Handwriting practice with Heisig's character list

[becky82]

While I'm totally underwhelmed by the Heisig and Richardson method (which lacks both pronunciation (!) and words (!!!)) as a study method, it provides a reasonable character order for handwriting practice for advanced students.

 

So I whipped up the attached document (3018 simplified characters).  It's adapted from this Pleco Forums post.  I had to fix a few errors from the Pleco post.  I added in character structures from Make Me a Hanzi.  I added as-common-as-possible words (or phrases, or names, where relevant).  I changed some tones on the 多音字 to more common pronunciations, and used capitalization when the given word/phrase/name requires is.  There's 100 characters per page (in a 10 x 10 layout), and so 31 pages (the first 15 pages is precisely the first volume of Heisig, and the remaining 16 pages is precisely the second volume).  The second volume is substantially harder than the first.

 

Enjoy.  The idea is that you download the pdf, print it out, and fill in the blanks for the characters you know.  (I estimate I can handwrite maybe 85% of the first volume, and maybe 40% of the second volume.)  You'll handwrite some characters incorrectly and you'll forget how to write some (the answers are at the bottom of each page).  From this, you can choose which characters you actually need to improve upon; most people won't need to be able to handwrite all 3018 characters.

 

I've been through this carefully to eliminate as many mistakes as possible (while practicing handwriting myself), but please let me know if you find any slip-ups.  I should be able to edit.

 

Do note that Heisig lists some rare characters; these characters I don't know, and am comfortable going into the HSK6 exam not knowing: 昭逾贱梅乃曼揪呐襟尹眷矢荫酋冈亥襄韦彥甫暇勒馨寅嚣矗砌灼灶炯晌淌桐焚逞轧榆炕淳亨墩瞻贰婿袄啼蒂顷沦炊淤蝗蚕遂赃桩怔瑟拭挟莽寇妓淑冶琉崎凯榕歼毙勋颓锹箩佐俏侍淫赎媚凛祟坤婶煞雏秉萧镰糠拂垮愕嗜菱窥窘绰绽缔绞绢孵玲岭梭垦靖豁潭涧轩悍疮殃秧焕拱浦缎舵溢敛魁俺奕驮芙蓉钧.  (Or, at least, I didn't know them at the time, but I've inadvertently learned some of them during the process of making this pdf.)  These rare characters occur mostly in the second volume, and are mixed in with common characters (another drawback of Heisig).

 

The Make Me a Hanzi database has a few bugs, and I may not have found them all (this would affect the character structure icons).  It describes e.g. 街 as ⿻ rather than ⿲ which seems debatable.

 

I'm thinking of expanding this pdf to e.g. include all the HSK characters:

 

Quote

HSK2.0 characters not in Heisig: 丐侃侈侥俐倔剔匹吝咀咋咙哆哦唆唠啃啬啰嗦嗨嗯嘈嚏堕墅墟婪嫉幢庇徙怯惋惦惫惮抒拄拙拽捍掐掰揍搀擎攒斟晤晾暄暧曝柬桔椎椭橙沐沮浏涮淀潇澈濒炫烹熨狈甭疙痪痹瘩瘸眶睦瞩磋窍簸紊绎缉肪肴膊舔荤蔼藐裔讳诧诽谤账赁赂踊蹋蹬辕辙迸遏酗酝钝锲阂阱韧饪馈髦

 

HSK3.0 characters not in Heisig: 丐丫侃侈倔兹刨剔匹卉卒卤卦厄吏吭呛咙哆哦唠啃嗦囱堕墅墟娥婪媲嫉嫦嬉孪屹峙崛巅幢弈弛弧徽怯恤惋惦惫慑抒抠抡抨拄拎拙拯拽捂捅捍捶掐掰掺揍搀撬擎攒攘晤曙曝杭柬椰楷槛橙汛沏沐沪沮沽浏涝涤涮淀淮渝漾潇潦澜灸炖炫炬烹焊煲煽狈猖畸痪痹瘟盹睦瞅瞩矣磊磋祀秽稽窍窒窿竣粤粽紊绎绯缅缉缤肇肪胚膊膳臊舔芭芯荆荧蔼蘸虔蜀裔讳讹诀诧诽谤账赁赂赡跤踊踹蹬蹭辙迪迭遏遛酗酝酣酥酵镑闺阂阎阱陨靶韧飙饵馁馈驭骇骏髦鲨

 

and make sure no common characters are missed, and perhaps give an indication when a character is rare.  But this presents additional challenges (especially which order to present the characters in), so we'll see; it looks like Mandarin Blueprint is doing something similar.

