It’s important to improve Chinese writing ability, be it by hand or by computer. For the beginner, stroke order and character composition is a major problem, but for advanced learners, writing articles and improving accuracy becomes more important. Here are some other questions discussed in this category:
- How do I learn to write Chinese characters?
- How can I improve my writing ability?
- Do I really have to write characters by hand?
If you you’re new to Hacking Chinese and want more general advice, please sign up for my free introduction course. I will summarise and introduce the most important things to keep in mind when learning Mandarin:
[mc4wp_form id=”7547″]Let’s look more at writing ability. I have selected a few articles I find extra important. For a complete list, check the bottom of this page.
- Creating a powerful toolkit: Character components – If you plan to learn to read or write Chinese, you will need to learn parts of characters (components) and parts of words (characters). There are an untold number of combinations of these, and if you only study these it will be impossible. This would be a little bit like learning maths by studying thousands of examples, but never actually looking at the underlying equations.
- Four different kinds of mistakes: Problem analysis – So, you’ve made a mistake, but do you know what kind of mistake it was? Perhaps it was the kind that you can safely ignore and just keep going, but it might also have been a very serious mistake you should spend time correcting. This article is about identifying and dealing with different kinds of mistakes.
- Learn by exaggerating: Slow, then fast; big, then small – If you want to speak or write quickly, you should start out by doing it slowly. Mimicking native speed early will just lead to sloppy language and bad communication. Expose your errors so that you have a chance to correct them.
- Using Lang-8 to improve your Chinese – Learning a foreign language, most people lack proper feedback from native speakers. Even if we have friends and teachers, always having to ask for help isn’t very good. In this article, I explain how Lang-8 solves this problem for you. Useful for any language, not just Chinese!
- Improving writing ability: Common problems and how to tackle them – Learning to write well in Chinese requires lots of practise, which presents us with a number of problems. How do we find suitable topics? How do we avoid performance anxiety? How can we benefit from the mistakes we will make? These are some questions I discuss in this article.
- When perfectionism becomes an obstacle to progress – Perfectionism is usually regarded as something positive, perhaps even necessary. Scoring 100% on an exam is good, isn’t it? No, it’s not. In this article, I explain why perfectionism is bad when learning a language. Aiming for 90% is far better than aiming for 100%. This is being smart, not lazy.
Here’s a list of all articles related to writing ability in some way:
- Benchmarking progress in Chinese to stay motivated
- Can English learning materials help you learn Chinese?
- Chinese translation challenge, August 2024
- Chinese character variants and font differences for language learners
- Chinese character learning for all students
- Interview: Insights from Skritter’s Complete Guide to Learning Chinese
- Real communication: What it is, why you want it and how to get it
- Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass review: Understand more, learn faster, remember longer
- Chinese writing challenge, February 2024
- Student Q&A, February 2024: Typing or handwriting, using new words in texts, and how to use AI to improve your writing
- 12 ways chatting online will improve your Chinese
- How to best use flashcards to learn Chinese
- Is learning things by heart good for improving your Chinese?
- Should you throw away your Chinese textbook?
- Insights from the new HSK 7-9: Interview with Sara Jaaksola
- Hacking Chinese Podcast two-year anniversary Q&A
- How to learn Chinese characters as a beginner
- How to become fluent in Chinese
- How to learn from your mistakes and errors when learning Chinese
- Do you have to learn to write Chinese characters by hand?
- On accuracy, communication and comprehensibility when learning Chinese
- How to start learning Chinese again after a break
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 6: Learning and remembering compound words
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 5: Making sense of Chinese words
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 3: Compound characters
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell
- Chinese language logging, part 3: Tools and resources for keeping track of your learning
- Chinese language logging, part 1: Why and how to track your progress
- Chinese input methods: A guide for second language learners
- 20 tips and tricks to improve your Chinese writing ability
- Are simplified characters really simpler to learn?
- All the resources you need to learn and teach Chinese stroke order
- Diversify how you study Chinese to learn more
- Training your Chinese teacher, part 4: Writing ability
- Should you learn to speak Chinese before you learn Chinese characters?
- How to get honest feedback to boost your Chinese speaking and writing
- How to figure out how good your Chinese is
- 5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure
- New course: Unlocking Chinese – The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
- The nine principles of learning (and the mistakes from failing to follow them)
- 101 questions and answers about how to learn Chinese
- The beginner’s guide to Chinese translation
- 36 samples of Chinese handwriting from students and native speakers
- How to improve your Chinese handwriting
- Task-based Chinese learning and teaching
- Looking up how to use words in Chinese the right way
- The benefits of using 语文/國文 textbooks to learn Chinese
- Why you should start blogging in Chinese today
- Hone your Chinese writing ability by writing summaries
- A minimum-effort approach to writing Chinese characters by hand
- How knowing your best performance in Chinese can help you improve
- Learning to write Chinese characters through communication
- 7 ways of learning to write Chinese characters
- Handwriting Chinese characters: The minimum requirements
- Why good feedback matters and how to get it
- Asking the experts: How to learn Chinese grammar
- Improving your spoken and written Chinese by focusing on the process
- How to improve your Chinese writing ability through focused reading
- Drills and exercises aren’t only for beginners
- Phonetic components, part 1: The key to 80% of all Chinese characters
- Improving your Chinese by translating from another language
- Learning Chinese in the shower with me
- Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals
- Language is communication, not only an abstract subject to study
- Using Lang-8 to improve your Chinese
- When perfectionism becomes an obstacle to progress
- Making progress in Chinese in spite of praise
- Learning simplified and traditional Chinese
- Learn by exaggerating: Slow, then fast; big, then small
- Learning Chinese through social media