Comments on: How to improve your Chinese handwriting

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Tue, 19 May 2020 07:02:10 +0000

In reply to Peter. You mean, such as this one: Learning to read handwritten Chinese? :)

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 18 May 2020 19:37:30 +0000

I would really like to see something on how to read Chinese handwriting! I have a degree in Mandarin but we all learned to write in print style, and never had to read a single word of hand-written Chinese. When I went to work in China I was frequently given hand-written notes which I had to try to read. There is almost nothing out there on the net, or in books.

By: Fearchar

Fearchar — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 08:26:12 +0000

Care must be taken when selecting support for character learning: in cases where the character fonts are based on simplified character sets, the tendency is to introduce systematic errors, i.e. to replace the correct full-form character with a simplified one. This affects dictionaries, books about character writing and apps. For example, Shanki (mentioned above) replaces the correct full-form character 從 with the simplified one, even when full-form (traditional) characters are selected.

It is easy to choose bad models but nearly impossible to overcome their bad influence, and for those wishing to learn full-form characters, the field of Chinese learning is full of such traps.

In short, don’t believe the claims of any supposed support to writing characters without independent verification.