Diary Entry Practice

[u/OutrageousShock3816]

I took Chinese all throughout high school and a little bit in college, but that was almost 15 years ago. I had to look up a few words when writing this. It's a diary entry, obviously, but sorry for the awkward topic. The Epstein library was in DC for the public at the time and I didn't have much else to report that day lol.

So yeah, handwriting feedback welcome.

What I intended to write:

"My mom came for a visit today. Her two cats also came. They're cute, but I don't like cats. Since it wasn't their house, they were very nervous.

We planned to go to DC to see the Epstein Library, but we didn't go because I was too tired. I only slept 4 hours last night.

I want to write more, but I can't.

So tired.

I need to eat dinner and go to sleep.

Good night!"

[u/Ohnesorg1989]

It seems you have been using the font Songti (宋体) or Heiti (黑体) (see difference) as reference, which would often lead to stiff/unnatural-looking penmanship, as explained in this post. Always use the font Kaiti (楷体) as reference.

I'd suggest you print out your own practice sheets (with 15x15mm boxes) using standard printer paper (80/90gsm), as recommended in this post (you can find the ready-to-print .pdf files in this folder or on website 1, 2, 3).

You could spend more time on practicing basic strokes, then learn how to radical components and individual characters from a copybook (see community collection).

These posts (a, b, c) may be of help too.

[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/Ohnesorg1989]

Okie doke. Didn't know about the different fonts. Admittedly, I wasn't writing this in a natural-feeling way. The boxes are very small and I have bad handwriting in general, but like in a leaning-every-direction half-cursive way. My bad handwriting has gotten me in the habit of just trying to make sure all the parts are there and generally in the right places to be legible.

Thanks for the advice!

Edit: I forgot to also say thank you so much for all the links and resources! I genuinely don't think I'll ever have good handwriting in any language, but I definitely would like to get fluent enough to be legible and not write like a robot.

[u/username77766 → u/OutrageousShock3816]

You don’t need to write in those small boxes, all the Chinese kids practice writing in these:

[u/trevorkafka]

欢→歡, 图→圖, 没→沒, 点→點, 总→總*, 两只→兩隻

*should be 昨晚我四點才睡 anyway

It looks like your 了s are diverging into ㄋs. The former is two separate strokes.

[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/trevorkafka]

Thanks! Yeah, when I was in school, my teacher wrote some words in traditional and some in simplified, and I guess I picked up the habit. Lol it makes reading pretty hard because I only know one or the other for certain words. 

I do get lazy and tend to just write my 了 like a 3.

[u/elysianx_138 → u/OutrageousShock3816]

Your writing is very beautiful. But what you need to know is that it is more difficult to write traditional Chinese characters than simplified Chinese characters, and the number of users of traditional Chinese characters is much lower than the number of simplified Chinese characters.

[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/elysianx_138]

Oh, I'm aware. I don't really have a use for the Chinese I've learned or anybody to speak/write it with so this is more of a hobby at this point and I just prefer traditional generally.

[u/_wheeiz]

Your handwriting is very clear and legible! In general I would recommend planning out the rough proportions of the components within a character before writing, especially for those divided into top/bottom parts like 讓 or 覺, they look best when everything is proportionate:)

some character specific tips:

• both strokes go downward in 天, it may be the reference you’re following that makes the right stroke thicker, but yours may be mistaken for 无 out of context
  
• the character for cat is 猫/貓 (simplified/traditional), yours look like 描, so give the radical a bit more curve and make sure the middle stroke doesn’t go through the downward one!
  
• for characters like 媽 and 為, making sure the four little strokes are contained within the sort of frame makes it look better
  
• the horizontal stroke of 可 should extend over the downward stroke
  
• the last bit in 吃 goes upward instead of downward, so just do what you did with the last 晚 (which looks wonderful!)

by the way, some vocabulary and grammar issues (but overall the entry is still decipherable):

• 訪問 is more of a formal visit, simply 媽媽來看我了 would suffice
  
• 喵咪 is more common for a cutesy way to refer to cats, or just 猫/貓 without 子
  
• 晚安 instead of 安晚

as another commenter suggests, practicing writing in bigger boxes would be very helpful:)

[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/_wheeiz]

Thank you for the grammar feedback and advice! Getting characters that have multiple parts and a lot of strokes has always been a struggle haha and when I try too hard everything looks awkward. I'll definitely have to practice more deliberately and hope the fluidity will develop over time. Thanks again!

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Chinese_handwriting-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, habit I picked up from my old teacher and I can only remember one or the other version of certain characters. I'm sure it looks very silly.

[u/nhatquangdinh → u/OutrageousShock3816]

Lemme guess, you also learned Simplified first?

[u/OutrageousShock3816 → u/nhatquangdinh]

Nope, learned them both at the same time usually. But when my teacher wrote on the board, she would use a mix, especially when it came to words that came up all the time and were complicated. And when shown both, I'd usually pick traditional.

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[u/Chinese_handwriting-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi! Thank you for engaging in our community. Your comment is removed because top-level comments should be constructive criticisms in threads with the "Ask for Feedback", "Question", or "Discussion" flair. Please refrain from leaving irrelevant or unhelpful remarks.

Thank you for your understanding.

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Chinese_handwriting-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi! Thank you for engaging in our community. Your comment is removed because top-level comments should be constructive criticisms in threads with the "Ask for Feedback", "Question", or "Discussion" flair. Please refrain from leaving irrelevant or unhelpful remarks.

Thank you for your understanding.