Heisig_chars.pdf

[honglam]

On 3/25/2024 at 11:57 AM, becky82 said:

It describes e.g. 街 as ⿻ rather than ⿲ which seems debatable.

The structure of 街 should be analysed as 行 and 圭. It's a semanto-phonetic character, in which 行 (originally meaning "crossway") implies the meaning, and 圭 hints the pronunciation. The picture is an oracle version of 街. The structures of 衙, 衢, 術(an non-simplified version of 术) are similar.

 

On 3/25/2024 at 11:57 AM, becky82 said:

昭逾贱梅乃曼揪呐襟尹眷矢荫酋冈亥襄韦彥甫暇勒馨寅嚣矗砌灼灶炯晌淌桐焚逞轧榆炕淳亨墩瞻贰婿袄啼蒂顷沦炊淤蝗蚕遂赃桩怔瑟拭挟莽寇妓淑冶琉崎凯榕歼毙勋颓锹箩佐俏侍淫赎媚凛祟坤婶煞雏秉萧镰糠拂垮愕嗜菱窥窘绰绽缔绞绢孵玲岭梭垦靖豁潭涧轩悍疮殃秧焕拱浦缎舵溢敛魁俺奕驮芙蓉钧.

Some of the characters here are frequently used in persons' names or places' names. I think more than 50% of the given characters appears a lot in news reports or similar articles.

[Tomsima]

I think that was the point that was trying to be made. As for the characters in question, I don't think any of them could be considered rare, I would suggest learning all if preparing for hsk 6. Starting from the head of the list, 司马昭之心，愈加，乃至, all common features in a higher register.

[becky82]

Attached is an updated version of the pdf (I got rid of some scattered pinyin bugs and capitalization errors, and changed some choices of word, e.g. 浇水 and 胶水 both have the form "[jiao1]水", which makes it hard to hard to figure out which "jiao1" it is).  Here's a YouTube video of me practicing handwriting using this pdf.

 

I've handwritten all 3018 characters twice now (I've been doing 400 per day, so it takes a while).  Here's a comparison of my handwriting for 100 characters from the first book (easy):

 

 

 

Left is an earlier version of this document (my handwriting was from about 2 weeks ago), and right is the above-linked version (my recent handwriting).  Red denotes characters I failed to handwrite correctly.

 

And here's 100 characters from the second book (hard):

 

 

It doesn't look like much, but you can see some improvements in my ability to figure out which character to write in which box.  I find the main issue nowadays is less "I don't know how to handwrite the character" and more "I don't know which character to handwrite".

 

(The other marks are not particularly important.  Yellow indicates changes I was thinking about making in the pdf.  The blue star indicates characters I should really be able to handwrite correctly, and the black question mark indicates characters I don't know.)

 

I already have a draft of another version where I've chosen which characters to include, rather than use Heisig's character list.  We'll see how this evolves.

   

On 3/25/2024 at 7:32 PM, honglam said:

The structure of 街 should be analysed as 行 and 圭. It's a semanto-phonetic character, in which 行 (originally meaning "crossway") implies the meaning, and 圭 hints the pronunciation.

 

In this document, I replace characters with blanks, and in those blanks I add icons that denote the characters' structure; most of the time it's easy, but sometimes like with 街 (which is just one example), I'm not sure whether it should count as ⿻ (like in Make Me a Hanzi), or ⿲ or ⿴ (like at Wiktionary).

  

On 3/25/2024 at 7:32 PM, honglam said:

Some of the characters here are frequently used in persons' names or places' names. I think more than 50% of the given characters appears a lot in news reports or similar articles.

 

Yeah, the characters I don't know are often used in flowery adjectives, names (of people or places, perhaps no longer used) and other characters like on the periodic table, or for fish, plants, insects, birds, heavenly/earthly stems, onomatopoeia, tools, historical relics, etc.  I don't feel like I lose marks on the practice exams because of such rare characters.

 

On 3/26/2024 at 6:52 AM, Tomsima said:

I think that was the point that was trying to be made. As for the characters in question, I don't think any of them could be considered rare, I would suggest learning all if preparing for hsk 6. Starting from the head of the list, 司马昭之心，愈加，乃至, all common features in a higher register.

