Time to look back on the semester. I practiced for about 25 hours, which is not spectacular, but considering how difficult it is to just sit down and write for more than 30 minutes, I think it’s not bad. I was primarily looking to learn to know how to properly write characters and learn things […]
I definitely didn’t get to practice over the past three weeks as much as I had hoped—but I have made progress.
I’ve had Alice, whose first and most fluent language is Chinese, review my practice book from time to time and she’s been giving me some additional tips. One thing that becomes difficult as I practice […]
Another cartridge of ink ran out in my fountain pen, and this time rather than using another cartridge, I decided to try using an inkwell with an “ink converter” to allow me to just twist some ink into the pen which normally uses cartridges.
Using an inkwell is so soothing. I want to get a pump-action […]
In our last class discussion the topic of motivation was brought up. The general consensus seemed to be that there is a magical property in expertise which comes down to motivation—both external and internal. This course has been externally motivating me to learn to write Chinese, but at the same time, I picked writing Chinese […]
It’s been a little bit since I last practiced—it’s hard to get myself to practice in the middle of so many other things when it really is becoming hard.
I reviewed the strokes I’ve done so far. I tried writing “language” 文, which I was ok with but not great, and then “rice” 米—which I’m frankly […]
One test of transfer I recently thought of is my transfer to English writing. I do not have any experience writing English with a fountain pen, and my English writing is not particularly good. I wrote down the alphabet in all capitals as well as all lowercase and wrote my name.
It seems possible that as […]
After each small practice round of a stroke or character, I’ve decided to go back and look at them all—circling the one(s) which I believe best represent what I’m attempting to write.
As for other baseline tests; I went through Learning to Write Chinese Characters and selected 10 characters at random (not completely random, I just […]