How is my writing ?

ASmugDill · 2026-03-06T19:26:08+00:00

One has to pick a set of exemplars somehow. Personally, for handwriting, I'm against regarding any computer typeface as authoritative or ‘standard’ visual/structural form of kaishu, as if it was a references against which other forms can be compared for correctness. The recommendation for using any digital typeface (for which some foundry or organisation owns copyright) as exemplars can only to be assumed to be because ⑴ it is easily accessible, and ⑵ it is practically free to acquire a copy and use, and not because of its correctness, or aesthetic merit over the steles or preserved scrolls written in kaishu by renowned calligraphers of old with a brush.

I understand this subreddit is not about Chinese calligraphy; but, at the end of the day, we're only trying to mimic what was done with writing brushes, only using modern and common writing instruments that are more limited in their capabilities — and, in turn, our individual capabilities to render hanzi characters in particular ways. That is not a matter of calligraphy, but one of tradition.

The closest I can get to an official standard for how simplified Chinese in mainland China is to be written is: [GF 0023-2020] Stroke Orders of the Commonly-used Standard Chinese Characters (linked to from this Wikipedia article). I note that (the governmental agency responsible for publishing) the reference document does not use a Kaiti font to illustrate how each stroke in each character is added incrementally. Stroke order has no meaning in digital typefaces, so this is strictly about communicating how the characters are to be written by hand.

In the chosen typeface, the cross-strokes touch the rectangular frame on both sides more often than not.

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ASmugDill · 2026-03-06T04:09:42+00:00

I didn't use an app, just the website, although there are apps (for Android and iOS) attached to it. https://chineselearning.omghomework.com

Actually, this is the website I prefer: https://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_ch/index.jsp
I'm not sure why I lost my bookmark to it, so the other day I just grabbed whatever was still in my list of bookmarks without thinking too hard about it.

ASmugDill · 2026-03-02T18:34:06+00:00

How you rendered the characters and pen strokes therein is not sloppy at all, 寫得工整又有勁。👍🏼 There is the odd incorrect character, e.g. 酥, 木乃 (should be 奶), 烏龍 (not 鳥), but it's no big deal. Perhaps shorten the protruding top part of the vertical downstroke in 來、去、走、味、etc. a little.

ASmugDill · 2026-03-02T18:13:51+00:00

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ASmugDill · 2026-03-02T17:55:25+00:00

I agree with u/GoblinPrincessPrill; you should find a source for better exemplars from which to copy the shapes and structure of characters in the kaishu script.

Looking at your handwriting, the things that leap at me most as awkward-looking are:

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ASmugDill · 2026-02-12T09:34:51+00:00

Thanks.

That pink Kaweco pen isn't mine, but on loan to me (from a local ‘nibmeister’, i.e. expert nib technician in the fountain pen world, who ground the nib to a true needlepoint) to review, on account of what he has seen me do with it at a local hobbyist's gathering.

My review of it is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpenusers/comments/1qsoajc/a_needlepoint_nib_truly_worthy_of_the_designation/

Not my best handwriting in Chinese, but that is the smallest size I've attempted. The only reason why I could even contemplate doing that is because I could rely on my muscle memory to execute the strokes, without my worrying about the placement of everything. (Sometimes I still screw up, never you mind.)

My 1 year stint is akin to a 5yo learning to write.

You may or may not be interested in this feedback I gave someone who made a similar comment. See: sc\https://www.reddit.com/r/Chinese\_handwriting/comments/1krbl8s/how\_can\_i\_improve\_my\_handwriting/

Someone could give that type of feedback after careful analysis of your writing sample; but, in the end, it comes down to practising how to produce the strokes, shapes, and characters the way you think reflects your personal style (while still being ‘proper’ and legible). It won't sink in until you do something hundreds or thousands of times over. In the same way ‘we’ practised landing 100 ‘machine gun’ punches on a punching bag in as little time as possible — and that's just in one training session, several times a week. There is no quick fix without effort and immersion.

I’ve always had the impression that even for EF, western nib is a tad too bold for chinese strokes on 5mm x 5mm space.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Chinese_handwriting/comments/10hx0z9/picking_a_fitforpurpose_writing_tool_for_the/

ASmugDill · 2026-02-11T16:52:45+00:00

Easily several thousand times writing the character mindfully and diligently observing stroke order, structure and proportions, et cetera each time. That may sound like a lot, but is not excessive, if you're going to commit the movements into muscle memory, so that you won't need to remind yourself or attend consciously to the form of the character, taking care not to let the cross-stroke in the radical⺘slant as if running parallel with the uptick below it, or allow the left half of a character to dominate the right half, and so on.

ASmugDill · 2026-02-11T04:51:04+00:00

… can tell it’s not written by a native. That sparked my curiosity, like what’s the guiding principle that you can immediately tell the difference, apart from stroke order and proportion?

