Tips for Practicing Writing Chinese Characters. By Serene Zawaydeh. September 10, 2024
Practicing writing helps with remembering the new words learnt. Following are some tips on writing, in case some students might find the information useful.
1) You need to get lined paper for writing Chinese, so that you can write the characters inside the boxes. When writing using the lined payer, the handwriting is better than when writing on other paper. You can find the paper online and print it out. For example: https://chineseprintables.com/paper/rice_A4.pdf
2) You need to write with Pencil, as you might make mistakes and need to redo it.
3) I started by using Yabla, looking at each Character, and looking at the order of the strokes for each word. The first word I wrote was "我“. I wrote it over 50 times.
4) Write all the words that you see in level 1, and in level 2 and above, write all the lessons.
5) You need to have the word clear in front of you. Each word must be big in front of you. There are apps that help with learning and doing exercises on each word. Use technology for practicing learning the words and sentences.
6) After learning the word and how it is written, you will be able to recognize the new words. and then you can also type the words. Typing means that you know the pinyin, and you know what the word looks like and you can choose it correctly. There are many words which have similar sounds, so you need to know how the word is written, to choose the right word.
7) You need to practice writing by hand, and you need to write each word. Practice writing every day.
8) You can write on any other paper, to practice more and more. But I have a notebook with lined paper for the full lessons and list of new words.
9) The word has to be big and clear in front of your eyes.
10) Language Player helps with knowing which characters are combined together as one word. The combination of characters has a new meaning. Adding the word to Dictionary provides the different colors by level.
11) Chinesimple app has exercises for choosing the right number of strokes, and practicing writing on the screen with the right stroke order. These are good exercises to start with for learning new words. Adding the list of words learnt to the Dictionary keeps track of the words learnt.
12) At the beginning of learning Chinese, starting from HSK1, there are pictures that help with remembering how the words are written and the associated meaning.
13) Knowing the meaning of the word, what similar words have similar components
14) Knowing how the words are pronounced and not only how they are written.
15) Keeping track of the learnt words and doing a lot of exercises.
16) When looking up a new word, without knowing how to say it, you can write it on your phone's screen on Pleco.
Cursive handwriting of Chinese looks different and might look difficult to read, even if the student knows how to write a word.
Following is a commonly seen word in festivals, 福, fú, which means "Good Fortune, happiness, luck." This is what it looks like on Yabla, which shows how to practice writing the word stroke by stroke. The colored words below it, are all for the same word, 福.
Other Blogs I wrote
- 我的汉语学习方式—做完HSK四之后! 2023年2月13日
- Learning Chinese: What kind of effort is needed to complete HSK4, and what is it like to study higher levels? 2023 年2月13日
- What does the process of learning Mandarin Chinese look like? Some tips for new learners.” 2022 年1 月20 日
- The Ongoing Process of Learning Chinese, HSK5. 2024 年1 月10日
- Examples of Simplified Chinese. There is no end to learning 学无止境! 2024 年1 月22 日
- Change
is the only Constant Thing in the Process of Learning Chinese. 2024年 7 月19 日
- Tips for Practicing Writing Chinese Characters. 2024年9月10日
- What
if… Higher Levels of HSK Chinese Tests could be Redesigned? 2024年4月2 日
- Making up Stories using Chinese Characters. 看汉字写小故事！2024 年6月29 日
- Lost Bag Story, Handwritten in Chinese; 2023 年3 月16 日
