Developing motor skills for handwriting

[imron]

Split from here.

 

But, I suspect that Hanzi grids or a proper lined grid would probably be better for practicing penmanship than just visualizing it.

It depends what your final goal is. Visualisation works great for recognition, however for actual handwriting there are also fine motor skills involved that you need to practice if you don't want your handwriting to look like a child's.

There is no substitute for physical writing if you want to develop those motor skills.

[hedwards]

In my experience, that's not really true. In the past, there was the belief that you had to actually do something in order to develop any of the skills. More recent inquiry has revealed that you can develop skills just by watching or even thinking about it.

 

The other bit that you're overlooking is that writing characters uses the same fine motor skills that drawing does or writing very small. The key difference is what you're drawing. If you know the 12 or so typical character layouts, then there isn't really any reason to write those characters out physically. Writing them mentally is just as good.

 

I can draw quite well, so writing out characters only serves the purpose of forcing me to look very closely at them. Visualizing the process of writing each stroke of each component is every bit as good at that, provided that I've memorized the correct set of radicals and components in the right order.

 

Anyways, I won't derail things further, it's interesting discussion, but not exactly on topic.

[imron]

Anyways, I won't derail things further, it's interesting discussion, but not exactly on topic.

That's what new topics are for

 

If you know the 12 or so typical character layouts, then there isn't really any reason to write those characters out physically. Writing them mentally is just as good.

In my experience, it's absolutely not as good.  Your characters will still come out childlike and or disproportionate when writing them.

 

To get fluid handwriting that looks like an adult you have to spend a large amount of time practicing to write.  It's not just things like shape and stroke order, it's things like differing pressures as a result of lifting up and putting down the pen that leave trails and a whole bunch more.  Once you get to that point then maybe thinking about it is enough, but you need to get to that point first.

[Meng Lelan]

More recent inquiry has revealed that you can develop skills just by watching or even thinking about it.

 

 

 

If I can watch or think about kungfu, I can develop my kungfu skills? I am not positive about that. Back to my punches and kicks drills. 

[Shelley]

I believe that there is no substitute for actually putting pen to paper and practicing. One of my first teachers explained stroke order is a way to be able to remember how to write characters, It becomes automatic and one stroke follows another. Also it makes sense when you do because it flows.

 

Practicing writing is not just for learning to write, even if you never plan to write with pen and paper it is the best way I think to learn characters.

 

Also when you use correct stroke order it looks correct. I have found doing it in the wrong order really affects the smooth flowing writing that makes it look right. Once the writing becomes automatic then you can work on the artistic and beautiful side of it.

 

I use Hanzi grids first and then squared paper and finally just lined paper. I also like practicing using my tablet not so much for the look but for getting the stroke order ingrained.

 

I even sometimes get my Chinese brushes, ink ,stone and paper out and enjoy some calligraphy. This is more like art then writing and is very relaxing and fulfilling. it is almost like meditation.

 

So I would always suggest people take up their pen and paper and give practicing with it a go.

 

I cannot agree with visualization being all you need, i could think of loads of things this really would not work with for example driving a car and also working with live electricity. You have to actually do some hard work to learn things, there is no easy way.

 

Visualization is good for things like runners, visualizing the race, visualizing breaking the tape and standing on the winning podium but they still have to do a lot of running to get fit and fast enough.

 

Visualizing writing does not work for me, I don't think it will have a place in my learning routine.

[bluetortilla]

I learned the correct stroke order for radicals long ago and their positions relative to the imaginary grid. I really enjoyed writing characters out for my first five years of writing and I've never forgotten stroke order. However, as a child my penmanship was always very poor (still is) and I always had problems in cursive writing (I've heard that they've stopped teaching cursive these days btw). But then again my fine motor skills in everything have always been poor, and the best I was ever able to accomplish in Chinese characters was writing that could pass for a sixth grader.

With the advent of the word processor and pinyin input my writing ability in characters has nose-dived to the point where I can't even fill out a form by hand anymore without using a dictionary. When I do write it looks horrible- not so much like a kid's, but just scrawled. I realize I really need to get back into writing (writing notes, using a trackpad) but i'm putting it off for now as I'm studying for the HSK. 