 

Curiously, I have actually encountered a few of these unfamiliar characters since I posted last.  And some of them (due to posting here and editing the pdf) I've familiarized myself with.  When I say I don't know them, I mean I don't know their meanings and so on, e.g., I don't know what 昭 means.  If I encountered 司马昭之心 in my reading, I'd guess 昭 pronounced similar to 照, and infer 司马昭 is a name of someone likely related to 司马懿.

 

At some point, you have to draw the line.  I already know something like 3000 characters, which is several hundred more than the HSK6 syllabus.

 

Heisig_chars.pdf

[becky82]

On 3/25/2024 at 11:57 AM, becky82 said:

昭逾贱梅乃曼揪呐襟尹眷矢荫酋冈亥襄韦彥甫暇勒馨寅嚣矗砌灼灶炯晌淌桐焚逞轧榆炕淳亨墩瞻贰婿袄啼蒂顷沦炊淤蝗蚕遂赃桩怔瑟拭挟莽寇妓淑冶琉崎凯榕歼毙勋颓锹箩佐俏侍淫赎媚凛祟坤婶煞雏秉萧镰糠拂垮愕嗜菱窥窘绰绽缔绞绢孵玲岭梭垦靖豁潭涧轩悍疮殃秧焕拱浦缎舵溢敛魁俺奕驮芙蓉钧.

 

Wow time has flown.  I didn't study these in particular, but I recognize quite a few of them now (something like 7 months later).

 

Off the top of my head (so maybe I'm wrong): 梅（酸梅汤），尹（surname），矢（矢量），酋（阿联酋, I've also seen it used in "chieftain" or something like that），亥 (used in 辛亥革命 = "Xinhai Rebellion")，彥 (surname?)，甫（the poet 杜甫）勒（勒索, and a lot of transliterated names），馨（温馨），矗 (a fancy way of saying "tall and erect" (?))，嚣（喧嚣），炯 (I recall seeing this in chengyu, something like "pitiable" nope, that's not it)，灶（炉灶），桐（a type of wood 梧桐），焚 (I understand this pertains to burning in some way)，逞（something like "to flaunt")，榆（elm 榆树），亨（I've only ever seen it in transliterations like 亨利），贰（banker's 二），蚕（cocoon oh no, 茧 is cocoon; then I don't know 蚕），瑟（in transliterations）, 寇（I think it's used in an insult towards Japanese people 日寇, I'm not sure what else），妓（妓女），淑（淑女），冶（pertains to melding(?)），琉（琉璃, used mostly in names, like 琉璃寺），凯（凯旋, often used in names），勋（勋章），箩（a kind of basket, but not a 篮子?），媚（I've seen it in chengyu, but I forget now），煞（I think it's an alternative way of writing 杀），雏（I see this used figuratively, meaning early stages; I think it pertains to the development of eggs），秉（I don't know what this character means, but it's in 秉承），嗜（in 嗜好, the same as 爱好, I think），菱（in names, like 香菱 [in Genshin Impact] and 五菱 [car brand]），窥（I think it pertains to a peephole），窘 (something like "predicament")，绰（绰号），绽（绽放），孵（I think it means "to incubate an egg" or something like that），梭（梭林 is Thorin, king under the mountain），涧（something like "river valley"---this is a really good example of a character that is its own mnemonic），疮 (I think it's like "ulcer" or something), 秧（something like of "sapling")，拱（arch; 拱桥 and 拱手），浦（I've only ever seen it in Shanghai's 浦东），舵（rudder），溢（something like "to spill over the sides", usually used figuratively)，驮（I think this is used for horses, camels, etc., meaning "to carry on their back" ），芙（I see this in 芙蓉, which I see in names, but I don't know what it means）.

 

A lot of characters are like this: I have some vague idea what they mean.  Some of these characters, like 昭, I see in names (like 昭心 is the name of a weapon in Genshin Impact), but I have no idea what they actually mean. There are some characters, like 砌, which are usually either tool names, or some tool-related verb.  Surely 蝗 is a character in some insect name.  I get the feeling I'd recognize a quite a few more given context (actual words and sentences).

[Tomsima]

Fantastic job, well done.

 

瑟 is an ancient musical instrument that predates the 箏 and is the 阴 to （古）琴's 阳. It turns up in 琴瑟和谐 and also in 胶柱鼓瑟.

 

亨 turns up in the common slang word 大亨 (though has fallen out of fashion these days)

 

冶炼 to smelt

 

穿梭 shuttle 

 

All this talk of Genshin Impact, but 菱 is in 菱角 water chestnut!

