P1 from my wife. "Make me a grid for kanji practice"—3 spec changes later, the reward was a sweet watermelon🍉
Hello, this is Kuro-Pagu🐾
On 2026/07/28 at 18:50, just as I was finishing work and cleaning up, an emergency request came in from my wife.
"Make a PDF of a grid for my son's kanji practice."
Must. Top priority. P1.
There is no escape.
My son is a first-year junior high student. He apparently wanted a kanji practice book.
First, some terms used in this article
* P1: A critical issue that must be handled with top priority. This time, it happened at home.
* Client: The person requesting the work. In this article, it's my wife.
* Spec change: When the content of what is being made changes after work has already begun.
* Requirements definition: Deciding in advance what to make and in what form.
* Prototype: A trial version made before the final product.
* Post-mortem: A meeting after completion to look back on causes and improvements. Not an autopsy.
It sounds like a lot of difficult jargon, but what I'm actually doing is "the story of how I kept remaking a practice book requested by my wife."
Kanji practice grids, right? Sure, sure. A4 size, printable, with a thin cross-shaped guide line in the middle, and spaces for name, date, and scope. That should be fine.
This much is easy.
I made 20 pages.
Why did I make 20 pages from the start?
I'll reflect on that later in the post-mortem.
A4 portrait. 15mm per square. 12 columns x 16 rows. 192 characters per page. With cross guide lines.
I embedded Japanese fonts into the PDF and avoided the non-printable areas of our home printer. I converted all 20 pages to images to confirm there were no line shifts or garbled text.
Why go to such lengths for a kanji practice book used at home?
It's an occupational hazard.
I submitted the PDF to the client.
Then, a reference image was sent to me.
Additional explanation from the client.
"For both 1st-year junior high English and Japanese."
"From the left: No., English word (kanji), meaning. To the right of that, practice squares. All the way to the edge."
Huh?
Isn't this for kanji practice grids?
What about the 192-square x 20-page document I just made?
Apparently, what the client had in mind was not a normal kanji practice book.
It's a specialized vocabulary practice sheet that can be used for both English words and kanji.
Please tell me that sooner.
No, it's my fault for not asking.
But the initial request was "a PDF of a grid for kanji practice." It's impossible to derive an English/Japanese common form from that.
Since I don't have it, I have no choice but to remake it.
No. column, English/Kanji column, meaning column. I made the entire right side a practice space.
Since number 15 was pushed to the next page in the reference image, I'll fit all 15 questions onto one A4 sheet.
7 practice attempts.
Added fields for subject, date, scope, and name.
I made 20 pages again.
In the middle of it, my iPad suggested, "It becomes easier if you auto-fill the form."
iPad, be quiet for now.
Resubmitted to the client.
I thought this was the end.
It wasn't the end.
"The practice space would be easier to write in if it were a little bigger, right?"
There it is.
"A little."
One of the most terrifying units in system development.
How many millimeters bigger? Vertical or horizontal? Is it okay to reduce the number of questions? Should I keep the number of practice attempts?
I don't know anything.
However, this is a home P1. It's faster to show something visible than to hold a long requirements confirmation meeting.
Kept the 15 questions. Trimmed the top margin, increased the row height from 15mm to 17mm. Reduced practice attempts from 7 to 5, and expanded each square from 15x15mm to 20x17mm.
The area increased by about 51%.
This time it's definitely easier to write in.
Resubmitted again.
Reply from the client.
"Shrink the meaning column."
Okay.
"Make it so you can write two characters if it's kanji."
Okay.
"A thin dotted line in the middle of the space."
Ahhhhhhh, so annoying!!!
At this point, I looked up commercially available kanji practice books.
I'll put aside the question of whether I should have just bought one from the start.
Looking at commercial products, they use squares around 17mm and cross leaders to make it easier to find the center of the character. Showa Note's kanji practice books and Bunundo's study books also have lines with similar concepts.
Of course, I'm not copying the logos or the page layout.
I'm just taking the functionality.
Shrunk the meaning column from 38mm to 25mm. Allocated the freed-up width to the practice column.
The practice column groups two characters together, repeated 3 times.
Added a thin vertical dotted line at the boundary of the two characters. Furthermore, added the thin horizontal dotted line specified by the client to the center of each row.
If it's kanji, it's easy to write two-character compounds. If it's English words, the dotted line can be used as a height guide.
Converted all 20 pages to images again.
Confirmed the page count, print margins, number of dotted lines, font, and that number 15 exists on the same page.
Delivery.
The client was satisfied.
Home P1, closed.
By the way, the reward this time was a sweet watermelon🍉
Not cash.
No stock options either.
But it was sweet, so I'll call it good.
The cause this time
I conducted a post-mortem.
The cause is a lack of hearing with the client.
Before starting to make it, what exactly will be written? How many questions per page? Will it also be used for English? Is the kanji one character or two? Are there any reference forms?
I should have asked that much.
However, what was a bit tricky this time was that the mental image of the finished product in the client's head wasn't disclosed at the beginning either.
I present the finished product.
Seeing that, the client realizes.
"Yes, yes, this kind of table is good."
"It would be better if it were a little bigger."
"I want to write two kanji characters."
In other words, the specifications weren't all organized from the start.
Requirements sprouted by seeing the prototype.
It's a common thing.
I didn't know because I didn't ask.
But even if I had asked, it's highly likely that everything wouldn't have come out from the start.
Even with small PDF creation at home, the same things happen as in regular work.
It will probably happen next time too.
What to do next time
From next time, I will forbid making 20 pages all at once.
Get a reference image or a handwritten rough draft.
Make a prototype of just one page.
Show it to the person who will actually write on it.
Confirm the square size, number of questions, items, and guide lines.
Increase to 20 pages after approval.
That's obvious, isn't it?
Why didn't I do that this time?
Because it was a home P1.
And because I thought it was "just making a grid."
It wasn't just making it.
In the end, it became a specialized study book for a first-year junior high student, common for English and Japanese, 15 questions, two-character support, with guide lines.
The usage is more limited than commercial products.
It's a machine dedicated to my son.
Since I went to the trouble, I'll distribute everything.
Including the PDFs I made along the way, I'll leave them all here.
There is also a first edition that was never used by anyone.
It's a memorial.
① 15mm square kanji practice book
For those who want to practice kanji normally, one character at a time. With cross guide lines. 192 characters per page.
② English/Japanese common, 7-square practice version
For those who want to repeat one word many times. Prioritizes the number of practice attempts.
③ English/Japanese common, larger 5-square version
For those who find 7 squares too narrow. Reduces the number of attempts and makes the entry fields larger.
④ Two-character x 3 times, final version with center dotted line
This is what I delivered to the client this time. Can be used for both two-character compounds and English words.
Please feel free to use it for home, personal study, or school/cram school study purposes.
Please do not sell the PDF itself, include it in material collections, or use it commercially through redistribution. Printing and distributing it is fine.
Thus, the home P1 ended.
My son got his practice book, my wife was satisfied, I was left with 3 types of unused PDFs, and I ate watermelon.
The kanji practice book I made first still hasn't been used by anyone.
So, please use it.
Crying.
#GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #Parenting #JuniorHighStudent #EnglishLearning #KanjiPractice #FreeDistribution #PDF #RequirementsDefinition #HomeP1
