Do I need a hair brush to write Chinese characters?

[Haethurn]

I'm a 16 year old language enthusiast who is trying to learn some new languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi for now, but I am aiming to be decalingual by the time I'm thirty), and I just got some books/cassette tapes on learning Chinese a few days ago.

I'm on Unit 3 "Writing Chinese Characters" and it says "These strokes are basically straight lines and were traditionally written in ink with a hair brush." This seems like a stupid question, but I need to know if I do need a hair brush to write authentic Chinese characters. Do I, or is it just nice to have one? I know that I can write Arabic with a pencil or a normal pen, but it doesn't look truly beautiful unless I use a calligraphic pen. Even if hair brushes are not required, I would probably end up trying to get something like it for purely aesthetic reasons.

Anyways, I'd just like to say that it has been said that Arabic is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but it seems like Arabic does not have anything on Chinese. This language is absolutely foreign to me, the entire logic behind the way it is set up is completely different than anything I've ever seen before...radicals, phonetics, characters, etc. It's difficult, but somehow intriguing, like just about all far and near eastern languages. I should be getting a book on Japanese tomorrow; I wonder which I shall like better, Chinese or Japanese?

[xuechengfeng]

圓珠筆﹐鋼筆﹐鉛筆﹐毛筆﹐都好。

You're taking on quite a task for a 16 year old. I wish you luck. I hope to learn all Asian languages one day, but I found it's best to progess with one language at a time. If you can do all of them, I applaud that.

As for my sentence up there, pens, pencils, and brushes are all good in my eyes. I honestly don't think I could handle a brush, I have hard enough time writing them with pen & pencil.

As for their "true beauty" depending on which writing utensil, I don't know. Maybe a native Chinese can answer that for you!

[Haethurn]

I'm fairly certain that I can handle Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Hindi at the same time.

Chinese won't be that hard for me, I don't think, if I can only get past these horribly bound books. I got "Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script" a few days ago and already twelve pages are falling out. It is like the pages are held together by a small dab of Elmer's glue. It is so horrendous that it is kind of discouraging me.

Today off of Amazon I bought "Mandarin Chinese: An Introduction" and "Beginner's Chinese." Let's hope that they don't fall apart before I can learn anything from them.

[Altair]

I am not a native speaker, but I agree with Xuechengfeng's post. Pen and pencil should be fine for normal purposes.

Although, pen and pencil are now the usual writing tools, Chinese writing for the last 2000 years or so has traditionally been done with brush and ink. This heritage has left a permanent imprint on the shapes of the characters. The shapes of Chinese cursive writing and of the Japanese syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) only make sense if one realizes that they derive from brush writing.

Good character writing has almost certainly been given more weight than good penmanship in Western tradition. Even a horizontal line written in pen can have subtle variations in pressure and direction that depart from what one might expect to be a symmetrical shape. Do not think that you are off the hook if you write with pen and pencil.

I would guess that a beginner using a brush and ink would likely be taking on quite a challenge, since this is quite a revealing medium. Pen and ink is likely to produce much better results for a beginner, since stroke thickness and pressure is less of an issue.

Chinese calligraphy is really a distinct art that can benefit from the type of practice one would put into learning a musical instrument or a sport. Traditionally, one started out copying large examples of characters and would not graduate to normal sized-characters until after quite a bit of practice. During some periods, bad writing was even seen as sign of bad moral character.

Even more than Arabic calligraphy, Chinese calligraphy requires quite substantial compositional skills. The relative sizes of the strokes and the character elements changes from character to character, since every character is supposed to have more or less the same relative size and fit into the same imaginary square in the same way. I am not sure that English or Arabic calligraphic skills would translate very well into Chinese writing.

Using a brush to write requires the same command as using a brush to paint. This is why calligraphy is traditionally considered to be the foundation of Chinese painting and even a more refined art than painting.

If you want to have fun, by all means use a brush. If you are serious, consider lessons. If you want to avoid embarrassment over the short term and prioritize your study time, I would suggest sticking to pen or pencil.

[Yuchi]

Yes, definitely pen or pencil first.

I can write "tian" (sky) beautifully (or says my old grandma, it's among the easiest characters) with pen, but when I use ink and brush, it looks like utter crap.

Also, I wouldn't be so considered about which strokes comes first, if you're going to have "light" focus on chinese, I'd put more thought into memorizing the character itself, it's easier for me that way. Though dictionaries help you look up characters with number of strokes sometimes.

[pazu]

Haethurn, you're great!

Yes I also think it's possible to learn a few languages at the same time, and indeed it's just impossible not to learn "more than one language at the same time".

When you're learning Chinese, you're learning vocabularies of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese; when you're learning Vietnamese, you're learning Cantonese; when you're learning Laotian, you're learning Thai.

Every language is a dialect of another language, every language comprises some elements from other languages, sometimes not just "similar" but exactly the same.

[galitonwu]

书法分很多种类：硬笔（钢笔）；软笔（毛笔）；篆刻（刻刀）等等

书法和学习语言是两回事。

[Jasper May]

@Haethurn: You sound a lot like me when I was 13 years old. I also wanted to learn every language there was to learn, started with Hindi, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Hebrew and Arabic, but never followed through. Yeah, ok, I know the Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi alphabets, but I've forgotten all the rest. Are you really serious about doing this (not just learning a couple of hundred words and calling yourself proficient)? If so, I wish you the best of luck. It's tougher than you'd think.

