Hi..

I have now just started to write Hanzi on a daily basis. I am using the Hanzi Helper program made by a poddie, his name starts with "col" but I can't remember the other 3 letetrs in his username right now. Anyway, the point of this post is to ask a really basic question: How can I tell which direction the stroke shoulod be written.

I can use the Animated GIF website to show me the stroke order but I am wanting to be sure I am also making the strokes in the correct direction as well, as I am sure this will aid me later on. When I look at a character that is using a decently rendered font, I can see there is a thin end and a fat end of each stroke.

I am assuming that the fat end is the end of the stroke and the thin end is the start of the stroke, only because if I was using a brush, I would end up with a fat end at the end of a stroke; or if I was doing one of those tiny strokes, I would end up with a tapered stroke with the tip of the brush pointing towards the thin end of the stroke.

Just really wanted to confirm that I had this correct.

I'm trying to do 10 to 14 characters a day, writing them out 10 times each. Not using any context at this point because I am just really getting used to writing. Next month a new book will be released called "Remembering The Hanzi Book 1", so when I get that I will take more of a structured approach to Hanzi learning.

A great way to practise writing Chinese is to translate the EnglishPod dialogues.

As an example, this is my attempt to translate the Virus! lesson:

A: 哎，又死机了，已经三次了！喂，Samuel，你可以来检查一下我的电脑吗？又坏了，可能是病毒了。

B: 好的，我马上上去。
我楂好了你的电脑，其实有很多受感染的文档。

A: 可是我上网很小心的，怎么会病毒了？

B: 嗯，你得注意安装最新的anti-virus程序，你的这个电脑没有，所以出了问题。

A: 好吧，还有什么吗？

B: 别踢或打电脑吧！

A: 哦，不好意思。

Hi - i really enjoy Cpod. Hearing the lessons over and over again really helps me already with my biggest problem: getting the vocabulary WITH THE CORRECT TONES in my head.

But one thing makes me feel Chinese Pod is not complete: why don't you provide character writing excercise sheets? That is not too hard for you to do and would add a great value to those who are interested in writing chinese as well.

You know what kind i mean - a page with a charakter on top - showing the stroke orders as well as common meaning of the sign.

i just bought "my first 100 chinese characters" and think it's great fun. walking arround in guangzhou - and suddenly i see a charakter i recognise. it's really rewarding.

My chinese writing and reading skills are not that great yet but watching an old martial arts film the other night I started to wonder about the direction of the writing.

On CPod and places like XinHua the writing is all done left to right.  Is this always the case or does it vary and if it varies are you just expected to work it out or is there some clue?

I need help,  I am trying to find a way to print out the dialogue lessons with pinyin and/or English only.  Reason being is I want to start reading the pinyin and start handwriting the chinese characters themselves.  I tried the cut/paste method from the pdf files but when I pasted it, it came out with just a bunch of garbage.   Any ideas?

How did you start writing texts or questions in Chinese? What strategies do you use (e.g. if you don't know a word)? How much grammar and pattern knowledge do you need?