handwriting - Is it standard practice, or acceptable, to connect strokes in certain characters of hiragana?

I've been learning my hiragana from here:

http://yosida.com/en/hiragana.html

For the characters fu, mu, mo, na, ra, yu, and ya, I see a discrepancy between what's in the little box and what shows up when you click the character to see it being drawn. For these characters, the little boxes show several strokes seemingly connected in smooth lines, while the drawings will show strongly separated marks.

Which "style" -- if that's the appropriate word -- is preferable?

Answer

I'm not Japanese, but based on what I know it is up to you to choose which style you would like to write in. However, as I commented previously, I recommend that you stick with the "handwritten" style rather than the "printed" one if you are using a pen or pencil. However, if you are using a brush then perhaps the other is more appropriate.

There is a great article about the differences of Japanese scripts linked here. The article notes which styles of writing you might find more frequently in Japan and the context. At the bottom, there is a large entry about handwriting which compares many different "styles".

All are correct, but the criterion is whether Japanese can recognize that your "ふ" looks like a "ふ". I might note that stroke order and stroke count are really important. For example, if you choose to draw "ふ" in 2 strokes instead of "4", you might just want to make sure that Japanese people can recognize it.

Probably the two or three characters that end up being stylized are そ、ふ、and ゆ.

Here is another short article that talks about the differences in writing style.