Cutting too many corners? A new students approach to learning

[jbradfor]

(e.g., why are the three main horizontal strokes in 笔 right-left, left-right, left-right?).

I just tried it with MDBG with all three horizontal strokes left-right, and MDBG found it just fine. [As the fourth listed -- the first one was 託 -- no idea why....]

Which is my point. Unless you're doing calligraphy, 95% of the way correct is just fine. But I think it is important, and not all that hard, to reach that 95%.

I'm sure there's some underlying logic

There is. After finishing off the bamboo on top, your pen is on the upper right. Drawing the first stroke right-left saves you from having to move your pen more.

[aristotle1990]

It doesn't pay attention to the direction of the strokes. If you try putting in the big center thing first (right after you draw the first horizontal stroke), though, it throws it completely off.

[renzhe]

e.g., why are the three main horizontal strokes in 笔 right-left, left-right, left-right?

Because the one on the top is not horizontal. See 毛.

[rob07]

I can certainly understand not wanting to spend a lot of time of learning stroke order, but jbradfor is right. You can probably learn the basic principles in an hour and it is easily worth it if you want to learn to read because anything that makes it easier to understand how the characters are put together will help you remember them.

aristotle1990 is right as well, even if you know the basic principles, exact stroke orders for obscure and complicated characters often won't be obvious. But this probably qualifies as a cuttable corner.

[abcdefg]

Regarding stroke order again -- I use Pablo off line to draw characters I've met in daily life but cannot identify. Seems to tolerate a few minor deviations from proper stroke order but not major ones. Anyone know what recognition engine it uses?

Even though writing is not a top issue for me, I do jot down things I see while walking around the streets of China so I can look them up later. Am never without a small pocket notebook and pen.

Will also agree with other posters that when I’m having a hard time remembering a new word, writing it by hand several times usually helps.

[renzhe]

I agree. General rules are intuitive and easily learned, it's a matter of half an hour, including writing some common characters to get the "feel". No reason not to at least learn the basic principles.

As for radicals and components, you will learn them automatically as you learn hundreds of characters -- it's impossible to remember anything without decomposing them. I don't think that you need to memorise radicals from a list -- as you learn characters, you will notice recurring parts, and use this knowledge to remember them more easily. When you see recurring parts like 木 , 扌 or 氵, it's easy to remember them in passing. It would be silly not to. This is one of those things where you learn what you need, as you need it.

[Gharial]

I'm not sure how anyone could think 毛 began with a horizontal stroke - the tí (rising) stroke, maybe! (But probably you guys were jus' talkin' loosely! ). Anyway, it's always worth learning what stroke an item actually begins with (and in this case it's the piě, i.e. left-falling stroke), if only because doing so will help one locate that item quicker in logically-arranged radical charts and indexes (e.g. the CASS 189, and the ABC CRC).

[youhao]

In my opinion, you should learn it all! And you have already been there for 2 and half years! Gasp, I went for 3 months and can recognize close to 1000 char. Dive deep man, write them! I find it very enjoyable and strive to make my 外国人wàiguórén chicken scratch better. Also learn the components 横héng 竖shù 弯wān 钩gōu and so forth as well as radicals, there are 214 radicals btw. 好好学习天天向上！提高很快！