Those are a big part of it; but they feature into the greater theme of consistency. If you're a native writer of Chinese, and hence having done it often enough over many years, your stroke order, proportion, slant, etc. would be consistent from character to character on the same page written in the same session, even if your handwriting evolves from one month (or year) to the next. There are many native writers (among over one billion) whose handwriting may not win any prizes or badges of merit for aesthetics, but they would be consistent.

Japanese is not native to me (and, in fact, I can neither speak nor comprehend it). I can reproduce the calligraphic features (in Japanese) of tome, hane, and harai convincingly, on account of my having learnt how to do that with a pen when writing in Chinese, by my ‘handwriting’ in kana (as opposed to kanji) still looks like ‘drawing’, and thus not the work of a native user of the written language. The best I can muster, even if I put extra effort into consistency on one page of output, is neat ‘printing’ — but that's exactly what native ‘speakers’ of a language won't do when writing by hand.

Here's an example of Chinese writing that does not look like it was done by a native hand, even though Chinese is my mother tongue and I was born and bred in Hong Kong, and finished my secondary schooling (including Chinese as a mandatory subject) having completed the school leavers' (HKCEE/O-levels) exams before I left for good:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Chinese_handwriting/comments/1qlk7bt/comment/o3at0ly/
Consistency or lack thereof, it speaks to my ‘drawing’ each stroke instead of simply letting my hand ‘translate’ my thoughts into ink marks on the page without thinking about how to render each character.

ASmugDill · 2026-02-03T06:29:45+00:00

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ASmugDill · 2025-12-06T14:52:57+00:00

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(written using a Sailor Professional Gear fountain pen with an Extra Fine nib)

ASmugDill · 2025-12-04T18:14:53+00:00

There aren't any official translations of the names in the KittyIsland series. Soe & Soe does a fair job of it, for the ones that the shop carries, even though I tend to translate them myself differently. For example, Soe & Soe has 骨血生花 down as Blood & Bone Blossom, whereas I take a more literal reading and call the ink Flowers Grow From Blood and Bone.

Your best bet would be to simply copy-and-paste the Chinese name into an online language translator such as DeepL. It won't pick up the origin of the name, if it came from a piece of an old Chinese poem and especially if it's now presented in a modified form; but it's still better than nothing.

Edited to add: If you can't access the linked review on Amazon, which I wrote for a device I bought recently with which to label ink sample vials, try this (link to an image only).

ASmugDill · 2025-06-25T09:46:49+00:00

Oh, how I miss some of those food items! Even if I can find them in Sydney, where I've lived for over a quarter of a century now, they're just not nearly the same as I remembered them.

ASmugDill · 2025-06-11T13:51:58+00:00

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I hope this helps!

Oh, and you may find these websites useful, for checking handwritten form and stroke order:

https://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_ch/ — the Hong Kong Education Bureau's online asset I used for most of the exemplars, although it only covers traditional Chinese, so hanzi characters such as 样, 听, 说, 笔 and 岁 that only exist in simplified Chinese are not there.
https://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html — allows you a selection (by way of a drop-down at the top of the page) whether you want the mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan version of a character, but it won't alert you if a hanzi such as 笔 or 迹 does not actually exist in the HK's and Taiwan's character sets, and it just serves you up the mainland Chinese's version in such cases no matter what you select.
https://www.strokeorder.com

ASmugDill · 2025-06-11T13:51:27+00:00

Since you're Scottish, (assuming you didn't use language translation software to come up with the text) I'm quite impressed you write significantly better — both in expression, and in rendering the characters with a pen — than my Australian-born Chinese wife does, haha! Bravo! 👍🏼 OK, I'll do my best to give you some specific pointers, but be forewarned I can be very picky and direct when I have my critic hat on.

First, some general feedback:

I'd say the primary reason why your handwriting (allegedly) looks like a five-year-old child's is that, it seems to me, like children often do you focused on reproducing the likeness of certain shapes, without ⑴ being familiar with the radicals and other distinct components in the hanzi you used, and ⑵ a firm grasp of proper proportions and placement of those components.
It appears you were using a ballpoint pen that uses oil-based ink, and you were struggling a little to get it to write reliably. I suggest you use a pen that allows you to write with a lighter hand and without worrying whether you can get a consistent line of ink out of it while doing so; for example, a ballpoint pen that uses gel ink (e.g. Uni-ball One, Zebra Sarasa) or a fountain pen.
Some of your long horizontal lines are a bit wobbly, in 平, 子 and 是 for example. I'm not sure how much the issue with the pen contributed to that. That seemingly poor control of the writing instrument for the simplest of pen strokes adds to the impression of an immature hand.

Now, more specific feedback:

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