 

 

[honglam]

On 10/9/2024 at 7:20 AM, becky82 said:

Off the top of my head (so maybe I'm wrong): 梅（酸梅汤），尹（surname），矢（矢量），酋（阿联酋, I've also seen it used in "chieftain" or something like that），亥 (used in 辛亥革命 = "Xinhai Rebellion")，彥 (surname?)，甫（the poet 杜甫）勒（勒索, and a lot of transliterated names），馨（温馨），矗 (a fancy way of saying "tall and erect" (?))，嚣（喧嚣），炯 (I recall seeing this in chengyu, something like "pitiable" nope, that's not it)，灶（炉灶），桐（a type of wood 梧桐），焚 (I understand this pertains to burning in some way)，逞（something like "to flaunt")，榆（elm 榆树），亨（I've only ever seen it in transliterations like 亨利），贰（banker's 二），蚕（cocoon oh no, 茧 is cocoon; then I don't know 蚕），瑟（in transliterations）, 寇（I think it's used in an insult towards Japanese people 日寇, I'm not sure what else），妓（妓女），淑（淑女），冶（pertains to melding(?)），琉（琉璃, used mostly in names, like 琉璃寺），凯（凯旋, often used in names），勋（勋章），箩（a kind of basket, but not a 篮子?），媚（I've seen it in chengyu, but I forget now），煞（I think it's an alternative way of writing 杀），雏（I see this used figuratively, meaning early stages; I think it pertains to the development of eggs），秉（I don't know what this character means, but it's in 秉承），嗜（in 嗜好, the same as 爱好, I think），菱（in names, like 香菱 [in Genshin Impact] and 五菱 [car brand]），窥（I think it pertains to a peephole），窘 (something like "predicament")，绰（绰号），绽（绽放），孵（I think it means "to incubate an egg" or something like that），梭（梭林 is Thorin, king under the mountain），涧（something like "river valley"---this is a really good example of a character that is its own mnemonic），疮 (I think it's like "ulcer" or something), 秧（something like of "sapling")，拱（arch; 拱桥 and 拱手），浦（I've only ever seen it in Shanghai's 浦东），舵（rudder），溢（something like "to spill over the sides", usually used figuratively)，驮（I think this is used for horses, camels, etc., meaning "to carry on their back" ），芙（I see this in 芙蓉, which I see in names, but I don't know what it means）.

梅 generally means Chinese Plum. so 酸梅汤 is "sour drink made of Chinese plum"

尹 was originally a word used to indicate some of the officials in ancient China. Now it is generally a surname.

矢 means arrow(the weapon used together with a bow) and then leads to the meaning of direction. So 矢志不渝 = not changing the direction of hardworking. 矢量 = amount with direction.

酋 stand for 酋长 in daily Chinese, which means the leader of tribe. The word 酋长 is also used to translate the Islamic aristocratic term Emir, so the Emirate(literally the reign of Emir) is translated as 酋长国. The full name of 阿联酋 is 阿拉伯联合酋长国 = United Arab Emirates

亥 is one of the 地支. It is a quite complicated system and connected with the whole system of geology, cosmology, calendar and astrology so it's hard to elaborate it easily.

彦 means the knowledgeables in Classic Chinese. It is frequently used in people's given name today.

甫 has several meaning and is a usually seen character in Classics. In 杜甫's name, 甫 stands for handsome and polite gentleman.

勒 is a heteronym. Actually it is quite common in oral Chinese as "to strangle" or "to be strangling", like “勒住脖子 strangling the neck”, “这件衬衫有点勒 this shirt is strangling = this shirt is too tight” 

馨 means aroma, grandeur, good things. It is often used in word like 温馨 (emotionally warm) and 芳馨(fragrance and aroma).

矗 means to stand and erect solidly. It is usually used to describe great and admirable things like a monument, a building or a mountain, etc.

The only usage of 炯 that I could remember is 炯炯有神, to describe that someone's eyes are sparkling.

蚕 means silkworm. It is actually quite related with cocoon.

瑟 is a Chinese musical instrument as mentioned above. 瑟瑟 is a onomatopoeia describing the state of shivering.

Both 桐 and 榆 are name of trees.

亨 means that things are going smoothly and well, like in 亨通.

冶金 actually means “metallurgy” so I think the best way to define this word is "to melt and purify or mix the metal so that it become something we want".

琉璃 is a transliteration of the Samskrit term "Vaidurya", the name of some very sorts of gems and crystal, generally used as decorations.

