Should I learn how to write? Returning from a Chinese hiatus

[Pandarollroll]

Back in 2008, when I first started learning Mandarin, I solely focused on reading, speaking, and listening. I completely neglected writing after a few Chinese people told me that I would only ever need to type and learning how to write the characters wouldn't be something that I would need to know how to do. Reading was always my strongest area and even though I couldn't write more than a few basic sentences, I could still gather the meaning of newspaper articles and what not.

 

It has now been about 4 years since I have seriously dedicated time to studying Chinese and I'm wondering if I should learn how to write this time around? After I graduate in the summer of 2015, I'm planning on working in China or Taiwan for 1+ year(s) and I'm just wondering what should be my course of action at this point?

[xuexiansheng]

I'm no expert on methodology, but I've definitely had gaps in between my studying of Chinese and character writing (production) always is one of the first to go. What I do is good old fashion pen and ink during study time! When you scan a text for new words, write them in a notebook (some of our younger readers may not know that word, notebooks are what was replaced by iPads and smartphones)    Also, if you are a flashcard user, there are tools in Pleco to write out characters on the screen before you reveal the answer. That can be helpful as well. The important thing is to find ways to integrate it into your studying and then it should be at hand after you are in China/Taiwan when ever the need to write the old fashion way comes up. Good luck!

 

Also, you can try 书法 but it is less practical writing techniques and more artistic practice. But every little bit of writing time helps... and it will help solidify the stroke order. (Also a way to see stroke order in Pleco.)

[gato]

If you are happy with and don't need to spend much time on your speaking, listening, and reading, then it'd be fine to spend more time on writing. Otherwise, I don't think it's a very efficient use of your time. The return is very low for the amount of time you need to spend.

[tysond]

I learn to write and I agree it's a fairly low return on investment versus improving listening, pronunciation, reading, spoken sentence production and pinyin input.  

I mostly only use it for writing homework, taking notes in lessons.

But it does seem to be useful in really ingraining the differences in characters.  And it's fun.

 

A suggestion when flashcarding/MCD-ing, is to test yourself by speaking and writing.

Grade yourself strictly on pronunciation (tone, sounds must correct) but be lenient on writing (you can be a little bit wrong).

 

I do it that way - a stroke or two wrong is not enough for me to fail the card (I'll mark it "hard" usually).

I'll then write it out 1-2 extra times and study it a bit to try to internalize it again.

I am more strict on common characters and more lenient on rarer ones.

 

But a sound/tone wrong - fail.   If I completely can't remember the character, confuse it with another quite different character, or mess it up signficantly, it's a fail.  

That way you are lowering your standards a bit, but can write reasonably well, get the benefits of ingraining the characters by producing them, without investing a ton of effort to be perfect.

 

(I was previously inadvertently being a bit lenient on tones by not really "committing" to the tone, I do not recommend this!)

[edelweis]

If you intend to work in China, I guess you should aim to be able to write emails and such.

Then you wouldn't need to learn to handwrite characters, you would just need to learn to use pinyin input methods to produce sentences that convey your meaning.

[Shelley]

I think learning to write rounds out your knowledge of Chinese. These days with electronic input methods as long as you know the pinyin you can send emails etc.

 

But purely for the joy of it, it is a wonderful thing to learn in my opinion. It really helps with character retention and a greater understanding of the written language even if you only need to read characters knowing how to write them can be a big help.

[imron]

If you are going to live and work in china or Taiwan I think it's a good idea to learn to at least write well enough that you can write your name and address for things like going to the post office or bank.

Nothing worse than having the teller complement you on how good your Chinese is and then have to ask them to fill in the form for you because you can't write.

[Pandarollroll]

Thanks a lot for the helpful replies everyone. Upvotes all around (not sure if it they do anything haha). I'll try to research some "high yield" characters for writting and especially ones that I will need for forms and what not while I'm in China/Taiwan. Cheers!

[hedwards]

I'd say that being able to read and type is probably more useful. Being able to write is a good thing, but only if it isn't going to compromise your ability to learn to speak and use the language.

 

As far as writing goes, you'll probably not need more than a few characters early on. I'd focus on learning to write the ones that come up and over time that'll grow into something useful. Personally, I don't generally spend much time hand writing characters as I've got other things that are more important to focus on.