None of this has affected my recognition in the least, and I still know my radicals 'filed in my brain' as I have for all these years. But I do believe that writing is important, that it is beautiful, and it is a sign of dedication and respect to the art of Chinese language. Be careful- computers can ruin writing skills!

[Hofmann]

I'm currently writing a series on handwriting that starts here. I haven't gone into technical skills though.

[OneEye]

(I've heard that they've stopped teaching cursive these days btw)

 

I know this is pretty much true in Taiwan. Most people can make a decent stab at reading cursive, but few people can write it, except for older people. I'm taking a class on how to read 草書 which is, believe it or not, a graduate-level class in the Chinese department. The Taiwanese students in the class are better at it than I am, of course, but not as much better as you might expect. 

[Shelley]

I was very impressed with your series on handwriting Hofmann. A plus 1 from me.

 

it is so good to see it so clearly laid out and with excellent examples.

 

You say you haven't gone into the technical skills, does this mean you will in the future or are you not going to at all. I hope you do

 

I shall be using this to keep my mistakes hopefully to a minimum.

 

Thank you

[OneEye]

Agreed, those articles are fantastic. I'm working on my handwriting right now (or maybe I should say "I intend to"), and the series looks like it's shaping up to be a great reference.

[Hofmann]

Perhaps I'll talk about technique after all this stuff about writing correctly.

[abcdefg]

Saw a silly game show on TV last night (Kunming) which featured handwriting with a twist. Competing teams were given a word verbally (read out loud) and then it was defined. Also it was flashed on a screen where the audience could see it but the contestants could not.

 

The two teams, wearing special suits, had to lie down on the floor, each four-person team on a large box that was divided into a standard (rice-type) Hanzi grid and recreate the appearance of the character by arranging their arms and legs the right way, doing their best to form the needed strokes (横，竖，撇，捺, and so on) well enough that some judges could guess what the character was.

 

Motor skills of a different kind.

[Meng Lelan]

The game of Twister with a 中文 twist.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Hofman: Your series on handwriting is great, thanks a lot for sharing!

 

I was wondering if you've ever had a look at 席殊3SFM实用硬笔字60小时训练. Do you know if this book teaches correct stroke orders? I bought it based on a recommendation on these forums, and it looks a lot better than the 字帖 with tracing paper in between the pages in that it actually explains how to write the characters it teaches. If only there was a traditional edition...

 

imron: Hanzi Grids seems to be down, I get an "Unable to connect to database error" when I follow your link.

[Hofmann]

I haven't looked at the book. If it shows any stroke orders on this list, you can check for yourself.

[imron]

imron: Hanzi Grids seems to be down, I get an "Unable to connect to database error" when I follow your link.

Thanks, am trying to get this resolved now.

 

Edit: And it should be back up.  Sorry about the inconvenience.

[hedwards]

Sorry guys, I've been a bit busy.

 

Anyways, learning by watching or listening depends upon the mirror neurons. The part where things get somewhat difficult is that you sometimes need to develop the nerves in the fascia, the tissue that surrounds the muscles, and that tends to require some amount of practice.

 

But, when you're talking about Chinese characters, there's about 400 shapes that make up all of them. There's the 214 radicals that you need to be able to write and then there's nearly 200 more components that are not considered radicals for technical reasons. If I recall correctly, many of them were originally considered to be radicals when the first dictionary to use the system was developed.

 

Anyways, Once you know how to make those components, there's not any particularly good reason for spending a lot of time writing out the characters. There is some benefit in terms of planning the characters, but it's pretty minimal. You do get somewhat more efficient at writing with practice, but I've seen how Chinese people write Chinese and quite frankly, I rarely, if ever, saw them taking the time to write neatly anyways. And whether you've written a character correctly 1 time or a million times, if you're writing too quickly the penmanship will always suffer. Same thing goes for my penmanship, when I'm writing slowly, I get neat easy to read letters, when I write quickly, I get sloppy letters that nobody wants to read.

 

For those that are interested in the theory behind this, it's based heavily on visual memory and mirror neurons. It's why when I sit down to draw after a few months off, I'm usually better than when I last drew.