OK I'll go first.
zhenlijiang
June 24, 2011, 10:38 AM posted in General Discussion那我先来吧！（别笑了我~）
PLEASE NOTE--my writing is NOT to be used as a model. I have many bad habits!
Hope photobucket is OK in China ...
darkstar94
June 24, 2011, 11:32 AMI wished my writing looked that mature haha, mine looks way too forced and unnatural (and people say it's like a 5 year old's). Some people in my Chinese class have writing that looks so natural like that...
zhenlijiang
Ah in case you didn't know, I'm Japanese. I have what I think would generally be considered an 悪筆 akuhitsu, especially for a female person ... 汗
Don't be shy! We're all learners here.
darkstar94
haha nah I knew you were Japanese, I was gonna say you were cheating haha! I have a Japanese guy in my Chinese class, I'm jealous of his writing too
zhenlijiang
Maybe someone who can be a model （老师们——？） will come up eventually and show us what nice natural writing looks like. Hoping so! Some of my Chinese teachers have had such beautiful writing.
bababardwan
I'm kinda torn between writing them very quickly because that's what I do when writing English and I think that's the natural thing to do, and writing them slowly and deliberately because that's what I saw a couple of months ago at a Chinese festival...they were painting a few simple characters and you could get to join in. A real concentration on form. But it's so much nicer with a paintbrush for that and is pretty much a different ballgame I think. You also get to demonstrate the thick parts of the stroke and the trailing off bits, etc which this writing tablet can't show at all, and I think it's not as obvious with pens either, though you could to a small extent I expect.
bodawei
‘what nice natural writing looks like’
This is where I have lots to learn. A guy who gives me a lot of help with Chinese has what I'd describe as a weird aesthetic - when we were looking at the barely recognisable scrawl of a senior manager at my place of work he (my mate) thought it was the most wonderful writing .. 'you can tell he is highly educated' was what he said. But I could hardly recognise any characters at all.
So when I say that I love your writing zhenlijiang, I don't want that to come out wrong. :)
I gotta get my problems with posting photos on ChinesePod sorted - I would love to join in with some of my writing.
bababardwan
yeah, I can't wait for you to join mate. I don't think there are any useful tips up on this thread:
http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/11933#comment-217174
yet but hopefully there will be some.
zhenlijiang
Oh my this just-started-up group is so busy! I can barely write half the replies I want to.
Well yes I was going to say in babyeggplant’s thread--I would be very interested to hear what some of our teachers here would consider really nice natural writing. What if anything looks like ”natural“ writing to them--because that has come up already a couple of times as something to strive for. The teachers I mention have completely legible and perhaps schoolteacherly writing but beautifully formed characters. To us Japanese it's evident that they went under much more discipline than us as schoolchildren. Much much more.
Haha 谢谢 and it's OK I'm really not highly educated! But handwriting is alluring isn't it, everyone's. I am really loving this group and everybody‘s handwriting.
If you can see my photo then photobucket at least is working for you now isn't it. Really looking forward to finally seeing your writing Bodawei.
bodawei
Hi zhen
I finally worked out my problems posting photos and put up a couple of writing samples, and a few samples by Chinese friends (oh .. just remembered that one is a teacher, the one that recommends a restaurant, see the other thread), one by a near stranger I met but it is an example of beautiful cursive, and a couple of public handwriting signs.
now I have got Flickr going I might post some signs again - got a few beauties the other day by a real estate development company .. these combine real estate expressions, some 'modernised' characters, and even some crazy Chinglish..
bababardwan
Excellent ! Yes, let's revive the signs group. Glad to hear flickr is working also. That's the one I use.
zhenlijiang
Yes signs was always fun. I've missed it.
bababardwan
hehe, I can see that
zhenlijiang
a, haha, yeah facing the opposite direction I guess? Now I'm going to have this image every time I try to sign my name!
Who is that?
bababardwan
June 25, 2011, 12:54 AMHey zhen, I don't know if you caught it before I immediately edited it, but with my first post in this thread I had typed out what you'd written as:
祝大家周末愉快
..now contrary to what you might be inclined to think, this error was not because I had trouble reading what you had written but rather because it was so easy. I think it was one of those Cambridge Uni scrambled letters moments:
"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe"
...which is very exciting for me, to have a moment like that in Chinese.....I took one glance at what you'd written and excitedly in a rush started typing out what I'd expected it to be from a glance, then after posting it immediately saw you'd gone the other 快 containing word option at the end, 快乐, hehe.
darkstar94
June 25, 2011, 12:58 PM
There we go, that worked :) this is my writing without the helpful squares
bodawei
da jia hao!
Wo de zhongwen mingzi shi Liu Ruihao.
Nice and clear - very auspicious name, scholarly (I imagine), and brave on the pronunciation front? I am always grateful I just have to say 大伟。 :)
Just as a matter of interest how do you describe your name (each character) to people who don't know which characters you mean?
bodawei
For example, Liu 刘
是左右结构的，左边有文字旁，右边有立刀旁。立刀旁，先写短竖，顿笔后行笔向下，在适当处藏锋收笔，第二笔写竖钩，先写长竖，在适当处轻快钩出。钩不要太长，不要太细。This comes out of the writing book that I have been talking about - on each page it has a little discourse on each radical.
I don't think I would attempt the others... :)
bababardwan
June 24, 2011, 11:01 AM哇，很自然
I could read that straight away without having to decipher. 当然是：
祝大家周末快乐~！
真