凯 stands for victory. So “凯旋” means to win and return.

勋 means meritorious service, merits, nobility or medals.

媚 is generally negative in most of the contexts, meaning "to flatter, to curry flavour with". But sometimes it has some positive meaning like in 千娇百媚(Charming).

雏 means nestlings, or in other words, Freshly hatched birds.

秉 is originally "a hand holding some crops". In modern usages it still means to hold, but generally in some certain words with positive meaning like in 秉承, 秉持, 秉笔直书.

嗜好 is somehow negative actually. It could be used to name someone's hobby, but sometimes it has a meaning of addiction as well.

菱 is another kind of plant living in lakes and rivers. wiki has it as "water caltrop". I think its distribution is restricted to Asia so I guess the majority of foreign learners won't meet it frequently.

窥 is actually a verb, meaning "to peep, to pry".

绰 and 绽 have complicated meaning so I could hardly elaborate them. But they are usually used in certain words and don't have much productivity today.

浦 is the name of a river flowing north through Shanghai. Now she's called 黄浦江, which divide the city into two parts: the Eastern area of Huangpu River(i.d. 浦东) and the Western area of Huangpu River(i.d. 浦西).

芙蓉 is another name of Lotus. It's also used to describe charming ladies.

 

Actually, the listed characters are not uncommon in a fully Chinese context. The majority(if not every) of them are commonly seen in spoken and written expressions of middle schools students. So mastering them is still essential to read words written by native speakers.

[becky82]

Oh wow, that's amazingly helpful!  This is content that's on the periphery of my knowledge.

[Tomsima]

On 10/9/2024 at 8:41 AM, honglam said:

勒

I always struggle with the pronounciation for this, is there a pattern for when it is lè and when it is lēi? Or is it just regional preference?

[honglam]

On 10/10/2024 at 6:42 PM, Tomsima said:

I always struggle with the pronounciation for this, is there a pattern for when it is lè and when it is lēi? Or is it just regional preference?

Just like other characters, it is very possible that we pronounce a very character in several different ways while these different pronunciations mean approximately the same thing. So instead of trying to explain it, I'd rather just paste a scan of the Xinhua Dictionary here lol

Generally, le4 is more formal. In oral context people uses more often the pronunciation of lei1 as a single verb.

[Tomsima]

On 10/10/2024 at 11:49 AM, honglam said:

Generally, le4 is more formal. In oral context people uses more often the pronunciation of lei1 as a single verb.

This is very helpful, thank you, I'd never thought about the possibility of compound preference for lè but it fits well.

[honglam]

On 10/10/2024 at 6:59 PM, Tomsima said:

This is very helpful, thank you, I'd never thought about the possibility of compound preference for lè but it fits well.

There is a certain linguistic term for situations like this, called "文白异读", lit. the written and spoken form pronounce differently. The origin of these phenomena is quite complicated, which need a good background of Chinese linguistics i think. The most common character with such phenomena is 血. In compound words it is usually pronounced as xue4 and is pronounced as xie3 when used alone, yet both pronunciation has the same meaning: blood. (And in real-world oral Chinese in China it is very often that this character is pronounced as xue3 in both circumstances.)

[Tomsima]

As far as I understand, the lè / lēi distinction is not a proper 文白 one. I just checked 现代 and it actually provides a very useful distinction that indicates the lēi pronunciation is a later development, not a colloquial pronunciation of lè:

 

lè：noun, 马笼头 （bridle/halter, ie. any cord secured to a horses head in order to control)

>  verb, 拉紧缰绳不让牲口前进 (to rein in an animal that is ridden in order to stop it moving forward)

>> lēi: verb, 强迫 (to force, coerce)

 

注意：勒字读lēi，用于口语，指用绳子缠住后用力拉紧，如”勒紧裤带“”勒死“。这个意义是由”勒 lè 的“拉紧缰绳”义引申出来的。

NB: lēi is used in oral contexts, meaning to pull tight a cord, eg. "pull tight one's trouser cords", "strangle to death (using a cord)". This meaning is derived from lè as the verb "pull on the reins"

[honglam]

@Tomsima Good question. I do think the border of 文白 is a bit dim. I'll work on some historical documents and corpus to find a systematic solution on this question recently. I think there's a trend of using 广韵 as the criterion between mere 多音字 and 文白异读 when discussing on such topic but it is quite doubtful whether this book is a perfect criterion. Maybe I'll find a better answer someday.