correct Skritter to use the correct form of 条?" Unfortunately, you derailed the thread with your misplaced defense of the form that uses the "hooked" vertical stroke and separated side strokes. It's nice to be able to recognize that variant, but I absolutely disagree that it is the form that should be taught in a didactic program.

"I did not ever say the government said it was wrong to write the unhooked form in any of my posts."

Correct. First you said the "hooked" form was the correct one, full stop, as if I had never heard of takekanmuri before. Then when I pressed you on the point, you said that the PDF you linked were "the Japanese government's own writing style guidelines". They weren't "guidelines" at all but a descriptive guide that showed handwritten variants that one might see. You didn't understand what you read. And, if you were to go through a number of the examples in that PDF, you would see that many of them were in no sense standard handwritten forms as they are taught in official curricula. I found it telling that in response to a elementary school student text, you thought it was "trying to teach a particular form of writing".

Let me save you some time. Shortly after I made my last post, I realized that I did have a ６級 Kanken resource in the form of my son's DS game, 財団法人日本漢字能力検定協会公認 漢検DS3デラックス. This is official software of the 特例財団法人, and it includes the official Kanken joyo kanji dictionary. (here is a picture of the dictionary screen in case there is any doubt: http://goo.gl/Xcnm9) I took these snapshots when I realized I had the resource, but I didn't want to do two posts in a row and wanted to await your response before posting.

Here is the stroke order for 条. You will note that the vertical stroke in question does not "hook":
http://goo.gl/4ugLo

In case there should be a concern in your mind that the dictionary shows printed form rather than handwritten form, let me ease your mind with this picture of the entry for 算. Please note that the sixth stroke of the takekanmuri slants from right to left as is correct for handwritten form:
http://goo.gl/fj4oY

So, there you have it from the Kanken sources. I really don't know what more you could want. I do not know why you considered kakijun.jp to be authoritative because a read of the はじめに page shows that it is maintained by some guy. It cannot be authoritative because he is not an authority. In the case of kanji, the governing authority is Monbusho, so I would recommend a kanji dictionary either published by or approved by Monbusho that features handwritten forms. Certainly, the 漢検漢字辞典 would qualify under these criteria, and we can see the handwritten forms in the takekanmuri from this page, for example: http://goo.gl/ayVa5. I am sorry that it is printed on paper, but perhaps I am so old that I think the Internet is not the tome of all knowledge.

Back to the question at hand, could a member of the Skritter team please chime in with a comment on correcting this issue? I have also submitted a request using the in-app "Send Feedback" feature. Thank you very much.

I've asked Jeremy, who is in charge of the strokes, to take a look at this thread, but it may take a while longer than usual given the holidays. Thanks for your patience.

There have been some recent changes made for accuracy to some of the Japanese characters, like the direction of the 6th stroke in the ⺮ radical. So while both versions of 条 are of course acceptable, it seems like it would make sense to also change this character as well, and have the unhooked format.
I've made the change and have uploaded the character-- sorry for the delay!

It would be great btw if we could pick variants or ‘variant families’ of some sort, since all the variants can apparently be recognized by Skritter already anyway. For example, I’d prefer to write 条 with a ホ instead of a 木 (it’s just the way I’ve always written, not that it’s a big deal for me). We had a thread a while back about the dot on top of 隹 (whether it should be / or \), too.