is it bad to write pinyin first and then hanzi?

[skylee]

Not that strange actually. We only spent like our first 21 years at schools (of course not everyone is the same, and many schools in HK were not Chinese-language schools) yet most of us have been in this line of work longer than that.

If a foreigner takes notes in his native language when listening to and conversing in Chinese, I think it shows that person is strong in comprehension and capable of translating what he hears and speaks into his native language instantly.

I am not sure how someone writing in English when listening to English has to do with his Chinese level.

[陳德聰]

As someone who has gone through "Chinese school" outside of China, as in the type that convenes on weekends for inordinate amounts of time, I find it odd that someone would judge a person's Chinese level based on their own personal choices in their own personal note-taking. I don't think "Oh that person must not know how to write 煞笔" (deliberate) because they write SB instead. Often when I'm taking notes on English material I insert Chinese if it is faster or the way to represent an idea is more straightforward, or insert random symbols.

[Lu]

I am not sure how someone writing in English when listening to English has to do with his Chinese level.

My bad, I meant Chinese. Must have typed too fast. I amended my post.

[AdamD]

It takes the brain time to adhere Chinese characters directly to speech and vice versa, but once that adhesive takes hold it's stronger than concrete.

 

Yesterday I mentioned how difficult it was to have a toneless pinyin conversation with a friend, but it's even more than that. When I'm writing on paper and I forget how to write a word in a sentence, I can't write the pinyin without a struggle. It feels like making sandwiches with my feet. The only way I can proceed is to look up the word in a dictionary app, which requires typing the pinyin. I can't even begin to explain that contradiction, but it's there.

 

The same applies to speed writing. Pinyin takes me longer than writing even 17-stroke characters because I need to transplant myself mentally out of Chinese. When I'm writing down a Chinese word for a friend, I need to write the characters before the pinyin; usually they're all "mate what are you doing I can't read Chinese" and I have to explain what I've just done.

 

@grawrt: This is what you've got to look forward to. I hope that in five years' time you'll look back on this thread with fond nostalgia.

[skylee]

The only way I can proceed is to look up the word in a dictionary app, which requires typing the pinyin. I can't even begin to explain that contradiction, but it's there.

Consider using an E-C dictionary app so you can input the English word to get the Chinese term. It might help.

[AdamD]

Thanks for the tip. Looking up the word using pinyin isn't a problem; it's the contradiction of happily using pinyin in Pleco v struggling to write pinyin with a pencil that doesn't make sense.