writing characters with pen(cil) instead of a brush

[ignatz]

Hello, I found this very active forum thru a google search, which landed me here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37222-where-i-can-find-examples-of-chinese-characters-in-pen-or-pencil-not-brush/ -- an apparently dead thread, and the sole posting on this forum by batment7. The responses are fascinating -- the very idea of cursive characters boggles my mind -- but off point, I suspect. I don't think s/he was asking about handwriting. (Why can I not get a paragraph break here?) I'm a total beginner, and focused entirely on learning radicals and characters (morphology & roots = history built into a word. Love it.) I think batment7's question was the same rank beginner question that lead to my google search: the typical font used for characters emulates brush strokes. How do I recreate that with a pen or pencil? It's futile, but my characters look so lifeless without the changing thin/thickness of the line and the little hook/flourish on the end of the stroke. Honestly, it makes it difficult to compare and judge my accuracy. I am working with online materials and books, no tutor or class. I will be moving to Hong Kong in a couple of months, thus my focus on reading and writing traditional characters. My understanding is that this will give me some foundation in Cantonese. Thank you for a very interesting forum. Way over my head at the moment, I look forward to reading it with more understanding in the future.

[Shelley]

Hello and welcome,

I don't think you will be able to recreate the look of characters written with a brush with a pen or pencil. I have a few pens that emulate brushes, they are ok but not the same.(ZIG ART & Graphic Twin tut-80 Japan) is on the pen, brush at one end thin marker at the other end.

As you are just starting and enjoying all the good things about characters, I wouldn't worry too much about the artistic look of your characters just yet, correct stroke order and proportion is much more important. I find characters not written in the correct order do look different than when written correctly.

One point, if you are moving to Hong Kong, these days AFAIK they are now mostly using Mandarin, and also I understand that they also use simplified characters. I may well be wrong about this in as much as changing to mandarin was expected but what has actually happen in real life, on the street as it were I don't know. Never been to Hong Kong so I may well be wrong. If I was you I would ask that question here and get some better experienced replies. I understand that really only Taiwan uses traditional characters these days.

Good luck, and even though you feel this forum is over your head at the moment, you would be surprised how helpful it can be, just ask the right questions and you can get lots of help.

[skylee]

(Why can I not get a paragraph break here?)

Obviously for some mysterious reasons. But you are not alone. Take a look at this thread -> Press return and zero response

[skylee]

I will be moving to Hong Kong in a couple of months, thus my focus on reading and writing traditional characters. My understanding is that this will give me some foundation in Cantonese.

Traditional characters and Cantonese are not a bundle. There are people who use traditional characters and do not speak Cantonese (think Taiwan), and people who speak Cantonese and use simplified characters (think Guangzhou).

One point, if you are moving to Hong Kong, these days AFAIK they are now mostly using Mandarin, and also I understand that they also use simplified characters. I may well be wrong

As you said, you are wrong.

The OP might be interested in taking a look at this thread -> Handwriting Thread!!

[Hofmann]

Pencils on a hard surface can create light and dark strokes, by varying pressure. On a soft surface, line width can be varied too. Of course, you can't have differently shaped ends of strokes without moving it in some direction that isn't part of the body of the stroke (obviously visible on the beginning of 丨 and 丿 here).

And if Hong Kong speaks Mandarin de facto and writes Simplified, that's news to me.

[Shelley]

I didn't say Hong Kong "speaks Mandarin de facto and writes Simplified". If you read my whole sentence I was trying to say that when Hong Kong was returned to China people in Hong Kong felt they needed to learn Mandarin, whether this had happen in full or in part may affect what the OP choose to learn..

Skylee: you didn't quote my entire sentence, my point was in the part you didn't quote. But yes I may still be wrong but there is no need to be so abrupt. I am wrong, but what the correct answer is would be more useful for the OP.

[Ruben von Zwack]

My new flat mate is from HK, she is university-educated and has a good job (but right now she's doing a sabbatical in my country), so if Mandarin was common in HK she would have noticed.

But she certainly writes Traditional and speaks Cantonese. And when I ask her about some Mandarin, she often has to double-check or admits she doesn't know so, Cantonese is alive and well in Hongkong! It's not like Cantonese was some small language on the recess, it has just as many speakers as Mandarin.

But now on topic:

I practice with medium soft pencils, different strengths. The result looks much better than writing with any other pen, in my opinion. And you can be as precise or sloppy as you want.

[Lu]

As far as I've seen, Mandarin is increasingly useful in Hong Kong, but if you pick only one language to speak there, Cantonese is still by far the best choice. I had the impression that English is still more useful than Mandarin. This may also vary by the kind of people you are in contact with, but as Skylee and others said, Hong Kong still speaks mostly Cantonese.

[Kobo-Daishi]

I had the impression that English is still more useful than Mandarin.

This reminds me of an article I read in the Wall Street Journal last year.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/02/24/mandarin-overtakes-english-as-hong-kongs-second-language/

The February 24, 2012 article was titled "Mandarin Overtakes English as Hong Kong’s Second Language".

Snippet from the article:

Move over, English. In Hong Kong, Mandarin is fast emerging as a new lingua franca.

Fresh on the heels of a fracas between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese ignited in part by controversies over language, Hong Kong’s latest official census report reveals Mandarin has eclipsed English as the language second most commonly spoken by residents of the special administrative region.

The proportion of Hong Kong residents who report they can speak Mandarin – referred to in mainland China as Putonghua, or “the common language” — clocks in at 48%, according to census figures released this week (pdf), narrowly surpassing the 46% of Hong Kongers who can speak English. In 2001, the last time Hong Kong conducted a census, only a third of Hong Kong residents reported being able to speak Mandarin.

They've got a pdf of the census and all that.

Kobo.

[ignatz]

Thanks for all the generous replies. Kobo, I was about to post a link to the same article. Sums up what I've read about use of Mandarin in HK: in flux, lots of politics and more than a little tension. Lu, I will have the luxury of relying mostly on my English (unlike the two years I spent in South Korea) but I expect that I'll have a much richer experience if I can read and understand at least some of the characters. And we hope to do some traveling around the area also.

The paragraph break is fixed, excellent! Hofmann, thanks for the link to the practice sheets, that really helped. I can see that I need to start studying the individual strokes that make up the characters. It looks like those little hooks are not just brushwork flourishes; the direction is determinative. So far the only study materials I've found that show stroke order have been for whole characters, so that detail -- the importance of hook direction -- was not apparent.

My instruments of choice are medium to soft Staedtler pencils (and an eraser!)but I will look for some of the brush pens mentioned in one of the links. They should be interesting to play with. Thank you everyone.