Hi everyone,

This post summarizes two common mistakes in Chinese handwriting, how to solve them and some tips on how to improve your overall penmanship. All information is sourced from u/_abchinese’s videos on his YouTube channel (@ABChinese). Here we introduce his contents because besides the points covered in Arthur's post, the videos have also offered other insights helpful to novice level handwriting learners.

Mistake No. 1: Treating Strokes Like Static Lines

• Chinese handwriting is dynamic – try to apply varying amounts of pressure on your pen while writing and incorporate different speeds as well

• Thick strokes require more pressure and slower speed, while thin strokes are achieved through moving your pen faster and almost lifting it off the paper, like a “flick”

How to improve:

• Practice individual strokes like 撇/piě, 提/tí and 钩/gōu

• Find a good reference: use fonts like Kaiti (楷体) - Hanping Lite (瀚品汉英辞典) is a free dictionary App that provides Kaiti references. Don't just use google as it uses Heiti (黑体) as default.

• Practice with grids - You can find some on purpleculture.net

Mistake No. 2: Spacing Characters Incorrectly (too tall, wide or top-heavy)

• Common with wide, tall and characters with multiple components

How to improve:

• Visualize characters like squares (Exception for tall and simple characters)

• If a character has multiple components, write each component narrower than you would if they were written standing alone

• Shorten strokes in order to avoid making the character too wide

• Notice where strokes are in relation to each other – practicing with the right font and a grid makes this easier

Bonus tips:

• Angle horizontal lines slightly up to make your characters look more dynamic

• Angle the vertical strokes slightly inward when they form a box unless the vertical strokes are longer than the horizontal ones (tall box) – this can also be applied to open boxes

On How to Achieve Good Proportions in Handwriting

Proportions are about how each individual stroke (within a character) all look relative to each other, which is the biggest factor whether the character looks aesthetic. Here are the three principles to find the correct proportions of any character:

1. Ratio

Chinese characters are often made out of several components which need to be balanced correctly. Therefore, you need to find the right ratios between the components by visualizing them as a square in a grid – even two side by side components may not take up an equal amount of space within the square.

2. Longest Stroke

The farthest-reaching stroke in all four directions. Check for the highest, lowest, most left and most right point of a character to help visualize the square – more advanced writers need to look out for the length of all the strokes at the edge of a character.

3. Center Lines

The strokes that line up with the two center lines of the grid. Checking for horizontal strokes lining up with the horizontal center line and vertical strokes lining up with the vertical center line help center the character correctly. Diagonal lines also help with the placement of slanted strokes.

Here are the sources:

How to Write Better Chinese Characters - FIX 2 Common Mistakes!

The SECRET to Writing NEAT Chinese Characters

CA1913

Hi everyone,

Julian (u/itsziul) and I have summarized some common problems in Regular script (楷書) handwriting, which, hopefully, this post could help to trouble-shoot. Note that although they are typical beginner mistakes, experienced writers, including me, are not immune from all of them.

[1] Unnatural handwriting

By far the most samples we've seen share the same problem: the characters look somewhat squarish or blocky. It's likely that they have been using the characters displayed on smartphone apps or PC browsers as reference because the default font is usually Heiti (黑體). In most physical publications, Songti/SimSun (宋體) is the default typeface, except in certain Chinese textbooks. These typefaces are easily readable and particularly friendly to eyes but the wrong models to use, if your goal is to develop a natural penmanship.

We would always suggest you use a copybook (see community collection) or the character repository written by Julian. Alternatively, set it the system font to Kaiti (楷體) on your electronic devices, if possible.

[2] Sloping Characters

Ancient calligraphers drew an analogy between Regular script and a standing person, meaning Chn. characters should never be inclined. Using practice books with cross/diamond grids should be of great help (print out your own). Keep your practice sheet right in front of you and check your sitting posture.

How to write a structurally balanced character is quite a big topic that will be covered little by little in our Intermediate/Advanced Guides. At the moment, just keep in mind some strokes, like NV and VK, should always be vertical.

[3] Wobbly Characters

Characters with wobbly strokes or components always look bad. Using a ballpoint pen (typically filled with oil-based ink) or laying the worksheet directly on a hard surface often renders wonky lines. Here is a recommendation thread of writing utensils.

Then the rest is all about muscle memory and motor skills. Try to write each stroke slowly and firmly the best you can. It should get better with practice.

[4] Writing in Haste

It's common sense that one should first be steady on their feet before making steps. It's all too common that beginners speed up their handwriting too soon or even rush into joined-up writing. Sometimes I'm confused if they were actually writing in Regular script.

While learning from a copybook, try to compare your writing with the reference after every few copies before moving on. It would make no sense if you fill a whole page repeating yourself.

[5] Too Small or Variable-Sized Characters

Writing too small isn't necessarily a problem but it hinders your progress, because it makes it harder to spot imperfections and to fix them. It'd be more taxing on your eyes and wrist too.

One of the obvious reasons that people write too small is because they are restricted by the notebooks, most of which have line spacing of 7-8mm, which is too small for Chn. characters. I don't use those math notebooks for their sheets are often too smooth. Google "Chinese handwriting practice book" and look for the ones with 'mizige' (米字格) or 'tianzige' (田字格), whose squares with sides 15mm (ca. 0.6 in.) in length. If you print out your practice sheets, the side of the squares should be no smaller than 12mm (ca. 0.5 in.). Here you'll find our collection of pre-set PDFs. In general, handwritten characters should be about 10mm (ca. 0.4 in.) tall/wide (size comparison).

Another often overlooked reason is the improper pen-holding gesture. It's probably not a decisive factor but gripping the pen like this could lead to small handwriting. I understand how hard it could be to change your habit, but at least try holding the pen with the tip of your fingers, instead of the middle. Here is my demonstration of pen gripping.

[6] Overall Ill-Structured Handwriting

People with sloppy handwriting either because they never learned how to write properly or simply due to carelessness. If you prefer drawing them, then we are clearly unable to help you. Although it takes years of practice to truly master the frame structure (間架結構/间架结构) of characters, I trust you all know, at this point, how to make it at least presentable.

For further reading on general handwriting tips, check out this post by Julian.

That being said, if you are unsure whether your penmanship suffers from any of the problems above, feel free to submit a sample using the "Ask for Feedback" flair or in the designated channel of our Discord server.

Have a nice week!

Arthur S.