Post your characters and critique mine. (Please)

[周钰]

I just started learning Chinese I'll be posting pics of what I'm practicing( at least 3 days a week) so I can improve. Encouraging all the novices to do the same. 

Open to all suggestions either good or bad.

 

[Hofmann]

That seems to be a terribly inefficient learning and practice method. Novices, experts, everyone, don't do that.

[Shelley]

This is the sort of thing I am sure lots of us have done. I still try and do it with new lessons.

 

What else would you suggest @Hofmann?  I am sure you have a really good book on this

[歐博思]

Nicely written!

[周钰]

@Hofmann I shouldn't do this ?

[周钰]

1 hour ago, 歐博思 said:

Nicely written!

Thanks. That's comforting atleast.

[somethingfunny]

Yeah, I'd say that if you've just started and you're trying to figure out which is the most efficient and effective learning strategy for you, this is probably a good idea.  Sure, if I learn a new word/character now then I'm probably not going to benefit from writing it out a bunch of times, but if you're a new learner, I don't really see what the problem is.

[DavyJonesLocker]

 

11 hours ago, Hofmann said:

That seems to be a terribly inefficient learning and practice method. Novices, experts, everyone, don't do that.

 

Thats not true Hofmann, that is the way almost every chinese learning book, chinese teacher and language school up and down china teach characters. Inefficient maybe but it without a doubt the standard method of practicing  writing characters

 

I use anki. 

Create a deck with pinyin and the english on the front and the character on the rear (with other bits like radical if required). An SRS system can be very useful. I find that the review times can be extended quite quickly compared to simple recognition

 

To test myself I physically write and then reveal the card. The disadvantage is that you don't have stroke orders. I suppose you could put them in but would be time consuming to create the cards. There is Skitter though but its too expensive in my view

 

 

 

 

[艾墨本]

20 hours ago, 周钰 said:

Open to all suggestions either good or bad.

 

Good job on the characters! No need to adjust any aspect of them. Keep up with learning proper stroke order which will make writing quickly in the future a little bit easier (easier not easy!).

 

Keep up with whatever method holds your interest at this point. Improving is great but first and foremost, this is a long process that requires you to find a way to enjoy it.

 

Have you tried writing on simple lined paper without a reference? It might be a good way to say if you are remembering how to write the characters or are simply copying them. I used to always keep a notecard to cover up the character I had just written to prevent me from copying and require me to actually remember how to write it. This helped me.

 

If you are interested in other study methods, just let me know.

 

Good job and keep it up!

[DavyJonesLocker]

 

1 hour ago, 艾墨本 said:

 

Have you tried writing on simple lined paper without a reference? It might be a good way to say if you are remembering how to write the characters or are simply copying them.

 

A small white board is a nice and relaxing way  of writing then too. Can sit at home have a coffee, listen to music at the same time. Years down the road it will become very dull writing characters so it's good to find a nice and relaxing method

[Hofmann]

4 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

Thats not true Hofmann

And that was an imperative sentence, without ambiguity.

 

15 hours ago, Shelley said:

What else would you suggest @Hofmann?

I'm glad you asked, but before I get to that, I'll tell you why practicing like this is inefficient. The only good reason for writing something repeatedly is to develop automaticity of production (of either components or characters). At the beginning, you won't get automaticity because your vocabulary is so small. I don't think this was the goal anyway. OP probably wants to improve their handwriting. Trying to learn the features of correct handwriting by writing something repeatedly doesn't make sense (especially if you're reproducing your own handwriting, but that doesn't seem like what OP was doing). Handwriting is learned by observing correct writing, seeing patterns to learn its features, and trying to reproduce them.

 

Traditionally, you had to do this yourself by copying reference characters repeatedly. Through your copying you observe patterns and uncover underlying features for yourself. But this is very difficult and inefficient because you begin not knowing what to look for, what matters, and what doesn't. Furthermore, many people turn their brains off when they do this, acting like photocopiers.

 

I've gone through such an experience, but I'd like to believe I wasn't as brain-dead as a typical learner. Recently, I described the features that I've observed in regular script in a book, Regular Script Graphemics. I recommend you sacrifice the time you'd take rewriting stuff you don't understand to read the book. Then, once you know what matters and what doesn't, you can decide for yourself how you want to write, while being confident that whatever you produce will end up correct.

[davoosh]

@Hoffman - I have enjoyed your posts about writing characters for a while and I recently purchased your e-Book after I decided to try writing with a brush. I am finding it informative and useful. Here is a photo of my attempts at writing with a brush.

 

 

 

[Hofmann]

Thanks for the feedback. Where have you observed that 正?

[davoosh]

There are a series of '歐陽詢入門' videos on youtube by '陳忠建' so I am assuming it is in the style of Ouyang Xun (unless the teacher is also mistaken)?

 

Also, would you happen to know any 'copy books' online for Ouyang Xun's kaishu? Thanks. 

[js6426]

They look great, well done!  I do this with new characters I want to learn to write, and also new vocabulary.  Perhaps it is inefficient, but I am also aware that people have different learning styles, and this really helps to cement new content for me.  I do this to begin with, and then add them to the flashcard feature on Pleco.  I have actually tested this for myself (as best as I could), by trying to learn 2 sets of words.  One set I wrote down repeatedly as you have, and then added to Pleco.  The second set I didn't write down, and then also added them to Pleco.  When testing myself on them I did FAR better on the ones I had written down, to the point that I just deleted the ones I hadn't and relearned them. 

 

I'm no language learning genius, but I think you have to do what works for you.  Try new methods, if they work then stick with them, if not then don't!

[roddy]

On 04/03/2018 at 12:34 AM, Hofmann said:

That seems to be a terribly inefficient learning and practice method. Novices, experts, everyone, don't do that.

Don't worry, OP, this is Hofmann-speak for "Welcome to the site, I'm going to try and help you even if it doesn't feel like it." 

[Tomsima]

3 hours ago, davoosh said:

would you happen to know any 'copy books' online for Ouyang Xun's kaishu?

www.shufazidian.com is a good resource to check out. Select 楷書, then search a 正 and you'll see what Hofmann's talking about.

 

If you want a copy book, nothing beats a good quality 字帖 (anything in the 彩色放大本中國著名碑帖 series by 上海辭書出版社 is a great choice). High resolution images of works by 歐陽詢 are almost certainly searchable online if getting hold of a physical copy is too difficult.

[davoosh]

Thanks! I'm not actually in China so I don't know how easily I can get a print copy of that. Looks like I'll have to do with images.  Some examples of 正 on shufazidiyan look similar to the one I/ 陳忠建 wrote in that the top stroke is shorter and more to the right, but my brush writing is also still in a very early stage so proportions are probably horribly off...

[Hofmann]

I don't know how 陳忠建 writes, but you have alignment problems. Let's take one of those shufazidian.com images and draw on it.

 

So, did 陳忠建 analyze this character correctly?

[davoosh]

Thanks - that makes sense. I've just started the part about alignment in your book actually. I think 陳忠建 did analyse correctly, although his central vertical stroke seems to be slightly too much to the right (or my observation skills are just bad...!).

 

(Apologies OP I feel like I have derailed your thread a bit.)