(btw, I'm 17 and have independently learned Russian to (post-)graduate level, I know what I'm talking about )

[Haethurn]

Jasper May-I'm pretty serious about it, especially about learning Arabic and Hindi. Hebrew seems to be difficult because all of the books I find on the subject are mainly written for a Jewish audience, and thus the vocabulary taught in it wouldn't help me at all if I wanted to have a conversation with an Israeli farmer or shop-keeper or something like that. Almost all of the vocabulary is taken from Jewish prayers.

As for Arabic, I am currently at the point where I have memorized the alphabet and know several hundred words, but I'm not stopping there by any means. I'm getting into the grammar of the language now, and soon I will be reading out of the college-level book "An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic" by W.M. Thackston. Might try Haywood as well.

Congratulations on learning Russian by self-study. I would like to learn that someday, also, but I would probably learn Greek first (I want to read the Bible in its original Greek and Hebrew, and the Qur'an in its original Arabic, since aside from language I'm pretty interested in religion and history).

What stopped you from going all the way in learning Arabic, Hebrew, and Hindi? Did you lose interest, or hit a stumbling block, or what?

[Jasper May]

Well, don't let me stop you, of course! Have you had any previous language-learning experience? That'll help a lot. I'm Dutch/English, and I was already learning French, German, Latin and Greek at school. It's a bonus, I can tell you. Though you seem quite intelligent, you'll manage, I'm sure. The reason I stopped learning those other three languages is mainly just loss of interest, the deadliest obstacle you'll be facing.

A few months ago I was boasting about my having learnt 400+ Chinese characters in 1 month, but now I've ground to a halt, again... I really must find some motivation again. Anyway, успехов тебе!

[xuechengfeng]

The Bible was originally written in Greek and Hebrew?

[Jasper May]

What did you think? In English? "If English was good enough for Jesus, it sure as hell is good enough for me." Forgot who said that, but it must have been an American.

[sunyata]

haha, funny thread...

Jasper, since your russian is so good, how come you don't post a response in our russian thread?

Haethurn > good luck with your langauge learning endeavors...sure is surprising, coming from a West Virginian girl.

[xuechengfeng]

Jasper May:

I was under the impression it was originally composed in Aramaic?

Or was that just the language Jesus spoke?

[Meng Lelan]

Haethurn:

Galitonwu said it very well - learning a language and learning calligraphy are two different skills. Calligraphy (writing characters with a brush) is a challenge to learn. I strongly recommend that learning to write Chinese characters with a brush be undertaken with an experienced teacher of calligraphy.

[Haethurn]

sunyata-Correction: West Virginian guy.

Jasper May-I figured it was just because you lost interest. Well, I am so enamored with Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish cultures so I doubt I'll get tired of learning the languages.

Meng Lelan-well, I had better give up learning calligraphy, then. I can tell you one thing, you aren't going to find "an experienced teacher" in West Virginia.

Would I really need a teacher though, or could I just buy books on the subject? I know that there are many books that teach various styles of Arabic calligraphy.

*Sigh* I was supposed to get a book on Japanese, but I tracked it and apparently it isn't going to arrive anytime soon...probably they will refund my money. Although really it isn't mine, it's off a gift certificate off of my dad's credit card. Can't buy anything directly off of my dad's card because he died a few weeks ago...the gift certificate was for $100 and was from a relative of mine (actually an adopted daughter of my uncle) who is was in Italy and was sorry that she couldn't come to the funeral. She knew that I love books and languages so she gave me the gift certificate to make up for it. She spent some time in China, I believe, as part of her job. So for some reason that got me interested in learning Chinese, although I had thought about it before.

I don't know if the refunded money will be put back into my gift certificate or what. I do hope so...if Chinese doesn't work out very well, I'm pretty sure Japanese will-after all, isn't Japanese very similar to Chinese only with very simplified characters? I think there would have to be a very charming beauty to that.

And what about Korean? Can anyone tell me about that?

[xuechengfeng]

I suggest you go to the public library to see if they have books on all these languages.

I've gotten plenty self-instruction books from my library, but it is a college one, so it's probably more plentiful.

[Haethurn]

Yes, this public library in West Virginia doesn't have anything like that. As you can probably understand, me and MAYBE one of my friends who is looking to get into linguistics as well would probably be the only ones borrowing these books.

Basically the public library in my area is...pathetic. They spend most of their funds on buying Stephen King books and bad romance novels that the old ladies are always borrowing.

My uncle in South Carolina is the Executor of my dad's will and he says that he will try to get me a credit card or work out something. Once the estate is settled (all of my dad's assets have to be consolidated and placed in my trust fund for my college education, and also I have to put the money from my dad's IRA in a savings because I'm looking at six years of college to get my doctorate) he will be able to focus his attention on providing me with a way to buy my books off the Internet so that I can continue my self-studying.

So, don't worry about it. In a month or so I will be able to continue buying these language books and tapes.

[xuechengfeng]

Sounds good, again, good luck.

The only books I've used through Ohio State University for reading and writing are

John DeFrancis Beginning Chinese books.

You should check them out, they are pretty informative. One book covers the dialogues in pinyin, and the other is strictly characters. There is a lot of good exercises and all that junk. There are about 400-500 characters to the book, which would probably be a good base for you.

[woodcutter]

The trouble with calling oneself "Decalingual", I should imagine, is that you would have to maintain the 10 languages as well as learn them. Which wouldn't leave much time for long walks........

They say Richard Burton (no, not that one) knew 28 languages. And I once met a Russian who said he knew 70. But I asked him something in Mandarin and he stared into his glass. I'm always a little suspicious of such claims.